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Village daughter, village goddess: residence, gender, and politics in a Himalayan pilgrimage
Author(s) -
SAX WILLIAM S.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1990.17.3.02a00050
Subject(s) - pilgrimage , hinduism , residence , politics , gender studies , sociology , daughter , subordination (linguistics) , buddhism , rite , religious studies , ethnology , history , ancient history , political science , law , demography , philosophy , archaeology , linguistics
In the Garhwal Himalayas, as elsewhere in South Asia, persons and the places where they reside are thought to have strong mutual effects upo—indeed, to be parts of—each other. What happens, then, after a new bride is obliged to move to her husband's place after marriage? Men and women have different perspectives on this question. Men (and the classical moral treatises of Hinduism) tend to assert complete transformation of the bride, and the standard wedding rite seeks to effect such a transformation. Women, on the other hand, tend to believe that the bride changes only gradually and that her ties to her natal village are never completely severed. Outmarried village daughters are required to participate in numerous rituals in their natal villages; prominent among such rituals are the periodic pilgrimages of the regional goddess, Nandädevi. The requirement that outmarried daughters participate confirms the female perspective, but the pilgrimages themselves ultimately reaffirm virilocality. In this way, both the male and the female perspective are validated without contravening the world view in which both are grounded, and political relations of male domination and female subordination are reproduced through ritual. [ ritual, politics, residence, gender, pilgrimage, South Asia ]