Transformations of Parental Socio-economic Characteristics into the Married Couple in Rural Nepal

This study is about the attributes of different households which together come into the married couples to unite into their wedlock. The purpose of the study was to trace out the carry-over of the wife and husband side parental attributes into the household socio-economic situation of married couples. A total of seventy-five married couples and their either side parents’ (wife side and husband side) socio-economic and demographic information were taken using a semi-structured questionnaire. Data were collected in Thakre Rural Municipality of Dhading district of Nepal from February to April of 2022 from the conveniently selected respondents using face-to-face interviews. The data were analyzed in terms of frequency, mean and other descriptive statistics. The study revealed that there is a growing trend of inter-caste marriage and love marriage in the younger generations compared to their parents, however, inter-religious marriages are still very few in Nepalese rural society. Findings of the study also revealed that the male counterparts were older in age structures on all three sides while the wife side parents were better off in terms of level of wealth and income. The study further unveiled that the husbands have been able to marry with the wives whose parents have higher economic status than their parents. This finding is useful in understanding the current pattern of marriage as well as the socio-economic transfer brought together by the married couple as a carryover from their respective parental houses.


INTRODUCTION
Marriage is a formal union, social and legal contract between two individuals that unites their lives legally, economically and emotionally (Research & Somasakarappa, 2019).The contractual marriage agreement usually implies that the couple has legal obligations to each other throughout their lives until they decide to formally divorce.The Hindu society and culture considers marriage to be more than just a simple bond between two individuals; marriage is a bond between several families and a continuity of the family line of descent (Ghimire, 2003;Alavi et al. 2013).Marriage has in most cases been taken as an indispensable life event for sexual activity, procreation and family formation.But, in addition to its customary utility, it has been as essential vehicle for socio-economic re-integration.Had marriage not been there, the psychological distance between people of different castes and classes would have been even wider than it is in society these days.It has acted to bring together people from different social psychological mentality, economic conditions, cultural rituals, geography, class, caste and ethnicities to create a new family set up (Nakonezny & Denton, 2008).Generally the parents envision their offspring better wealth, occupation, resources and prestige than their own.They help the offspring take right decision so that the offspring would gain happy and prosperous conjugal life.Nepali parents prefer slightly better socio-economic status of would be marital kins than their own status so that their later generation will not regress in any aspect of life chances.Conventionally, marriage was within the strict control of the boys' and girls' family and relatives.They would decide who would best fit to whom as their life partner and the either side would accept the decision of the guardians.The main criteria of selection from the male side was the behavior and appearance of the girl while that from the female side was the wealth of the household, social standing and industriousness of the boy ( Malliki, 2009;Malliki, 2011;Islam, 2021;Research & Somashekarappa, 2019).People always prefer to have marriage within the similar socio-economic strata to avoid potential mismatch in social statuses and conflicts between boy and girl's side after getting marriage (Islam, 2021).The most rigid social criteria was within the same caste and religion, but not within the same clan to avoid risk of potential inbreeding and regression of the progenitors.
Girls side value more for the economic resources of the boy which would not impose constraints on family budget to spend a prosperous life (Khallad, 2005;Conley, 2007;Malliki, 2011;Mamasan, 2005;Islam, 2021;Research & Somashekarappa, 2019) , while boys side is very much concerned the politeness and good manners of the girls so as to maintain the harmony in family.In the modern liberal world, choice of the life partner is shifted solely to individual preferences and decision, rather than family matter.People prefer similar economic and social strata in terms of wealth, prestige, education, occupation, social networks (Conley, 2007).The physical structure, the profession and understanding have been growing importance of mate selection to create a happy family life after marriage.With the gradual widening of the economic and social circumstances, the marriage preference of the youths have also taken shift considerably.The physical structure, body weight, height, complexion, love, caring, understanding, level of education and discipline, type of profession etc. are among the foremost criteria for youths in order to decide on potential mate selection (Islam, 2021).People prefer similarities in between marriage partners; however, the main argument of present study is that the marriage which is more heterogeneous in terms of aforementioned characteristics would bring more socio-economic integration in the society than the marriage in between individuals within same socio-economic stratum.
This study assesses the extent of socio-economic transfer of parental attributes that have created by the conjugal life of the bride and groom of the different socio-economic background.By tracing out each married couple's background in terms of their parental family, the present study contributes to what extent (marriage) contributes in creating a new family set up.Since Nepalese society is having multitudes of hierarchies in terms of class, caste, religion, rural-urban, geography and other background characteristics like several other south Asian cultures and societies, this study tries to figure out to what extent the marriage has acted to transfer parental socio-economic attributes into the married couple.There are several studies carried out in terms of mate selection criteria over the developed, developing and south Asian context (Conley, 2007;Malliki, 2009;Malliki, 2011;Research & Somashekarappa, 2019;Islam, 2021;Prakash, 2011;Prakash & Singh, 2013;O'Neil, 2006).However, there is dearth of scientific investigation on the role of different background characteristics of couple in creating a socioeconomic re-integration of married couple in contributing to develop a new family setup.The present study attempts to fill out the lacunae.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
The relationship between marital kins as well as potential and actual life partners have been explained by several theories.A few but not limited to these theories are the evolutionary theory, social exchange theory and social homogamy theory.All of these theories explain and provide theoretical insights on how and why marital relationships exist in the society.The evolutionary theory posits that male and female each expects those attributes from their potential partners which they lack but think are essential for family (Conley, 2007).For instance, most men seek qualities like cooking, child rearing, guest serving from the female counterparts; while female expect good wealth, income and occupation which they are mostly devoid of in underdeveloped countries context.Combined together, they can create a perfect family set up.Social exchange theory explains that life partners tend to negotiate one attribute which they have for something else from their life partner (Conley, 2007, Nakonezny & Denton, 2008).For example a wealthy man is seeking for a beautiful wife and a beautiful girl is seeking for a wealthy man to get married.This is because they think that they are eligible to claim something good from another side since they have some good quality which the opposite side is seeking for.Social homogamy theory (Islam, 2021) explains that people are in search of the marital kin which are similar in their own socio-economic standing.They do not expect another side which is too high or too low than their own status.This is to avoid potential misunderstanding or conflict arising due to wealth mismatch between two sides of marital kins.
This study is based on the premise that marriage is one of socio-economic connector.The bride and groom from different class, caste and socio-psychological attitudes are bounded together in a single conjugal wedlock.If there had not been necessity of binding together through this bond which is called marriage, the disparity between groups of people in society would have been still higher than it is.The people of poorer socio-economic class hesitate to interact with the higher.On the other hand, people of higher classes do not like to get together with the lower ones.Hence, through marriage the people come closer physically, emotionally and psychologically .This closeness is one of the connector in society in between hierarchically different people from various geographical territories and even nationalities and religious faiths.

DATA AND METHODS
Thakre Rural Municipality is one of the rural municipalities in Dhading district which lies in Bagmati Province of Nepal.This municipality though rural by political and administrative division is receiving stimulus of modernization factors like road, electricity, communication technology.The area is having rugged topography lying uphill the Siwalik range of Dhading district.The Prithvi highway transects this rural municipality.Ward number three of the rural municipality is purposively selected due to having the heterogeneity in terms of different caste and ethnic groups.More specifically, Amarkhu is one the prominent settlements in ward number three of this rural municipality.It consists of the diverse groups of people including Brahmin, Chhetri, Newar, Janajatis and Dalits, representing the typical midhill rural setting in the context of Nepal (Thakre Rural Municipality, 2019).
The study is primarily quantitative supplemented with qualitative information.The questionnaire schedule is the primary means of soliciting quantitative information.The several variety of questions like open ended, close ended, semi-structured questionnaire were designed in order to bring out information pertinent to the existing pattern of marriage among married couples.On the other hand, qualitative information was solicited using standard checklist.The responses of the focused groups were used in order to triangulate the results obtained from the main survey which was quantitative.
A total of seventy five pairs of married couples whose both of the parents from both sides of the parental homes were alive at the time of interview were the respondents.Starting from the ward No three office at Amarkhu moving uphill towards the motorable road, whoever were met the time of field survey were included in the study.Either the husband or his wife or other way round, whoever was met at the time of interview was the main respondent for this study.The information regarding the parental household of the husband and his parent in law (sasurali) was taken from the husband.On the other way round, the information regarding the parental house (maiti) and father-in law's house was taken from the wife as respondent.For convenience and consistency of understanding, the wife side parent, wife side mother, wife side father, husband side parent, husband side mother and husband side father is written for the either side of marital kins throughout this study.The information collected through questionnaire schedule was clustered around four sets e. g. demographic, social, economic and marital characteristics.Demographic characteristics comprised of age at married, duration of marriage, number of offspring.Social characteristics included caste/ethnicities and religion of the married couple and their either side parents.Housing, occupation and income related information were put under the economic characteristics, whereas type of marriage, process of marriage and such information were kept under marital characteristics.
Since data collection comprised both quantitative and qualitative approach, the analysis of data also involved both types of analytical tools.Under quantitative, the descriptive statistics like mean, median, frequencies, range, standard deviations were used as applicable to the data set.On the other hand, the qualitative information were derived from focused group discussion were used as supplement to the quantitative data and were used in triangulation of the findings.

RESULTS
The result has been presented in four groups of descriptive statistics e. g. demographic, social, economic and marital characteristics of the respondents together with their both side parents.

Demographic characteristics
The major demographic variables included in this study are age of the respondents and either side of their parents, age at marriage, number of offspring and number of years of marriage for the respondent couple and their both side parents.Table 1 provides the relevant information regarding the demographic variables studied under which include the minimum and maximum values, mean and standard deviation.1 depicts that the minimum number of years of marriage for the respondent couple is one and the highest is 53 years, while the wife side parents are of the 19 to 67 years, husband side parent are 21 to 78 years of age with mean age of 40 years for both sides of parents.The minimum numbers of offspring of the respondent couple is zero while the maximum is 5 with a mean of 3, while the same for the wife side parent is minimum 1 and maximum 9 and in case of father side parent is minimum 1 and maximum 10 with average of 5 offspring in both side parents.The age of respondent couple at the time of interview, wife is 16-49 years and husband is 18-53 years old, while mean age is 29 years for wife and 32 years for husband.The mean age of the either side parents reveal that wife side mother is 59 years and wife side father is 61 years age, whereas husband side mother is 60 years old and husband side father is 61 years old.It indicates that the current mean age of the both side parents are around 60 years old with mother slightly younger than the father.The age at marriage of the wife is 18 years and for the husband is 21 years, while the either side parent were married at the age of 16 years for the mother and 18 years for father with slight variation.

Social characteristics
The analysis of caste/ethnicity and religion can be helpful to figure out the status of intracaste and inter-caste marriages as well as inter-religious and intra-religious marriages.I have accommodated the caste composition into broader category of Brahmin/ Chhetri, Janajatis and Dalits and other castes.There are however, no castes of Newar in the respondents and other categories, so all respondents can be categorized into Brahmin/ Chhetri, Janajatis and Dalits.Source: Field survey, 2022 Table 2 presented that wives are 45, 29 and 25 percentages under Brahmin Chhetri, Janajatis and Dalit castes respectively while the husbands are 41, 31 and 28 percentages respectively for the categories.There is overwhelming majority of Tamang under Janajatis and Dalit caste groups.There are identical percentages of Brahmin Chhetri, Janajatis and Dalits in either side parents, well around 45 percent Brahmin, Chhetri, 28 percent Janajatis and rest are Dalits on both side of the parents.Religious categories are clustered around Hindu, Buddhist and Christian and other religions; however, there is no such who lie under other religions.There are 84, 9 and 7 percent under Hindu, Buddhism and Christian respectively of the wife and 85, 11 and 5 percent respectively of the husband.It states the possibility of small number of inter-religious marriages in the study area in the respondent couple.However, the parental generation represents 85, 9 and 5 percent respectively in Hindu, Buddhist and Christian of the wife side and husband side parents.It indicates that there are more Christian in the recent time than those were in the past.

Economic characteristics
Household wealth comprises of the variables related to the structure of the houses, land holding size, number of large animals or livestock and household amenities in terms of means of transport.The structure of houses has been expressed in terms of Pakki house and Kacchi houses.Pakki houses are normally made up of cement and rod structures, concrete foundation and roofs, brick or cemented walls.The kacchi houses on the other hand, are made up of wood or plank, mud floor, tin or straw roof.Source: Field Survey, 2022 Note: 1 ropani=0.508hectare of land area Table 3 revealed that the houses of the respondent couple, and their wife side and husband side parents are grouped together into Pakki and Kachchi houses.The structures of the houses provide a proxy indicator for the relative wealth of the households.Seventy seven percent of the respondent couple reside in a Pakki houses and corresponding 23 percent have Kachchi houses.On the parental side, the wife side parent are having the equivalent proportion of the Pakki house and Kachchi house composition as the respondent couple while lesser percentages of the husband side parent are having Pakki houses.Seventy one percent of the husband side parent have Pakki house while twenty nine percent have Kachchi houses.Hence, it can be stated that the wife side parent are relatively more well off than the husband side parent.Table 3 also revealed that the respondent couples have 4.8 ropani of land on an average, while this figure is 11 ropani for wife side parent and 8 ropani for husband side parent.In case of land holding size too, the husband side parents are relatively less well off than the wife side parent.
Table 3 further reveals that 25 percent of the respondent wives are having agriculture occupations, while they are having 8 percent salary based job, 11 percent business trade and 56 percent of them have other occupations.Most of the jobs the wives doing are household chores like cleaning, cooking, rearing children, caring of other family members and some level of livestock raising.On the other hand, 20 percent of the husbands are doing agriculture occupations, 31 percent in salary based job, 47 percent business trade and only about three percent have other occupations.The type of work/occupations done by wife and husband shows a clearer gender division of labour in Nepalese rural society, with women mostly engaged in doing household level jobs and men perform salary based job and business trade related activities.The main occupation of the wife side mother is 44 percent doing agriculture, 48 percent on other occupations and lesser percentages for salary based job and business trade.The wife side fathers are 76 percent in agriculture, 12 percent in salary based job, 11 percent in business trade and only one percent on other occupations.Hence, other occupations include household level activities like cooking, cleaning and others.The husband side mother and husband side father are basically engaged in 51 percent agriculture, 41 percent other occupations and lesser than 5 percentages on salary based job and business trades respectively.Further to the occupations, the annual income of the respondent households and their either side parents and further disaggregation of the monthly income of the wife and husband.The annual income of the respondent couple is on an average 6 lakhs and 64 thousand rupees, while the same for the wife side parent is 4 lakhs 23 thousand rupees and husband side parent is 3 lakhs 53 thousand rupees.

Marital characteristics
The kind of marriage in terms of love marriage versus arranged marriage as well as same caste (intra-caste) and different caste (inter-caste) marriage have been presented in table 4 as descriptive statistics.The process of marriage like social ritual based or elopement based on one's own is also presented.The information consists of married couple as well as their either side parents like wife side parent and husband side parent in order to facilitate comparison between generations.Table 4 presents the information related to the marriage of the respondent couple and their wife side and husband side parents.Source: Field survey, 2022 Table 4 presents that 92 percent of the respondents have done intra-caste marriage while only 8 percent have performed inter caste marriage.The marriage at the same caste level is almost 97 percent for both side parents (wife side and husband side parent).It revealed that intercaste marriage is growing even in rural areas of Nepal.Since Nepalese society does not prefer inter caste and inter religious marriages so far, society strongly discourages such marriages.Even though, due to the influence of western society and culture, the young people claim their sole right and decision to make choice of the life partner and perform marriage irrespective of the caste and religion of one's spouse.The trend of love marriage is growing as high as 36 percent of the total respondent couple while this was about 5-10 percent in their parental generation.Hence, most marriages even though they start from love end up into arrange marriage, thereby reducing the trend of elopement.

DISCUSSION
This study has empirically verified the marital information along with other socioeconomic information which has produced several findings, of which some are usual and others have peculiar results.The mean age at marriage of the respondent wife is 18 years and respondent husband is 21 years.This finding is in confirmation with the 2021 census result of Nepal where mean age of women and men marriage is 18 and 21 years respectively with median age of 19 years (NSO, 2021).This demographic variable shows little higher than the parental generation where mother were married at 16 years and fathers were married at 18 years of age.In Nepal, up to the present times, the male prefer his female counterpart to be younger in age and vice versa (Sandhya, 2019) which is similar in India and in most part of the world.The finding of the present study also corroborates this fact.Level of education of the marriage partner is highly valued in many societies (Alavi et al., 2023, Malliki, 2009;O'Neil, 2006).The female in most parts of the world are generally lesser educated than the male counterpart, but this study has found that wives are in general more educated than their husbands.This is indicative that the education of girls is growing rapidly in Nepalese society.Due to the effect of modernization and urbanization, the trend of inter-caste marriage and love marriage is growing in the younger generations compared to their parents even in rural areas (Thapa & Kattel, 2019).Even in the well-educated families, people prefer marriage within the same caste, race and religion.Due to such social mentality, the young ones are sensitized that inter-caste marriages has many risks inherent with it.Even if the youths indulge in love with each other, they do not like to get eloped, especially the girls.Girls prefer the love affairs to turn into arranged marriage and perform some sort of customary ritual ceremony for marriage.The descriptive statistics on the number of offspring assures that total member of children per couple has reduced from more than 5 in the parental generations to 2 in the later generations.
Financial status connected with socio-economic standing of the life partner is an important criteria in marriage (Alavi et al., 2013;Badahdah & Tiemann, 2009;Regan et al. 2000;Shackelford et al. 2005;Todosijevic et al., 2003).Economically poorer parents' sons getting married with economically better off parent's daughters in terms of types of houses, landholding sizes and income level.This finding has also been corroborated social exchange theory, since there is not only the exchange of love, sex and affection but also the economic resources like income, money, wealth, land and houses in between the marital relatives (Nakonezny & Denton, 2008).It has been an interesting finding that the social homogamy theory posits that people perform marriage between socio-economically similar to own status (Conley, 2007).In particular to this study, the boys are fortunate enough to find wives from little bit wealthier families than their own parents in terms of mean income.There is small indication Nepali rural society is gradually turning towards more meritocratic direction for marriage rather than merely valuing inborn attributes.Hence, the study has produced some noble results which have been substantiated by other empirical and theoretical literatures as discussed above.

CONCLUSIONS
This study was carried out by taking a sample size of seventy five married couple and their either side parents (wife side parent and husband side parent) which has facilitated comparison of socio-economic variables in between generations vis a vis the comparison between wife side and husband side parents.In terms of pattern of marriage, the rural community is growing more generous towards the love marriage and inter-caste marriage; however, interreligious marriage is still more restricted.While analyzing the household wealth of the all three sides (married couple, wife side and husband side parents) indicate that the husbands have got marriage with the wives whose parents' economic status is slightly better than their own parents.Hence, in addition to its customary utility of procreation and family formation, marriage has been a vehicle to connect geography, caste, class and wealth of different households.Promotion of marriage which is more heterogonous in the aforementioned condition with social acceptance would be away forward to create a more harmonious society in the future.

Table 1 :
Demographic characteristics of married couple and the both side parents

Table 2 :
Social characteristics of the respondent couple and their both side parents

Table 3 :
Economic characteristics of the respondent couple and the both side parents

Table 4 :
Marital characteristics of the respondent couple and the both side parents