Gender Roles and Evolving Marriage Practices among Dalit Communities in Nepal

Abstract

This paper explores the interaction of socio-cultural environment and caste system's impact on marginalized gender groups, with a specific focus on Dalit women. Dalits in Nepal have endured marginalization along three dimensions of caste, class and gender. They have developed coping strategies to adapt to more or less rigid social systems concerning clan and marriage. Merging qualitative analysis with quantitative, this paper outlines Dalit marriage practices as active sites of socio-political engagement. Macro socio-political processes, including state initiated legal reforms, increasing access to education, urbanization, and rising Dalit activism resisting the caste-based and patriarchal violence, intersect with the enduring influence of culturally embedded practices. These practices include arranged marriages, prescribed endogamy, and patriarchal predominance. Marriage in Nepal provides an innovative framework to explore the persistence of socio-political hierarchies and prospects for gender and social justice.