Women and Kinship: Comparative Perspectives on Gender in South and South-East Asia

"Even though kinship systems are important loci for gender relations, most scholars, tend to ignore this aspect when studying gender issues as they consider kinship to be irrelevant or an immutable given. Yet, kinship determines important organizing principles covering a variety of fundamental issues of daily life such as the allocation of resources, division of labour, production relations and a specific ideology of gender. Departing significantly from existing approaches, Leela Dube argues forcefully that the school of thought which holds that the family and therefore kinship systems should be stable has to be challenged in order to usher in gender equality. The author’s basic argument is that differences in kinship systems and family structures account for critical variations in the ways in which gender operates in different societies. The underlying assumption is that kinship systems are neither innocuous nor immutable and that, operating through meterial relations, they express themselves very effectively in the form of values and ideology. Leela Dube provides a comparison of south and south-east Asia which sustains three main kinship systems: patrilineal, matrilineal and bilateral. Among the themes covered are entitlement to and rights over resources including inheritance; marriage and conjugal relations; rights over space and children; education, nutrition and health; seclusion and segregation; and female sexuality. The countries she studies in detail are India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand which between them represent Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Christianity. Rich in information and insights, this stimulating book will be essential reading for students and scholars in the fields of gender studies, kinship and family studies, anthropology, sociology, health and nutrition, and education."