Nepal
is a multiethnic and multicultural
country with more than 50 spoken languages and
cultural traditions. For analytical purposes they
have often been classified into two broad groups,
the Tibeto-Burman,
populating mostly the midhills and mountains, and
the Indo-Aryan, living in the Terai Gangetic plains
and the midhills. Women from the Tibeto-Burman
communities are socially less constrained than their
Indo-Aryan
sisters in terms of mobility, marriage/remarriage
options, and, most importantly, income-earning opportunities.
In the Indo-Aryan groups, traditionally, women have
fewer social and economic options.
Social
discrimination against women is felt to be more
severe in the Terai communities and in the Mid-
and Far-Western Development regions in general.
Nevertheless, in both these groups land and property
inheritance has been patrilineal, the residence
pattern patrifocal, and early marriage the rule
rather than an exception. Culturally, marriage is
seen as the best socially acceptable option for
women for gaining access to property and land. Therefore,
once women are out of marriage, such as divorce
or widowhood, they become more vulnerable to poverty.
However, once women marry, legal provisions deny
them inheritance rights to parental property. Women
in both cultural groups lag far behind men in access
to property, credit, and modern avenues of education,
skills development, technology, and knowledge.
Problems
of the status of Nepalese
women are accentuated by the fact that Nepal
is one of the least-developed countries of the world
in which the majority of the population has to survive
by low productivity agriculture. This requires the
poor men, women, and children to work long hours
for meeting family needs. The Government faces a
severe constraint of local and foreign exchange
resources for fulfilling its development and consumption
needs. Further, because of the country’s rugged
topography, the extension of basic educational and
health services is an expensive proposition and
the retention of qualified manpower in such services
in remote areas is often impossible. The legal status
of women is mixed. While the 1990 Constitution guarantees
fundamental rights to all citizens without discrimination
on the basis of ethnicity, caste, religion, or sex,
including property inheritance, there have been
no specific laws in Nepal
to back this up. On the contrary, the family laws
in Nepal that govern marriage, divorce, property
rights, and inheritance, reinforce the patriarchy
and put severe limits on women’s command over
economic resources. For example, the National Code
of Nepal
(Mulki Ain) of 1963, which codifies the inheritance
system, derives from the Hindu system of beliefs
emphasizing patrilineal decent and a patrifocal
residence system. Some of the provisions severely
limit economic options for women. read
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