"The point that Sarah Hrdy makes is that women were supposed to always marry upwards. "
--- Hundreds, if not thousands, of years, of Indian civilization just does not indicate this.
People arranged marriages within caste and they still do. Each caste comes with it's own sub-culture and it's important for those sub-cultures to be preserved,…
"The point that Sarah Hrdy makes is that women were supposed to always marry upwards. "
--- Hundreds, if not thousands, of years, of Indian civilization just does not indicate this.
People arranged marriages within caste and they still do. Each caste comes with it's own sub-culture and it's important for those sub-cultures to be preserved, hence why people marry within caste. Of course there would be some upward caste mobility available to women via marriage but the majority of Indians still marry within caste. Higher caste families in such a system would not be keen on bringing lower caste daughters-in-law into their families and homes. Hrdy's conclusion is absurd. Female infanticide in India is closely linked to the dowry system which can and does financially devastate some families.
"Highest up, there was nowhere to go".
-- Again, brahmins are not supposed to "go" anywhere except to other brahmin families.
"European colonists wondered why they saw no girls until they asked and found out that there just were no girls."
-- European "colonists" came to a lot of faulty conclusions. There are areas in India that have skewed sex ratios due to female infanticide to this day. It is not concentrated amongst the highest caste that has "nowhere to go".
India is a vast country. So I can't se why you and Sarah Hrdy can't be right at the same time. She wrote about some customs in some part of India in the 19th century. I thought those customs were an interesting illustration of how human societies can pull some principles to their extremes. I'm sure those extremes aren't representative of Indian marriage customs as a whole.
I did some digging. Here's where Hrdy got her info. The first thing that jumps out at you, well me, are the caste names. None of them brahmins (highest caste). Several of them low-middle caste. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44143417
Then it might have been technically wrong by me to call them "high castes". As I understood it, those most into sex selective infanticide were warrior guys (that is, not the highest caste). I must admit I don't know what is really considered "high caste" in India. I just reflexively reasoned that it should be something corresponding to "high class" in Europe.
Caste and class are two entirely different things. India has class also. So the entire premise of "having nowhere to go" is tossed out the window into the trash. There are reasons that female infanticide existed, and still does, in India. Having no caste for a daughter to marry into wasn't one of them.
"The point that Sarah Hrdy makes is that women were supposed to always marry upwards. "
--- Hundreds, if not thousands, of years, of Indian civilization just does not indicate this.
People arranged marriages within caste and they still do. Each caste comes with it's own sub-culture and it's important for those sub-cultures to be preserved, hence why people marry within caste. Of course there would be some upward caste mobility available to women via marriage but the majority of Indians still marry within caste. Higher caste families in such a system would not be keen on bringing lower caste daughters-in-law into their families and homes. Hrdy's conclusion is absurd. Female infanticide in India is closely linked to the dowry system which can and does financially devastate some families.
"Highest up, there was nowhere to go".
-- Again, brahmins are not supposed to "go" anywhere except to other brahmin families.
"European colonists wondered why they saw no girls until they asked and found out that there just were no girls."
-- European "colonists" came to a lot of faulty conclusions. There are areas in India that have skewed sex ratios due to female infanticide to this day. It is not concentrated amongst the highest caste that has "nowhere to go".
India is a vast country. So I can't se why you and Sarah Hrdy can't be right at the same time. She wrote about some customs in some part of India in the 19th century. I thought those customs were an interesting illustration of how human societies can pull some principles to their extremes. I'm sure those extremes aren't representative of Indian marriage customs as a whole.
I did some digging. Here's where Hrdy got her info. The first thing that jumps out at you, well me, are the caste names. None of them brahmins (highest caste). Several of them low-middle caste. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44143417
Then it might have been technically wrong by me to call them "high castes". As I understood it, those most into sex selective infanticide were warrior guys (that is, not the highest caste). I must admit I don't know what is really considered "high caste" in India. I just reflexively reasoned that it should be something corresponding to "high class" in Europe.
Caste and class are two entirely different things. India has class also. So the entire premise of "having nowhere to go" is tossed out the window into the trash. There are reasons that female infanticide existed, and still does, in India. Having no caste for a daughter to marry into wasn't one of them.