| As daughters win mother of all rights
Women of the world, rejoice! Your fight for right worldwide has finally promised some handsome dividends here in the Himalayan foothills and toe-plains. Story by Jagadish Pokhrel.
The House of Representatives, mostly made up of men, in its important session that just got over, deliberated a lot on the Women's Bill and passed it. This will certainly go a zig-zag way to liberate Nepali women from the bangles of long-held traditions --oops, from the shackles alright!
That's no mean feat. I mean that was not the men's feat. Women fought the fight, make no doubt about that. It took a while, after Beijing plus. Lots of lobbying followed, men joined in the bandwomen, sorry bandwagon, as they often do, for they always show a soft spot for their fairer counterparts. A house committee, which closely looked into the houses of poor women, especially their young daughters, acted in concert to change their lives for good and the better.
Despite the fact that someone no less than a speaker himself at some point of time had spoken against giving property rights to women, the daughters are close to winning the mother of all rights, the property right. The speaker had feared: women's share in parental property could bring them their share of the family trouble too.
Never mind, women have won something-far-better-than-nothing. Earlier, the country's civil code made them wait until they were well past their prime of youth, until 35 unmarried years, to be treated at par with their brothers in terms of family property. Now with the Bill Ensuring Female Opulence at Chaste Adolescence and Unmarried Aftermath getting through the House of Overwhelmingly Male Majority Representatives, Nepali society is surely in for a radical change. Eventually, the traditional roles of women as wives, mothers and daughters will be re-defined.
But that is still a lot of work ahead for the womankind. In the meantime, it's difficult even for men to try to be fair and join in the women's fight for right. Talk frankly about its dangers -- you could be called corrupt. I sense this danger by twisting and turning Oscar Wilde's line on my head: Those who find ugly meaning in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.
Well, it is a beautiful thought if women, who are usually pretty and like to be told so, are given property with which to buy them their place in the society, to empower them economically against exploitation at home, and decorate them better with ornaments and so on. But if that money, assuming all girls of a certain age are entitled to get it from their parents whenever they like to, cannot be used after getting married, it is advisable that they better spent it up before they choose to officially marry.
Since the new bill does not bring in much for the wives and mothers, the prospects of daughters being prospective wives and mothers at the expense of their hard-fought-and-easily-won property look bleaker. Would the dowry do them better?
But there are several options now. One is for the daughters to choose a live-in partner. Or she would do well to live single, perhaps pursuing a life-long quest for more and more education, or a lot of travel, until the parents' money is gone for good. Or here is another one: Continue to fight for the daughters' right to own their share of the parental property for ever, whether they live single or get married, if you will.
If I were a daughter, I would want the parents' will to prevail over the property they earned, owned and increased in their lifetime, so there would be someone to care for them in their old age. Let Nepali women's will as loving, caring daughters prevail as well as their parents' to use their property the way they want.
Mr. Pokhrel is a Kathmandu-based writer and journalist.