Dear Readers,

During my college days I had chanced upon the subject of polyandry among the Jaunsari. Visiting the Jaunsar Bawar tract between Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, I however, was not prepared for the skewed gender roles that are perpetrated generation after generation, justified and upheld. A leading news magazine in its current issue presented a titillating and happy account of shared wives, without even pausing to note how women may be disadvantaged in such setups. I do not accept that polyandrous marriages help minimising fragmentation of holdings and thus lead to prosperity. The inhabitants, by that logic should have been very rich, yet they live in poverty. In a hill regime that is largely rainfed, agricultural returns are at a subsistence level with the villagers constantly migrating for placements in the plains. As such I see no reason for polyandry to be sustained in this or any region of our country. With a sound system of schooling in the Jaunsar Bawar area, it is time perhaps to weed out the custom, through area specific and enhanced curriculum.   

The photo essay, The Polyandrous Jaunsari, attempts to address the ambiguous role that is assigned to a woman shared between brothers. I hope you will appreciate our perspective in upholding equality among the two sexes. In a similar strain, we have explored a few gender terms is the section Gender Bender, that are used commonly but are probably not particularly well understood.