Sex-Selective Abortion in India: The Impact on Child Mortality B ...

Cultural Factors

Marvin Harris (1993) theorized that social relations characterized by male dominance in societies, such as that of the upper Gangetic plain, developed from the reliance on draught-animal agriculture. In contrast to hoe agriculture, which predominated in West Africa, body strength was needed to produce efficiently from the hard-packed soil, which required deep plowing with traction animals after the dry season. Plow agriculture led to a high population density and shortages of arable land, which in turn resulted in lower value of labor and of the reproductive capacities of women (Goody, 1973; 1976). Men’s control over traction animals, which also were the means of land transport, led to dominance in trade and commerce, government administration, and state religions. Over the long term, practices initially induced by material forces developed into entrenched cultural norms.

Dyson and Moore (1983) theorized that it is not strictly economic forces that determine the wide gap between male and female survival in northern India but cultural forces in the form of marriage and kinship patterns. Exogamous marriage and kinship—marrying out of the natal village and out of the family—is a practice common in North India (Aryan) that decreases women’s autonomy and their social value. The flow of resources is culturally dictated to be from the bride’s family to the groom’s family, which manifests as dowry payments and often gifts throughout the life course as well. Marriage rules dictate that a woman must marry into a higher caste family (hypergamy). Thus, daughters are a means of enhancing social status; families negotiate a higher status for themselves by marrying their daughters into a higher caste family.