Women's Roles in Asia by Nadeau Kathleen;Rayamajhi Sangita;

Author:Nadeau, Kathleen;Rayamajhi, Sangita;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC-CLIO, LLC
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

A young mother and her child with the child’s aunt in Bandarban, one of the hill tracks in Chittagong, Bangladesh. (Sharon Panackal, all rights reserved)

The number of children a married couple should have was traditionally never an issue of contestation. The use of birth control technologies was never justified in any class or caste hierarchy. It was common for wives to give birth throughout their reproductive years. Therefore, earlier generations boast of large families, with the average numbers being anywhere between four and 12 children. In Asia, family planning measures were frowned upon because the birth of babies was considered to be a gift from god. In the 1950s in China, during Mao Tse-tung’s rule, birth control measures were not permitted because he wanted as many people as possible to provide maximum labor to the country. Consequently, each couple had at least five or six children. During the period of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), people were also not very interested in birth control measures, and therefore family planning was not extensively implemented. But toward the mid-1970s, control measures were implemented so that births could be widely spaced, which was to discourage childbearing. Finally in 1979, China implemented its one-child-per-couple policy so that—as the government said—the country could prosper economically with the population in check. With the one-child policy, women acquired greater time to work outside the home and contribute to the household economy, and they were better able to send their sons to good schools and provide them with housing. Because of the economic contribution of women, their decision-making power also increased. But women still do not inherit property and they do continue with the traditional practices of working for the family and children in the husband’s home after marriage. These situations of women and the one-child policy, which still continues in many parts of China, have led—albeit unwillingly—to the preference of sons over daughters to a fairly large degree.35

In South Asia, motherhood has always been taken as a social and economic event where families are compelled to make the right choice about the sex of the infant. The eternal waiting for a male child is often punctuated by sex determination tests and termination of pregnancies. The technology is for those who can afford to carry out the tests and the subsequent abortions if required. But those who are practically under the poverty line get rid of their female children only after birth. Feticide is one example of the violence that occurs in India among the rich as well as poor and middle-class families. In recent years, stringent policies have been implemented to curb sex determination tests. In contrast, among Javanese families, having many children, both boys and girls, is still considered a mark of prestige. This is especially true of wealthy families who do not have to rely on their son’s economic contribution to the household, which is why they have more children than even peasant families. It is also considered socially correct to address in formal terms men who have many children.

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