Situating marriage payments
There are very few contextual accounts of bride-price payments among north Indian communities. Despite the paucity of ethnographic data, assumptions regarding transitions in the practice are commonplace. This article discusses marriage payments among the Bedia community within the broader context of their survival upon familial prostitution and focusses upon how they construe bride-price and dowry, both practiced under varied circumstances. I argue that Bedia marriage payments do not neatly fit into the prevailing assumptions regarding transitions from dowry to bride-price and are constructed differently under different conditions. The internal variations and contradictions in these constructions are interpreted in light of the social location and practices of Bedias.
Gender Questions at the Margins: The Case of Nomadic and DNT Communities
The nomadic and denotified (DNT) communities are one of the extremely marginalized segments of Indian society. Although they are internally differentiated, they have some significant common concerns that are not necessarily identical with those plaguing other marginal groups. This article provides a broad overview of gender issues which are particularly critical for these communities but which have barely received any systematic attention. Drawing upon the author’s research and interaction with members of these communities as well as government reports and other secondary sources, the article examines these issues from the point of view of the marginal position of these groups vis-à-vis the larger society as well as from the perspective of institutions and practices prevalent within these groups. The author argues that gender issues should be integral to policy frameworks as well as other debates about nomadic and DNT communities.
ARRESTS AMONG HOMELESS AND RUNAWAY YOUTHS: THE EFFECTS OF RACE AND GENDER
ABSTRACT This study examined the contributions of race and gender to the likelihood of a first post-run arrest for a more serious and less serious offense in a sample of homeless and runaway youths from four Midwestern states. Event history analysis was used to test the hypothesis that race and gender would interact so that the likelihood of a first post-run arrest for a more serious and less serious offense would be highest for non-white males and non-white females, respectively. Potentially confounding factors—deviant subsistence strategies, substance use, gang involvement and membership, prior arrests, age, prior physical abuse, age on own, and spending time on the street—were controlled in the analyses. The hypotheses regarding the interaction of race and gender were not supported by the data. Non-whites were more likely than whites, and males were more likely than females, to be arrested for a more serious offense, and white females were more likely than non-white females to be arrested for a less serious offense.