By Patricia Mukhim
Those who believe that being a woman in a matrilineal society makes one safer are delusional. As in all societies, rape is usually committed by a member of the family or a known person. The Delhi incident is a rare case where strangers ganged up to rape a distressed soul and finally killed her. That being the case, women here have less to fear from strangers and more from those known to them. Matriliny in Meghalaya is one of the most hyped but least understood social systems. What is it about matriliny that is empowering for women? Let’s try and name them. First, it is said that ancestral property passes through the youngest daughter and therefore she inherits property which is not the case in patriarchal societies. But we are making a virtue out of a handicap here. This thing about inheritance of property is a generalisation that does no one, least of all the woman, any good. Is inheritance of property and responsibilities both, an empowering facet for women in matriliny? This is a good question but one that’s not analysed in detail lest the bluff of patriarchs who repeatedly spout that women have the best of both words, is exposed.
There was a time when property meant a home to live in and some jewellery (gold mostly). While mothers would allocate the jewellery to their daughters, with the biggest share going to the youngest daughter (khatduh), the home would automatically go to the khatduh. There is a catch here though. The khatduh holds the ancestral property as a custodian but is not supposed to sell it. If she wishes to sell she would require the permission of her siblings and her maternal uncle/s. And in those days of yore when tradition was still in churning, there was no Khasi who was extremely rich and owned more than one homestead. Every family had a home to live on. When a daughter marries (not the khatduh) she and her husband move out into a new home built on land given by the community (Raij). The couple and their children owned the land as long as they lived and cultivated on it. Ownership of land is a fairly new concept. In any case land was not a commodity, just a space to have a homestead on and grow food. It did not have the value it has today. No one amassed so much wealth as to stand out in society. The Khasis believed in egalitarianism so strongly that they even invented the “Thlen ” to castigate and cut down to size anyone who became too rich. The Thlen it is believed is a python that is reared on human blood and can make its keepers very wealthy. The Khasis believed and some still do today, that every year the python keepers have to abduct some living person and drain the blood out of him/her to feed the Thlen lest it shames them. What a novel way to put a moratorium on human greed. But that succeeded up to a point.
Christianity appeared from across the seas to shine the light on our hidden flaws. Christianity told us that some of our practices were not ‘godly.’ No one has asked for a definition of what is godly and what isn’t. Many of us lapped up this new faith unquestioningly. For how could poor, unintelligent tribals who have just come down the trees and did not have the gift of the gab or the power of language, engage the white man in a debate? People like Jeebon Roy, Sib Charan Roy and other enlightened souls did have dialogues and diatribes with the white man. But the Khasis are not known to be aggressive. The educated Khasis left the rest of us to our elements and the white man took it as a burden to civilise us through prosyletisation. For instance, the Khasis had a healthy practice of cohabitation and when two people lived together and produced children society called them husband and wife. Agreed it was a loose arrangement but there was a dignity about it. When a man or woman wanted to walk out of the arrangement, all they had to do was to inform their relatives and throw a copper coin at each other as a final gesture of goodbye. If the man chose to he would pay for the maintenance of his children. If not the woman had enough resources with which to bring up her children. After all, they belong to her clan (kur) and hearth (thymmei). And a Khasi woman had pride enough not to ask for money from a man who has deserted her. Perhaps in those days if there was a roof over the head, enough to eat and clothes to wear, other things did not matter much. Christianity taught us about the sanctity of marriage and of one-partner relationships. Any transgression was called sin. Adultery carried more weight than the word “Klim” in Khasi which actually means having an affair with another man or woman other than the wife or husband. But if a man were to Klim it was not considered sinful by Khasi philosophy. It became a problem only if his wife was pregnant. They say she would not be able to have a smooth delivery unless he confessed to that affair. Hence when a women struggles in labour pain, her family members would ask her to question her man lest he had strayed. I have heard from my ancestresses that there were several instances when the woman who was struggling in labour for hours would suddenly deliver her child (like a hen lays an egg, they would say) as soon as her husband blurted out his peccadillo. That’s called implicit faith, isn’t it?
Stalking a woman was not uncommon. If a man liked a woman he would follow her until he found her alone and then he would talk to her. If she responded it meant she liked him. If not it was a rebuff. A man with enough pride would give up, but some are persistent and have to be told rudely to back off. I have heard of women hitting licentious men (shait kynshlein) with their chappals or shoes. I don’t know if women in other societies would have the gumption to do that. I have heard tales galore from my morther and grandmother but not once did I hear them speak of a child being raped. They would have done it if it was part of the milieu then. If child rape was common it would have featured as part of our folklore and legend. Stepfathers though have been notorious villains, although some have been really good fathers to their step-children. But they are the exceptions.
Judging by the number of child rape cases where the perpetrator is the step-father one can say that they act true to the stereotype. The legend of Noh-ka-Likai where the stepfather who apparently stays at home while his wife worked, one day cut up his step-child to pieces and cooked those pieces. He then fed the wife when she came home hungry in the evening. When she found the baby’s little fingers in the betel nut basket (shang kwai) she suspected the worst and when the man confessed what he had done she went and threw herself down a precipice which later turned into a waterfall. That is Noh-Ka-Likai (the place where Likai jumped to her death.
Going by our folklore therefore, Khasi society had its scars. But the rape of children aged three, four or five was unheard of. As teenagers, we were told stories of delinquent men who raped women and abandoned them in the forest. I have also heard of elders of society bringing about rapprochement between the raped and the rapist if they happen to know both and if the raped woman complained. That was because they did not know better. We were not aware that rape is a heinous crime. Rape was usually termed as a misdemeanour (ka jingbatbor) or forced sex. The reason why the grievous nature of rape was not understood is because we were a gender insensitive society. Those men who sat in judgement over rape cases have no clue about the extent of a crime worse than death for a woman. It could also be because of the silence around sex and sexuality in Khasi society. A woman who is raped would probably not even be allowed to describe the painful details as they do today while filing an FIR before the police. To talk about the act of rape would have been termed “ka kam khlemrain” (a shameful deed) and the matter would end with a compromise because the elders in the Dorbar only knew that much and no more.
Today we are in the 21st century. It’s true that we have jumped our own pace of civilisation and therefore have a problem processing our thoughts and actions. Today the number of gadgets over which sex is freely purveyed is phenomenal. Neither families or societies or the Dorbar have control over their members. It’s easy to blame the factors of decadence such as drugs, alcohol or pornography. But what about the upbringing? What about responsible parenthood? Can a girl of 15 or 16 years who cohabited with one man and then by the fifth year ended with another man or a series of men before she is abandoned, ever be a good parent to her sons? Should society not take on part of this burden? After all we are still a community, not a stand alone, group of individuals. The role of faith-based institutions has also not been under focus when we talk of rape. Indeed the silence that surrounds male and female sexuality is what makes it so difficult to address the problems of rape and sexual abuse.
This is a society in swift transition. Are we able to drive the social changes or do we allow them to drive us?