POLYGAMY: INTERSECTIONALITY AND THE ENDURING TRACES OF MISHMI SOCIAL PRACTICE

Arunachal Pradesh is home to 26 major tribes and 110 sub tribes as mentioned by The Government of Arunachal Pradesh in its documents, books and the yearly diary published by the Information and Public Relations (IPR) Department. Polygamy is a prevalent social practice in several of the 26 tribes including Mishmi tribe of Anjaw, Lohit, Lower Dibang Valley and Dibang Valley districts. From the antiquity, simultaneous plural marriages were practiced by Mishmi men with considerable resources and elevated social status. There are two types of Polygamy practiced in Mishmi society; One in which the living sibling marries the widow of his dead brother or cousin. Sometimes a man would also marry the widowed aunt of his dead uncle. In certain instances a living adult son even marries his step mother after the demise of his father. The other kind of polygamous marriage is the commonly practiced norm of acquiring several wives while his first spouse is alive. The matrimonial system of Mishmi constitutes exchange of dowry in the form of livestock like Mithun (Bos Frontalis), Pigs, cattle, dried/smoked meat of wild animals and birds and fish. The groom offers the dowry as bride price to the bride’s family. After ceremonial exchange of the bride price, the bride leaves her paternal home and starts living at her husband’s household. A prosperous man who is capable of offering dowry many times over will marry many women in his life time. All these wives have to share common dwelling with each having a personal chamber. The husband would take turns to visit his several wives in their chambers. An acclaimed legend of polygamous marriages is a Kaman Mishmi man from Tezu who is believed to have married 16 wives. Polygamy might have had its social relevance in bygone era when it had a practical purpose. Since all farm work was carried out manually, more hands in the family was directly correlated to higher production of food grains for the household. Polygamy was a socially accepted form of marriage system across both the genders as patriarchy was so deeply entrenched in the collective consciousness of the tribe that the idea of women’s rights or the mere awareness of injustice endured by the women didn’t exist. But the cultural values of the past do not align with the values of contemporary Mishmi women. Education and exposure to the world beyond the hills of Arunachal Pradesh have gradually influenced social norms, leading tribal women to increasingly prefer and idealize monogamy as the ideal attachment style within the institution of marriage. The paper strives to highlight the curse of Polygamy that women still experience today. It details the struggles of an educated modern Mishmi woman whose sensibilities have been framed by the Judeo-Christian values subconsciously imbibed through the existing traces of Macaulay’s education model in India, romantic ideals formed by the philosophy of Rousseau as depicted in romantic novels, Bollywood movies, music and behavioral ethics influenced by majoritarian culture of India. Skewed gender dynamics persist, where a woman is expected to be educated, gainfully employed and yet bear the burden of archaic patriarchal oppression like polygamy. The paper endeavors to dwell into the intricacies of 21st century Mishmi women’s psyche and bring about a discussion on harmful consequences of polygamy on women in particular and society as a whole in civic discourse.