The Absurdity of the Statement, “Women in Naga Society are Not Second to Men”

In The Morung Express, the Eastern Mirror, and the Nagaland Post, on November 21, 2016, an editorial appeared that was titled, “Women in Naga society are not second to men.” It is my contention that this statement is absurd. That the piece was written by the President and Advisor to the NMA is of course ironic. If anyone knows that this statement is untrue it most certainly must be Naga mothers! The editorial is mainly an argument in support of women having representation of one third of those sitting in legislative bodies of the state, specifically in municipal and town councils. The argument is a sophisticated one, and as a retired lawyer I know better than claiming expertise in an area that involves the Indian Constitution (specifically Article 371-A and Part IX A), as well as the State Municipal Act, 2006. Fortunately, the points I want to make do not demand that I involve myself in those issues. I am disagreeing with the thrust of the article as expressed in the title the authors chose for it. In my opinion women are very much second to men in Naga society. But before getting to my two main points, I just want to mention a preliminary matter or two. First, I can think of three well-known countries which have had women prime ministers, the United Kingdom, Israel, and India, and in each of them women are indeed second-class citizens. My point is, just because you gain political office does not mean anything will change for women. In fact, Margaret Thatcher was famous for NOT assisting the women’s liberation movement in her nation. I will agree that it is better to have women in government than not, but that fact alone will not change the fundamental structure of the culture if that culture is fundamentally unfair to women. The second preliminary point is that words are cheap. I recently had reason to point this out in an editorial on the same subject, whether women and men were treated equally in Nagaland (see my article in the Eastern Mirror dated November 20, 2016), where I argued that the NBCC statement in an editorial I was commenting on mistakenly or deliberately said that men and women were treated equally, and I pointed out that other parts of their own article contradicted that statement, something I will touch on in this piece. The United States Bill of Rights, our first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, which lays out all our fundamental rights, including equal protection of the law (through the 14th amendment, a complicated matter called the “incorporation doctrine”), has been emulated by many countries in the world, including many dictatorships which disregard the words completely. China’s leaders talk about due process of law, but the courts are not independent, and lawyers who represent dissidents too vigorously are themselves prosecuted criminally!! Just because there are words on paper mean nothing unless the words are enforced in the real world. An example in India is the fact that the Indian constitution makes illegal enforcing the low status of dalits, that is, untouchables, and yet the dalits till this day are treated very badly. Words in the Indian constitution are worthless unless the law is enforced, which it is not. And this is true with many laws in India. Rape and abuse of women are on the books in India, and have been for years, but women, especially in the villages of India, are treated abominably. Even in my country, the United States, where judges are allegedly independent, many of them must be reelected and are under pressure to do things, such as very heavy sentencing of convicted defendants when that might not be called for, just to be elected again. (As a law clerk for a judge who had a reputation for very heavy sentencing, I witnessed this characteristic of a so-called independent judge for years.) But enough of the preliminaries. In paragraph two (and I thank the authors for numbering their paragraphs), the authors state, in part, “That, [sic] Women are not second to men is an irrefutable part of Naga Customary Law.” In paragraph three, to the same effect, “inviolable Naga custom of gender equity,” “this custom of gender equity,” and “the age old custom of equality of sexes.” Paragraph five, “Naga custom of gender equity” twice!!, paragraph six, “the Naga custom is to provide gender equity,” and the same in paragraph seven. It is as if the authors felt that, if they said the same thing enough, it would make it so, even though it is not the case! It should be noted that, in their article, although there are many citations to the Indian constitution, and other laws, there are NO citations to any specific Naga customary law. But I have such a citation. In the book KINSHIP POLITICS AND LAW IN NAGA SOCIETY, by Dr. N.K. Das, “associated with the Anthropological Survey of India as a senior social anthropologist,” talking about the Zounuo-Keyhonuo Nagas of Viswema (about 25 kilometers south of Kohima), says that, “Different kinds of domestic work such as attending to domestic animals and weaving are exclusively placed under the purview of women. The women are also responsible for child-rearing....There is taboo on part of the men to conduct certain household jobs, particularly the preparation of rice-beer and weaving.” Now I don’t know what that sounds like to any women who may read this, but it seems to me that the wife and mother in such a Naga household is not about to jump into higher education or decide to be a lawyer or nurse, etc. And the authors should be careful trying to distinguish this Naga sub-tribe, existing in a village in what is now Manipur, from all the other Naga sub-tribes that make up the Naga nation, in Nagaland and elsewhere. I know that there are similar female obligations in most sub-tribes. And also, I dare the authors to argue that men and women are equal in that the male has obligations also. I know that most women in the 21st century would not view such a situation as one of equality, and to describe it as such is intellectually dishonest. My second main point is this, that the authors argue that Naga customary law should be respected, and if it were, women would be equal. But putting aside the fact that my example, above, argues against the proposition that Naga customary law guarantees equality between the sexes, the authors forgot to mention one other rather important fact. It seems to me that the only thing that would be more powerful than customary law would be the words of the Lord, that is, the fact that all Nagas are Christian. And as I argued in my recent article in the Eastern Mirror mentioned above, the Scriptures clearly treat women as second-class citizens. With apologies to anyone who read my recent piece, I will again quote from Ephesians 5:22-4: “[22] Wives, submit yourselves unto our own husbands, as unto the Lord. [23] For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. [24] Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.” Verse 25 continues, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church....” Let me emphasize the obvious: the husband has an obligation to LOVE his wife; the wife has an obligation to SUBMIT to her husband. That is not the same thing to any rational human being. And for some of the specific duties of the wife, I again recommend (as I did in my earlier article) that women take a look at Proverbs 31:10-31, especially, to give you some idea about the lack of equality facing women under Christianity (and Judaism also, actually, since Proverbs is part of the Hebrew Scriptures, or what the Christian community calls the Old Testament):Proverbs 31: 15 (her obligation to get up “while it is yet night” to start her chores), and 27 (she should “eateth not the bread of idleness,” that is, no slacking off!). So, in conclusion, neither under Naga customary law nor under the Scriptures are women equal to men.

(Robert A Silverstein is from Albany, New York. He can be contacted at rsilverstein@nycap.rr.com)