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taking care of dairy cattle. On the other hand, the Harijans are the marginal smallholdersand landless workers whose main livelihood depends on agricultural labor.People of the same caste tend to cluster themselves in the village. This is due tocaste relations based on the principle of impurity, a principle that permeated all aspectsof life, whether it was food, occupation, or other intercaste relations. The uppercastes were deemed more pure and the lower castes less pure or even impure. Therefore,the upper castes scrupulously observed marriage and commensal restrictionsand avoided physical contact with the lower castes. People could eat and drink withmembers of the same caste above them, but would not do so with the lower caste as itwas thought to be “polluting.” Similar restrictions affect the sharing of utensils. Segregationof castes is almost complete in matters of residence.The extent of female participation in production in India is determined by anexus of class/caste hierarchy and norms of patriachal ideology. Women from theupper castes stay in seclusion or “indoors” and do not engage in manual work tomaintain their social status. Women from the lower castes have more freedom towork on their own farms and outside their homesteads to earn a living.Combining families into one household. A household constitutes more than onefamily or a group of persons normally living together and taking food from a commonkitchen. The male head of the household is the principal male member. A typicalnuclear household consists of a husband and wife with their own children, whereas acombined family includes grandparents, the older children, and grandchildren. Strongkinship ties provide safety nets for farming households, especially during periods ofstress. The combined households still exist in India, particularly among the uppercastes that own large farm holdings. Families pool their resources, particularly labor,and jointly manage their farms. For example, one hectare of land may be subdividedfor the sons while all the earnings are given to the head of the household. One advantageof the combined family is that, when one family member is in need, all the othermembers help. However, because of the increasing population pressure and subdivisionof lands and family conflicts, combined households are breaking down into nuclearunits. The further subdivision of lands through inheritance has resulted in a small andmarginal size of landholdings, especially among the poor.In India, it is customary for the bride to live with her in-laws, who manage acombined family consisting of sons, daughters, their in-laws, and their grandchildren.Wolf (1996), as cited in Kandiyoti (1991), argues that the key to the reproduction ofclassic patriarchy lies in the operations of the patrilocally extended households, whichare commonly associated with the reproduction of the peasantry in agrarian societies.Under classic patriarchy, girls are given away in marriage at a very young age intohouseholds headed by the husband’s father. There, they are subordinate not only to allthe men but also to the more senior women, especially their mother-in-law.Characteristics of the householdsFarming is the major source of livelihood in the two remote villages. The proportionof farming households is highest in the remote villages Sariyawan (100%) andMungeshpur (89%) and lower in the nearer village, Chandpur (76%). The majority ofUsing gender analysis in characterizing and understanding . . . 347