Solah Somwar and Conjugal Dharma

Abstract

This chapter analyzes how ritual and dharmic relationships between husbands and wives are changing in the context of emerging middle-class nuclear families in Pulan. It focuses on one married couple’s decision to take up the popular ritual practices of the Solah Somwar vrat (16 Monday fast), a four-month ritual period dedicated to the deity Shiva. Solah Somwar is increasingly observed by young married couples who perform weekly fasts and rituals together at the temple to jointly maintain the ritual purity of the home. This chapter show how these shared, public performances sanction an emerging dharma of conjugality in which husbands and wives in nuclear families become committed, and obligated, to one another as their desires for middle-class lifestyles merge. It highlights the emergence of a kind of purushadharma, or male/husband dharma, whereby men develop desires and orientations toward the home and their wives—in their capacity as husbands—that operates similarly to stridharma.