Erasing Father's Identity could turn the world upside down 

By Kamal Raj Sigdel

 

December 2008, Honolulu, Hawaii - A most controversial writer (G Greer) during the American Women's Liberation Movement had once claimed that blurring father's identity will only liberate women. She dared to tell that publicly. But to tell how is that possible is still a matter of great risk. Nobody likes to write, speak, and even notice this important issue. There is a common aversion towards every debate concerning paternity and chastity. Though this act of blurring father's identity raises several ethical and moral questions, the hard fact is that women's reproductive potentiality is the only one secret where lies the ultimate power. And both men and women can exercise it to rule over each other.

 

It is quiet interesting to know how is that power (dormant in female) controlled. It began with the god's declaration to Adam, "Thou shalt rule over all the creatures of the world", and of course over Eve and logically females were categorized as the "creatures" created for men. The interpretive community interpreted that Eve was seduced by Satan but the other way round it is also equally "true" that Eve and Satan fall in love and Adam played villainy. Adam sought for a solution to control Eve, which he found in the two words: "chastity" and "sin". And ever since the rule was formalized. In a religious book Manusmriti, which used to be the written law for ancient Hindus, states that women, animal and river should never be trusted and they should be under control. Same is with other religions like Muslim, Seikh and others.

 

Some historians say that males knew the secret from animal husbandry. They discovered that if a black-spotted bull is copulated with any one of the domesticated cows and if the cow is put under control, the reproduced calf with similar spots gets its guaranteed identity with reference to the very bull having spots not with the cow. The males observed and applied the same theory to their wives. They began to control female reproductive capacity, which are still manifested in: enforced domestication, enforced chastity, enforced pregnancy, and other forms of sexual repression designed to ensure that men can confidently claim ownership of the children their wives give birth to.

 

It is known that a father is necessary for child bearing but not known how to identify him, except with modern science discoveries like DNA paternity test or with conventional strict domestication of mother. Women, who discern this, know how powerful and privileged they are and how vulnerable are men. Someone had once said, men do not cry because men are weaker than women and they always live in islands.

 

Here is an evidence, a real news story reported by the Associated Press (AP) that mercilessly paints the men's predicament. "Tears welled up in Zhang's eyes as he collapsed on a sofa, holding the results of a DNA test that said his 5-year-old son was fathered by an other man". My heart aches, Zhang moaned as he sat, seemingly dazed, at the DNA-testing clinic in Shenzhen. "I can't hold this report in my hand. It's a great shame to our family. I can't face it." Zhang's collapse here indicates how much helpless and vulnerable is the father's identity. To a father, even if he is philanderer, extramarital affairs of his wife are the central fear. And to them DNA testing is the solution that works as an unseen force for wives' domestication and vigilance.

 

In the same vein, identity of children without father has been a matter of fear and therefore most countries do not have the provision of giving them citizenship. This legal strategic framework conjured up by the powerful ones for controlling women is maintained by linking it to the issues of ethics, religion, chastity, morality, and so on.

 

However surprisingly, some women in far western Nepal have been able to keep the ball of power in their hands. They are not the talented and highly educated women living in the luxuries of cities; instead they are the women living in remote districts of Mid and Far Western Nepal. The polyandry system is in practice there. All of the women have decision-making power in the family. In fact, the family is matriarchal and female-headed. Women of the area are in a privileged and powerful position, because the father's identity is blurred there. One wife has multiple husbands in her own home. And fortunately, the males of the area have not yet discovered the DNA paternity test system. It is very likely that people understand this reality negatively and start efforts that blur father's identity. This is a fact, but it does not mean that every fact is to be revered and pursued. Fact may not be necessarily good either. Fact has to be understood in context of reality.  If we understand and know how to deal with facts and utilize it for a positive cause, here is a way to build self-confidence of the "second sex" to be first.

 

What is interesting is that the ball of power by nature never remains in the same hand. It is inevitable, one day the gendered power politics will turn things up side down.

 

(Sigdel is an Asia Pacific Leadership Program fellow at the East West Center)

The article was originally published in Ka Leo, University of Hawaii Newspaper, Honolulu, Hawaii