Two factors special to the Indian context are familialism and class/caste.  These two factors may explain the extreme application of son preference called fatal daughter syndrome.  A model for this human behavior may be called stratified endogamy.

In the Indian context several rules may be stated. First, pure male lineages are the basis for family organization. Purity of the male lineage can be guaranteed only by eliminating all possibilities of any suspicion that a bride is not a virgin and by eliminating every suspicion that wives might have an opportunity to be unfaithful to their husbands.

Second, families strive to maintain and improve their social, economic, and political class status. Family members are bound together in an apparently eternal unit. (familialism)  Social mobility of individuals is not possible. Third, marriages are the markers of family status. All females must be married and family status can be maintained only when the daughters are married into families of equal or higher class status. Fourth, as corollaries of the above rules, no wife may divorce, and no widow may remarry.

These rules are illustrated in the above pyramid showing a hierarchy of families stratified within the hard line rules of Hindu caste. The symmetry of marriage matches requires one female (and not more than one) on the right side for each male on the left side. The daughters must marry within their natal family class or higher. The reality of some daughters marrying higher in the class hierarchy shifts the female side of these marriage matches upward relative to the male side.

This upward displacement of females (larger numbers of girls relative to boys up the hierarchy) causes the surplus of girls shown along the right edge of the hierarchy. Family status maintaining marriage mates not being available, this daughter surplus must be disposed of. Note also that the surplus of girls relative to the population of boys at each class level is greatest at the top and declines toward the bottom. Daughters disposed of do cause a small surplus of sons at the lowest class/caste level not shown in this illustration.

This model was created using the data and antidotal information about female infanticide from Northern India in the nineteenth century. (Dickemann)  As a theoretical representation of the causes for the fatal daughter syndrome in India, this model may be criticized for displaying only the crude factors involved while explaining too much.

(Directory)  March 20, 2000