ABSTRACT

This chapter looks at how marriage patterns are changing for the better in the Far West region of Nepal, where parents were found to be marrying their daughters at a later age and encouraging them to go to school and complete at least primary education before marrying. It shows how new marriage patterns, including unforeseen effects of young adolescents' growing penchant for 'love' marriage, and polygamy as a continued preference, are poised to disrupt the pattern of progress for girls and women. The chapter focuses on three rounds of fieldwork carried out between 2012 and 2014 in the Far West region of Nepal in the districts of Doti and Kailali, and one round of fieldwork in the district of Ilam. The reduction in spousal age gaps points to a weakening of a practice of betrothals in order to further kin ties, and an increase in aspects of gender equality.