As a part of folk literature, the proverb continues to create, inform, address, direct and shape the ideology of a community in its day-to-day life, cutting across the boundaries of time, culture and nation. A critical understanding of such ideology subsequently becomes important for unravelling the underlying subconscious and conscious collective of any community. Proverbs in the Nepali-speaking communities of Nepal and India are used to legitimise ideological positions, with gender remaining of particular importance. The rampant use of gender-insensitive proverbs in the Nepali-speaking communities of Nepal and India reflects the dominance of patriarchy throughout.
Let us start with the notion of daughterhood in a country where the dominant patriarchy continues to lead families to prioritise the birth of a boy. "Chhoraa paaye khasi khauli chhori paaye pharsi," goes one popular proverb. "Beget a son, and dine on mutton; beget a daughter, get pumpkin." States another: "Dhilo hos, chhoro hos," or "Let there be a son, no matter how late." This fixation on the birth of a male child is accompanied by a near-pathological dread of the birth of a girl. Additional proverbs throw light on the phobia.
Chhori mari gaal tari.
(The daughter is dead and so is infamy.)
Chhori cheli gaalko gund.
(A daughter is the nest of shame).
The polarised sexual politics that begins with such extremes of obsession and aversion becomes part of the collective communal consciousness and, in turn, becomes the dominant ideology. The equating of a daughter with 'shame' and 'infamy', as well as the corresponding privileged position given to the son, reduces the young girl from her birth into a lesser being – a liability, an amorphous zone of danger and dread; the unwanted, undesired expression of a cosmic and cultural blunder. As the daughter grows up, she inevitably accepts such gendered constructions as natural, and internalises the shame and infamy as the price she must pay for having been born the 'wrong' gender.