Publication details
Ritualising Patriarchy: Religious Internalisation and Gender Norms in Hindu Devotio
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| Year of publication | 2026 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Religious belief and communal norms often co-evolve to help groups meet the socioeconomic demands of their environment. We examine this dynamic within two Hindu Indo-linguistic communities in India, Gujaratis and Maharashtrians, who occupy distinct economic niches. Gujaratis are historically mercantile, relying on family-run trade networks in which trust, reputation, and adherence to convention are essential. Maharashtrians, by contrast, more often pursue salaried employment, where education rather than communal signalling underpins economic success. Drawing on fieldwork and prior qualitative work, we show that these economic differences map onto distinct religious patterns. Gujaratis primarily pray to Krishna, whose mythology emphasises diplomacy and devotional caregiving, ritually enacted through the nurturing of Bal (baby) Krishna and reinforcing traditional gender roles that publicly signal stability within merchant networks. Maharashtrians predominantly worship Ganesha, the god of wisdom and learning, whose mythology aligns more closely with their education-oriented economic niche and exhibits looser gender role expectations. Using nationally representative Pew Research Center data (N = 20,503), we tested whether these community-level patterns scale nationally. Gujaratis endorsed significantly stronger patriarchal attitudes than Maharashtrians, and individuals reporting greater closeness to Krishna scored higher on patriarchal values than those devoted to Ganesha or Lakshmi. Although causality cannot be inferred, these findings suggest a cyclical relationship between economic niche, gender norms, and religious devotion, with implications for reproductive rights policy. |
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