Brides of Drought: (Un)tying the Knots Between Climate, Cane, and Early Marriage in Western India
This thesis examines the tensions and interactions between social reproduction and the trajectories of accumulation in India’s historically drought-affected Marathwada region. By drawing connections between everyday experiences and broader socio-ecological shifts, it focuses on the high prevalence and practice of early marriage in the region, situating it within the context of climate change, capitalist labour markets, and gendered relations. Specifically, the study documents the ways in which cyclical drought in Marathwada and the evolving labour arrangements in the adjoining western sugar belt, from male gangs to husband-wife pairs, have multiplied the drivers and compounded the issue of early marriage in the region. The study combines a social reproduction framework with girlhood and feminist political ecology theories to present a twofold argument: first, poor rainfall and plummeting groundwater tables, coupled with the loss of local livelihoods and the imperative to migrate, are driving the cycle of early marriage in Marathwada, as ‘marriages of survival’. Second, by deliberately assimilating the marital unit into the labour unit—marked by social exclusion, devaluation of gendered labour, economic exploitation, and intergenerational power dynamics—the sugar industry (re)produces ‘young wife-workers’ to ensure profitability and further expansion. Ultimately, I demonstrate how, if left unchecked, this self-perpetuating cycle—given its current pace, complexity, and scale—has the potential to spiral, leading to the breakdown of the very structures and relationships that underpin it. The thesis is based on a multi-sited feminist ethnography, including intergenerational conversations and group discussions with migrant cane harvesters, key stakeholder interviews, and thick field notes documented in the villages, canefields, and the journeys in transit between October 2020 and August 2021. It further draws on the region’s rich oral tradition of grind mill songs of labour composed and passed down by women over generations.
Capitalist labour markets, Climate adaptation, Early marriage, Feminist political ecology, Girlhood, Social Reproduction
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