For citations / sources: use as many as needed; Please make reference to the youtube short movie + “Being a Buddhist Nun: The Struggle for Enlightenment in the Himalayas (2004) Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, an ethnography* by the anthropologist Kim Gutschow” (see attached instructions for chapters required)
Some notes on the youtube video:
Daughter: Palkit
Mum: liberal (let the daughter choose what she wants to do) vs Dad: traditional (women should stay and work at home; only daughter, must get married; Grandma said on her death bed for Daughter to never become a nun)
“You must make your own decision, the secret is in your heart” – Becoming woman in Zanskar
Tenzin – Palkit’s friend
Parents drank chang without telling her, accepted on her behalf, brought by some men
Drinking and making offerings of chhaang are part of many pan-Tibetan social and religious occasions, including settling disputes, welcoming guests, and wooing
Tradition: once parents drink chang, have to get married
Need to sign marriage contract – marrying off their daughter is just a transaction?
But Tenzin does not want to leave fam and friends and home
Her mother – contradictory – in front of Tenzin speaks of how she knows Tenzin will be happy with the marriage – behind Tenzin admits she does not know, that Tenzin does not know anyone in the new family
When horses came, neither father or mother was happy – so why sell her off in the first place – seems like they are blindly following tradition without much consideration?
Becoming nun to break free of the social norm of parents marrying off their daughters to a completely unknown family?
“Becoming a nun, the only way for a women to be free, and the refuge for a broken heart” – Becoming woman in Zanskar
Girls never went to school, only boys – joining a nunnery can change that
