Tribal Women in India: Status, Challenges, and Gender Dynamics

Tribal societies in India are often described as more egalitarian than caste-based Hindu society. Women work alongside men in the fields, choose their own life partners more freely, and face fewer restrictions like purdah or child marriage in many communities. But look closer and a different picture emerges. Property, headship, and public authority still rest almost entirely with men. Tribal women carry a heavy share of the workload, yet very little of the power. Understanding this contradiction is central to studying gender and society in India.

Patriarchy is the rule, matriliny is the exception 🔗

Most tribal communities in India are patrilineal and patriarchal. Descent is traced through the father, the household is headed by a man, and property passes from father to son. A woman typically moves into her husband’s household after marriage and has little independent claim over land or family wealth.

The major exception is found in Meghalaya, where the Khasi, Jaintia, and Garo tribes follow a matrilineal system. Here, descent, surname, and property pass through the mother’s line, and among the Khasi and Jaintia, the youngest daughter traditionally inherits the family home and property, a practice known as Ka Khadduh. Among the Garo, a similar custom called Nokrom allows a capable son-in-law to help manage the family’s affairs, though ownership of land still stays with the women.

Matrilineal does not mean matriarchal 🔗

This is a distinction anthropology students need to hold onto carefully. A matrilineal system only decides how descent and inheritance are traced, not who holds power. Even in Khasi society, the husband is regarded as the head of the household, and elder men continue to exercise considerable authority over family decisions. As one detailed account of Khasi society notes, women were historically barred from participating in the Dorbar Shnong, the local village council, which remained a male-only space for generations. So a Khasi woman may inherit the ancestral home, but she rarely gets to sit at the table where community decisions are made.

Marriage practices vary, but inequality persists 🔗

Tribal India shows remarkable diversity in marriage systems. Monogamy is most common, but polygamy exists in several communities, and polyandry, where one woman is married to multiple brothers, is practised among the Toda of the Nilgiris and some Himalayan tribes such as certain Jaunsari communities. Divorce and remarriage are also more socially accepted in many tribal groups than in mainstream Hindu society. Yet none of this variation translates into equal status. Regardless of the marriage system followed, decision-making power, property, and public roles remain concentrated with men in the overwhelming majority of tribal communities.

The literacy gap holds tribal women back 🔗

Education is one area where the gender gap among tribal communities is stark. According to the 2011 Census, overall Scheduled Tribe literacy stood at around 59 percent, with tribal men at roughly 68.5 percent literate compared to only about 49.4 percent of tribal women, a gap that is significantly wider than the roughly 16-point gap seen in the general population. A detailed study of tribal education notes that Scheduled Tribe literacy remains far below the national average, with women trailing men within every tribal group examined.

This gap is not just a number. Low literacy limits a woman’s ability to access government schemes, understand her legal rights, negotiate fair wages, or take part in decisions that affect her household and community. It also reinforces a cycle: women with less schooling have less say, and having less say makes it harder to prioritise their own or their daughters’ education in the next generation.

Economic contribution without economic recognition 🔗

Tribal women generally enjoy more freedom than their non-tribal counterparts in choosing their marriage partners, and they are far less confined to the domestic sphere. As agriculturists, they work in the fields alongside men and frequently put in longer hours once domestic chores and childcare are added to farm labour.

Yet this labour is systematically undervalued. Domestic work is treated as having no real economic worth, and even paid agricultural labour is affected: women are typically paid less than men for the same field work. Their economic contribution keeps the household running, but it rarely translates into recognition, savings, or independent financial standing.

Domestic violence and who gets to decide 🔗

Household decision-making in tribal communities, much like in non-tribal India, rests largely with men. Domestic violence linked to alcohol use is also documented, a pattern that mirrors what researchers have found across many parts of Indian society rather than being unique to tribal life.

One notable difference, however, is the attitude toward children. Unlike many non-tribal communities where a strong preference for sons is common, most tribal societies show no comparable bias against girl children, who are generally treated with equal respect within the family. The practice of bride-price, where the groom’s family pays the bride’s family at marriage (the reverse of dowry), is often linked to better treatment of a woman in her marital home, since her labour and presence are seen as economically valuable from the outset.

Property, priesthood, and political power stay with men 🔗

Legal ownership of property is one of the clearest markers of tribal women’s subordinate position. In most patrilineal tribal communities, women have no independent right to ancestral land or to the custody of their children. This is partly a legal quirk: the Hindu Succession Act and the Indian Succession Act, which govern inheritance for most other Indian communities, explicitly exclude Scheduled Tribes so that customary tribal law can be preserved. Unfortunately, as one analysis of the issue points out, uncodified tribal customs frequently deny women inheritance rights even though the exemption was originally meant to protect tribal autonomy, not to disadvantage tribal women. Widows are especially vulnerable, sometimes losing access to land the moment their husband dies.

Prestigious social roles follow the same pattern. Priesthood and the position of ethno-medical healer, both important sources of social authority in tribal communities, remain almost exclusively male domains. Even in matrilineal Meghalaya, where women hold property and pass on the family name, formal political authority stays with men. Village councils and clan leadership positions are typically held by the mother’s brother or other male relatives rather than by women themselves, a pattern researchers describe as a paradox of gendered authority: women control the household and lineage, while men control leadership and public decision-making.

So even where the inheritance system favours women, the corridors of power do not follow the same route. Ownership of the home is not the same as a seat in the assembly.

Health status and the risks of migration 🔗

Tribal women’s health outcomes lag behind those of the general population on almost every indicator. Malnutrition is common and begins early in life; a study on undernutrition among Indian tribal populations found that young tribal women face nearly four times the risk of severe undernutrition compared to their male counterparts, a burden that carries forward into pregnancy and maternal health. Infant mortality also remains high in many tribal belts, reflecting weak access to primary healthcare in remote and forested regions.

Seasonal migration compounds these health risks. Large numbers of tribal families in states such as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh migrate for agricultural or construction work each year, and this constant movement is known to worsen nutrition and health outcomes, particularly among women and children who travel with the household. Away from their home community and its informal support networks, migrant tribal women are also more exposed to harassment, exploitation, and violence at worksites and informal settlements. Researchers studying tribal health more broadly have called for a dedicated national policy, noting that tribal health needs distinct, targeted interventions rather than being folded into generic rural healthcare programmes.

Why this matters for understanding gender in India 🔗

The experience of tribal women complicates the simple idea that tribal society is naturally more gender-equal than caste society. Freedom of movement, more flexible marriage norms, and greater visibility in economic life are real advantages tribal women hold over many of their non-tribal counterparts. But these freedoms coexist with an entrenched gap in literacy, property, health, and political voice. Studying tribal women, therefore, is not about ranking one form of patriarchy against another. It is about recognising that patriarchy adapts itself to different cultural settings, appearing in the tribal context not as seclusion or dowry violence, but as unequal inheritance law, undervalued labour, and exclusion from formal decision-making spaces, even in a matrilineal society like the Khasi.

What do you think? If a matrilineal system like that of the Khasi still keeps formal political power in male hands, does tracing descent through the mother actually change a woman’s status in any meaningful way? And what would it take, legally and socially, to give tribal women in patrilineal communities the same inheritance rights their brothers already have?

References

1. https://feminisminindia.com/2018/03/16/khasi-community-matrilineal-society/
2. https://rsisinternational.org/journals/ijriss/articles/an-analysis-of-the-empowerment-of-indian-tribal-women-through-education/
3. https://feminisminindia.com/?p=176823
4. https://polsci.institute/democracy-and-development-northeast-india/matrilineal-societies-meghalaya-khasis-garos-jaintias/
5. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0158308
6. https://www.outlookindia.com/national/the-hidden-epidemic-of-tribal-malnutrition-among-migrants-in-rajasthan-and-madhya-pradesh-news-327416
7. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10057368/