Arya News - In Nepali traditions, daughters are often barred from performing death rites for their parents. Some women are fighting to reclaim that right.
KATHMANDU – She can bring life into the world. Yet, when life ends, she’s deemed unfit to perform the very rites that honour it.
A son and a daughter may be born from the same womb and raised by the same mother, yet when that mother dies, only the son is seen as qualified to honour her through ‘shraddha’ (ritual oblation).
What happens when there’s no son? Well, society would still rather search for any available male (distant relative or a hired priest) than allow her daughter to do it.
In many communities across Nepal, it is still believed that a daughter performing her parents’ funeral rites will rob them of punya (virtue/ merit).
Experts say this inequality speaks to a deep identity crisis that women and girls in Nepali culture are forced to live through, where even their right to mourn is dictated.
“Even in death, patriarchy gets the final word,” says Radhika Sapkota, a women’s rights activist.
In September last year, Durga, then just 18, stood at Pashupati Aryaghat with her mother’s body wrapped in a white shroud. She lit the funeral pyre with shaking hands, flames catching while a dozen voices behind her murmured disapproval.
“They said I had no right to light her pyre,” says Durga from Sirutar, Bhaktapur, who the Post is identifying with a pseudonym for privacy purposes.
Durga’s family had no sons. Just daughters. At the cremation ghat, the priest demanded a male stand-in. Community members pleaded with her to find a man. Any man.
“But she was my mother,” Durga says. “Who else had more right to give her peace?”
At Pashupati, with support from her four relatives, she continued, but back in her village, backlash came hard.
The priest refused to conduct the mourning ceremonies if she led them. “He said I’d have to shave my head. I agreed. He said, what if your period starts? I took medicine to delay it despite it being days away.”
After everything, the priest said, “If you perform the rites, your mother’s soul won’t find salvation, and misfortune will fall on the village”.
Durga pleaded with everyone. She asked if at least her father could perform the Shraddha kriya. But the priest rejected that too.
She considered changing priests, but she was told switching priests would bring more misfortune to her mother’s soul.
Eventually, under Durga’s insistence, the priest relented. But, bitter about being overruled, he arrived after three days, keeping the mourning ritual in limbo.
And the judgment didn’t stop there. “Many came to our house and said, ‘In a house where a husband does shraddha for a wife, we won’t drink even a glass of water’.”
For her, the grief was doubled, for the mother she lost, and for the dignity denied. “That sentence, you ruined your mother’s funeral, still rings in my ears,” says Durga.
Durga, who grew up active in the Bal club, used to stand on stage and say, girls and boys are equal. “But when I needed that equality most, society reminded me I was nothing… I wasn’t even allowed to mourn like a son,” she adds.
Across Nepal, Durga’s story resonates among many.
At just 13 years old, Sapkota, the women’s rights activist, faced the same struggle as Durga when her mother passed away.
“We were the ones who loved our mother the most, yet society dismissed our devotion because we were daughters,” Sapkota says. “A distant male relative was valued more just because he was male. Could his grief and devotion be greater than ours?”
This was when Sapkota, now executive director of Sahayatri Samaj Nepal, first recognised gender inequality and began fighting it.
This happened nearly thirty years ago. Yet Sapkota says little has changed.
Her father is 92 now and in her village, speculation persists about who will perform his funeral rites. “We’ve been advocating for daughters’ right to perform shraddha for years, but even now, it’s a topic people in my village can’t digest,” she says.
This is one among many examples of discrimination in death rituals. Sociologist Narayani Devkota points to deep-rooted gender biases within her own Brahmin community.
For example, if a husband dies first and the wife dies during his 13-day mourning, no separate mourning is held for her; her death is included in his rites. But if the order is reversed, a new and full 13-day ritual is observed for the man.
Perhaps most revealing is the case of married daughters. In Brahmin tradition, parents are not required to perform shraddha for a daughter once she is married. This is tied to the transfer of gotra (patrilineal lineage) to her bridegroom’s gotra, done just before a daughter’s wedding. The father, on this day, consumes only one meal, mirroring the ritual observance for a death in the family.
“This is the cruellest for me. They call it ‘gotra sarne’, but I see it as performing shraddha for a daughter while she’s still alive,” said Devkota.
So then, who performs the shraddha for a married daughter? If the deceased daughter has a son, he may perform the rites. But if she doesn’t, no one from her maternal family, not even her own parents or brothers, are allowed. The husband, too, is excluded.
In such cases, the responsibility falls to distant male relatives from the husband’s side or, tellingly, a priest hired to perform the rituals.
“It’s ironic, once women marry, it feels like their rights and bonds with their parents end,” Sapkota said. “How is it that my husband’s marriage didn’t affect his ties with his parents, but mine changed everything for me?”
“Society refuses to see us as independent human beings,” adds Devkota.
This pattern is not limited to Brahmin families. In Newar communities, only male relatives can lead funeral ceremonies.
When a husband dies, the widow must wear white for a year, avoid rich foods, and sleep on the floor for 45 days. “But when a wife dies, her husband faces no such restrictions,” says Medhavi Shrestha, a Bachelor’s student of Journalism and English Literature.
Shrestha adds that a married woman can mourn her maternal family for just four days but must mourn her husband’s family for 13. “Why does mourning even have a gendered timeline?” she asks.
In many communities, like rural Madheshi regions, women are still banned from cremation grounds entirely; they cannot come near the cremation ghat, let alone light a pyre.
Sapkota further explains that caste and class combine to deepen these struggles for women.
During her mourning, Durga thought about sharing her story online to demand the right to perform the funeral rites. “But I realised that if I challenged the powerful, rich elders, they could force our lower-middle-class family out of the village. So, I stayed silent.”
The rigidity often stems not from scriptures themselves, but from a lack of deep understanding, says Devkota. According to her, many senior priests well-versed in the Dharmashastra (codes) affirm there’s no scriptural ban on daughters performing shraddha. In contrast, some priests with limited knowledge are more dogmatic.
Sapkota agrees, “It’s social control disguised as religion. The belief that women can’t perform shraddha is a biased interpretation of scriptures used to maintain the status quo.”
Change is slowly taking root, though. In recent years, some women have started performing shraddha. Yet, women are still rarely recognised except when no sons are present.
Durga says limiting daughters to perform rites only when there is no male heir reinforces inequality. “This is about more than just a ritual, it symbolises the broader structural gap between men and women,” she says. “As children, both should be equally involved.”
In a society like Nepal’s that is deeply rooted in tradition, change is never easy, especially when it comes to something as sacred and sensitive as death rituals.
“But silence is never the answer,” Sapkota insists. “If I hadn’t spoken up back then, there wouldn’t even be a conversation about daughters performing shraddha in my village. So, to all the women and girls, speak out, question, and resist.”
Their stories leave no doubt, the fight for dignity and equality must never end, not in life, not even in death.
“Even in death, my mother was denied peace. And I was denied the right to give it to her. I hope for a time when no woman has to endure what I did”, says Durga.