This article investigates ways that young Nepalese women combine family and student roles when transitioning to adulthood. Findings show both women's and their parents' education is positively associated with the young women's school enrollment after marriage. Furthermore, the effect of education on postmarriage schooling is dependent on type of marriage: for lower-educated women, those in an arranged marriage are more likely to continue education than those in a love marriage. However, for better-educated women, those in a love marriage are more likely to continue schooling than those in an arranged marriage. The more educated ones who balance personal autonomy and obedience to cultural authorities win parental support in both their marriage formation and personal development. Unlike the increasingly elongated, sequential transition to adulthood in the Western context, young Nepalese women experience an intense transition to adulthood as they take on family and student roles simultaneously with practical familial support.
Abstract With rapid socio-economic development over the past four decades, a unique tapestry of Chinese society has unfolded into a mosaic of rapid modernization and resurgent patriarchal tradition. Within this complex temporality, parents still remain salient in young Chinese' love and marital life. This study uses data from semi-structured interviews with recently married young people and their parents to investigate how young adults and their parents are involved in the marriage formation process. We found that in this joint process of intergenerational cooperative marriage arrangement, young people and their parents play different roles, as accommodating decision-makers and respectful advisers, respectively. They agreed that a modern marriage based on individual, romantic love was also a union between two families and welcomed their parents' involvement. Moreover, they considered getting married and taking their parents' opinions and preferences into account in their marriage decision as part of their filial piety towards their parents. We have also found that mothers played a salient and significant role in facilitating the transformation of the traditional and distant patriarchal intergenerational relationship into a warm and supportive family union. There are two sides to the mother's role: the entrenchment of the traditional gender roles and the elevation of women's status in the family.