Women-Headed Households Though marital dissolution like death of spouse, divorce, separation or desertion are the most common reasons why women become heads ofhousehotds, there is growing evidence that other causes such as changes in traditional occupational base, agricultural practices, tandholding patterns and patron-client relationships along with population growth contribute to the growing numbers of women-headed households. THE development experience in India and other south-east Asian countries has wit- nessed growing disparities between the rich and the poor. The efforts towards development have brought about regres- sive rather than progressive changes for people in general and women in particu- lar. The long sustained myths of (a) the 'trickle-down' effect of the process of development, (b) households as egalitarian units, and (c) man as the sole economic provider and the head of the household were demythified by various studies with macro- and micro-level data. Studies have indi- cated an increase in the relative work bur- den of rural women due to a decline in the sustenance base, decrease and/or change in consumption patterns and control over in- comes. Within the spectrum of this evi- dence is the identification of another casu- alty group the ’women-headed households'. Though marital dissolution like death of spouse, divorce, separation or desertion could be the most commonly attributed cause for women to head households, there is growing evidence of various other causes. 1 Women-heading households and taking over the responsibility of cultiva- tion because of single male migration to metropolitan cities, 23 and women func- tioning as the chief providers due to the marginal contribution of or financial ne- glect or desertion by men, 45 is an emerg- ing reality. CLASSIFICATION OF WOMEN-HEADED HOUSEHOLDS Buvinic and Youssef 6 classified three situations in which female-heads emerge; (a) The broad range of domestic situations typically characterised by the absence of a resident male head, viz, widowhood, di- vorce, separation and desertion, (b) migra- tion of male members for long periods, and (c) loss of economic function by resident males due to severe unemployment, disabil- ity, illness and male reluctance to accept jobs seen as status reducing, etc. A fourth situation, discussed here, is as much a reason for women-heads to emerge in combination with any of the other three situations—(a) households with’ no ma- ture sons or (b) sons residing in indepen- dent nuclear units. These situations should be necessarily understood within a patri- archal value system where sons are ex- pected to take over the household respon- sibilities after the father, and further, women are secluded and have limited spatial mobility in comparison to men. 7,8 The first two categories of women heads arc de jure heads and are relatively more ’ visible’ to planners, census enumerators and researchers than the third and fourth categories where women are de facto heads. However because of anomalies in the enumeration process dejure heads are underconuted, as observed by Dandekar, in her study of Sugao, a Maharashtra vil- lage^ The element of 'authority’ which exists in the term ’head’, combined with the cultural conditioning of expecting a head of the household to be a ’male’, contributed neglect to the of women de facto heads who are the chief providers in most of poverty-striken households. 10 The growing incidence of women-headed households calls for a re-examination of the aspects of changing agricultural systems (cither due to adverse ecological conditions or shifts in cropping patterns), the social structural aspects, the family and kinship support systems and their interlinks with women's position. This provides insights into how women heads cope with socio- economic situations in the structural con- text of caste, class and gender hierarchies. 11 Section I of this article provides infor- mation of the study areas and the broad observations, the social and sexual strati- fication that exists in these villages and its effect in evaluating women's role and position. Section II elaborates on the specific situation of de jure and de facto women-heads across the caste hierarchy through case profiles. Section III looks at various government policies and their rec- ognition of women-headed households. I Area of Study 'This article is based on a study con- ducted in two villages of east Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh to observe the roles of women in the reproduction and production spheres of wet and dry villages. 12 Rachapalli (dry) village of Prathipadu Mandal represented a drought-prone agri- cultural system and Chintalapalli (wet) vil- lage of Raole Mandal represented a highly capitalist-oriented agricultural system. Both the villages in the study share the features of inegalitarian distribution of land and hierar- chical ranking of households according to class and caste status. The wet village had stable economic conditions and the effect of capital-intensive production varied with the position of the household in the caste-class strata. The dry village had abnormal eco- logical/economic conditions, due to drought, which led to an overall deterioration in the asset holding and living conditions of all households. Substantial diversities in the production systems exist. However, simi- larities have been observed in the structural arrangements and social stratification prin- ciples in both the villages. CASTE, CLASS AND GENDER HIERARCHY Women's role in agricultural production in the study villages is contingent on the social relations of production and the household's position in the material and ritual status hierarchy. Strict purity and pollution principles which dictate strictures relating to manual labour and participation in rural activities seem to also create condi- tions for the differential evaluation of women's work in the reproduction and the production spheres and stratify women's status across the caste strata. The dominant 'role-model' existing in these villages is of the upper caste-class strata women who observe seclusion, re- gionally known as 'gosha\ and are confined to domestic work. The upper caste group constitutes the brahmin and kshatriya castes who occupy the lughest position in the caste hierarchy. The lower caste category consti- tutes the mala and madhiga castes, who also occupy the lowest rank in the economic hierarchy. Women from these castes par- ticipate in agricultural production. Women workers are paid less and are also given arduous tasks. These women view wage work not as a means of power, but as a means of survival of their households. The middle category constitutes the numerically large agriculture-oriented castes from both the villages, They are kapu (agriculturist), golla (herdsmen), setty balija (toddy tapper) and perkhi (agriculturist) castes. The middle- Economic and Political Weekly March 19, 1994 699 Lakshmi Lingam Coping with Caste, Class and Gender Hierarchies