Sex and motherhood among the Brahmnis and Chhetris of east-central Nepal

The centrality of motherhood in the lives of Hindu women is well known, but it takes on new force with the intensive study of a particular group of contemporary Nepali women. In this case, the women are members of the Brahman and Chhetri castes believed to be representative of similar women in small villages in the Kathmandu Valley and surrounding hills. For these women childbearing is the paramount test of their identity and worth as human beings and child rearing the most enjoyable and rewarding of their many tasks. This report attempts to give some sense of the lives of mothers and their pre-school children in a rural predominately Brahman-Chhetri community on the edge of the Kathmandu Valley.