Meghalaya: Where Women Rule, and Men are Suffragettes

[Jacaylbaro]

FULL STORY

 

 

In the small hilly Indian state of Meghalaya, a matrilineal system operates with property names and wealth passing from mother to daughter rather than father to son - but some men are campaigning for change.

 

When early European settlers first arrived here they nicknamed it "the Scotland of the East" on account of its evocative rolling hills.

 

Coincidentally, today the bustling market in the state capital, Shillong, is awash with tartan in the form of the traditional handloom shawls worn ubiquitously since the autumn chill arrived.

 

Not far from here the village of Cherrapunji once measured an astonishing 26.5m (87ft) of rain in one year, a fact still acknowledged by the Guinness book as a world record.

 

But the rainy season is over for the time being and it is Meghalaya's other major claim to fame that I am here to investigate.