In Punjab there is a saying that most people in the region know: Naar ghani ta jaaniye j munda howe dhaak (A woman is considered worthy only when she has a son).
This type of saying, alluding to son’s preference, can easily be dismissed as a thing of the past. But if you spend some time listening to the folk songs sung at birth celebrations, weddings and family gatherings in Punjab, you will quickly realize that this mindset has not changed. It is still very much alive in the folk songs of older women that are passed down to younger generations.
Since I was born and brought up in rural Punjab, I grew up listening to these songs. The focus of my doctoral research was on the folk songs of women in Punjab, and during my field visits I interviewed older women and asked them about the songs they used to sing. What I found in the study was deeply moving yet disturbing, not because it surprised me, but because of how deeply rooted these beliefs about gender were and how naturally they were expressed in folk songs.
The numbers behind the songs
Punjab is often cited as one of India’s success stories due to its relatively prosperous economy and high level of development compared to other states in the country. However, the picture looks completely different when it comes to gender equality.
That’s what the numbers show. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5)conducted between 2019 and 2021, recorded a sex ratio at birth of In Punjab there are 904 girls for every 1,000 boys. This gap represents the “missing girls” who were not allowed to be born due to their preference for sons. However, favoritism towards sons is nothing new; even colonial records contain evidence of this Female infanticide in the past. To stop this practice, the British government introduced the Punjab Female Infanticide Act in 1870. However, with the advent of ultrasound technology in the 1990s, the practice changed form.
This article is based on research that suggests that son preference has never just been a matter of law, economics, or politics, but is deeply rooted in culture. And folklore, especially folk songs, serves as a guardian of this culture, passing it on from one generation to the next.
What the songs actually say
When a son is born in a Punjabi household, there is a tradition of singing folk songs to celebrate the birth. A folk song goes:
In my brother’s house a son was born,
Mother-in-law, I have grown centimeters taller.
In this song, the birth of a nephew elevates a woman’s status within her husband’s family. She believes that giving birth to a son in her brother’s house will give her greater respect and increase her worth in her in-laws’ household. There are countless songs celebrating the birth of a son. Another reads:
If a son is born in the house,
Father, now it’s time for alcohol,
Father, sit at the liquor store and shout loudly and rejoicingly, Father.
This song reflects the public celebrations and drinking that accompany the birth of a son. The celebration described in the song clearly shows the importance of having a male child. However, folk songs celebrating the birth of a daughter are rare. In contrast to the song above, this one is often sung at the birth of a daughter:
The day a daughter was born in the father’s house,
It felt like a night of misfortune, friends.
The father’s turban bowed low.
Nobody came to offer congratulations.
Nine hundred lamps burned on the edges of the roof,
but the night remained very dark.
The most disturbing part of this song is that it is a woman singing about the heartache that comes with the arrival of a girl into the world. Here’s another one:
If a daughter is born in the house,
Father, the family members are thinking, father.
Obviously, when a daughter is born there is no celebration, no greeting, only sadness and silence. This song carries the weight of son preference that is deeply rooted in Punjab. The women who sing these songs are themselves daughters who once brought this “silence” into their own homes. Yet here they are, passing on exactly this silence.
It’s easy to dismiss these songs by saying they’re outdated and have little relevance in today’s context. But even today they are still sung in rural Punjab on various occasions. Across generations, these songs have conveyed gendered ideologies and contributed to the internalization of practices such as son preference. But to understand this, we must now turn to Kamla Bhasin.
The women of the patriarchy build together
To understand why women sing these songs with such conviction, we can turn to the work of Kamla Bhasin. It raises a simple but important question: Why do women reproduce the very systems that oppress them?
Why do women reproduce the very systems that oppress them?
She argues that women are not weak or willing participants in their own oppression. Rather, patriarchy is not simply an externally imposed system; It also affects the way women see themselves and understand their place in society. Over time, this system shapes her hopes, fears, desires, self-esteem, and understanding of what it means to be a “good woman.”
Bhasin is referring here to the internalization of patriarchy, where patriarchal values become so deeply embedded in everyday thinking that they no longer feel like coercion. In this way, women become carriers and transmitters of patriarchal ideology through folk songs.
The invisible work of performance and repetition
Folk songs are also a form of performance. In this context, the theory of gender performativity is particularly relevant. American scientist and philosopher Judith Butler theorized that gender is not something we simply are; it is continually reproduced through repeated actions, behaviors and social practices.
Folk songs are performances that are repeated on different occasions and reinforce ideologies such as son favoritism and gender bias. The repetition of these performances makes such ideologies seem more natural, undeniable, and culturally legitimate. Folk songs not only reflect social reality; they actively reproduce it.
A folk song proclaims:
My brother’s son, my nephew,
the foundation of my father’s lineage.
In the untranslated version of the song, the phrase “neo jad” literally means a foundation or root upon which the family continues to thrive. It suggests that the daughter is merely a branch that will eventually be separated or married. This metaphor reflects how sons are positioned in these songs as legitimate bearers of the family lineage.
As young girls grow up listening to these songs sung by their mothers, grandmothers and other women celebrating the birth of a son and expressing their disappointment at the birth of a daughter, they gradually internalize these values.
As young girls grow up listening to these songs sung by their mothers, grandmothers and other women celebrating the birth of a son and expressing their disappointment at the birth of a daughter, they gradually internalize these values. They absorb an emotional and cultural environment in which the male child is consistently portrayed as more desirable and valuable. Over time, these repeated performances of folk songs can shape their perceptions of gender and influence their ambitions, so that they themselves may view motherhood primarily as the idea of having sons rather than daughters.
Can we change the songs we grew up with?
Punjab has been called a “Kudi Maar State” (a state where daughters are killed) due to its history of skewed gender ratio and practices such as killing of female children and fetuses. Although there are legal protections, laws alone cannot change cultural attitudes. Folk songs, for example, have historically been important means of passing on patriarchal values from one generation to the next.
There are countless folk songs that have been passed down through generations of women whose lives were limited by strict patriarchal restrictions. For these women, these songs were an expression of their hopes, fears, sadness, and desires, all of which were themselves shaped by patriarchy. But a crucial question that must be asked is: What do these songs mean to today’s generation, which includes the daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters of these women?
The gender ideology expressed in these songs will continue to be perpetuated as modern society continues to sing them. Do these songs have to stay the same? Couldn’t we instead celebrate the birth of a child regardless of gender? Is it possible to rethink them and create a more equal world through folk songs?
The beauty of folk traditions is that they can be changed and transformed. Folklore does not remain static; It evolves as it is passed from one generation to the next. Every performance of a folk song offers the opportunity to recreate and reinterpret it. If folk songs have conveyed patriarchal values across generations, they can also convey values of equality, dignity and empowerment. Reinterpreting these songs does not mean rejecting the tradition. Rather, it means that the tradition can evolve in ways that reflect our changing ideas about gender equality.
When we create and sing songs that celebrate both daughters and sons, future generations can grow up with cultural narratives that value equality over hierarchy. Folklore is therefore not just a means of transmitting values from one generation to the next; It can also be a space in which we rethink these values and imagine a more equal future.
Dr. Vededeep Kaur holds a PhD in Women/Gender Studies from the Department cum Center for Women’s Studies and Development, Panjab University, Chandigarh, specializing in folklore, oral traditions, culture and gender. Her doctoral research, supported by an ICSSR doctoral fellowship, examines the representation of women in Punjabi folk songs.