![](\"https:\/\/cdn-images-1.medium.com\/max\/1200\/0*77-QRK9Em18Mfnko.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe marriage was registered under the marriage registration act 2028 which allows for the \u201cmarriage\u201d between a man and a woman. Nath is not divorced from his wife but his wife gave written consent to marry Shahi. According to one local news portal the bureaucrats easily registered the marriage saying: \u201cFirst, the wife has given written consent and was presented here during the registration; second, Monica is a third gender so this new marriage won\u2019t produce any child; and third, Ramesh is a man and Monica is third gender woman\u201d.<\/p>\n
I have couple of observations to make:<\/p>\n
1) I am not surprised at all to see the Nepalese bureaucrat\u2019s laid back and relaxed attitudes on most of the aspects of this case. That they are concerned with procreation in a second marriage should really be none of their business\u200a\u2014\u200abut indicates some of their personal notions of what a relationship is.<\/p>\n
2) South Asians are master to keeping things\u00a0flexible, not fixed<\/a>. Hence the interpretation of the law and trying to fit Ramesh-Monica\u2019s marriage registration into it is to be expected to some extent. It\u2019s both a strength and a weakness of the system.<\/p>\n 3) I believe, even though the terminology \u201csame-sex marriage\u201d is used, it is not actually understood as same-sex marriage by the individuals involved\u200a\u2014\u200aor the bureaucrats. However activists, reporters, and others are just copying \u2018western\u2019 terminologies without giving a serious thought while using it for\u00a0Nepali context<\/a>. They also do it because of lack of \u201cappropriate South Asian term\u201d we can\u00a0translate easily<\/a>\u00a0into English and vice-versa. In a legal system that\u00a0acknowledges three<\/a>\u00a0genders\/sexes (there\u2019s only one term in the Nepali language for both sex and gender), this poses some important questions for how relationships can or should be acknowledged while same-sex relationship recognition remains under consideration in a government committee.<\/p>\n So, to call it a \u201csame-sex marriage\u201d right now is not necessarily accurate or respectful. Shahi does not identify with the male sex she was assigned at birth\u200a\u2014\u200ashe\u00a0identifies as a third gender woman<\/a>.\u00a0She<\/a>\u00a0has also been\u00a0legally recognized as such by the government<\/a>\u200a\u2014\u200aas have others. The history of activism for\u00a0including gender and sexual minorities<\/a>\u00a0in Nepal has been one of\u00a0flexibility and creativity<\/a>\u00a0as\u00a0much as it has been<\/a>\u00a0one of\u00a0courage and traditional advocacy routes<\/a>. While it\u2019s important to celebrate that government officials have respected Shahi and Nath\u2019s relationship, it\u2019s also important not to slap an inaccurate\u200a\u2014\u200aeven if convenient\u200a\u2014\u200alabel on it. Social and political progress does not need to be linear to be important. The same-sex marriage committee in Kathmandu should take this as a signal that the results of their work are\u00a0long overdue<\/a>, and the\u00a0political flexibility<\/a>\u00a0around the country is ready for official sanction to be given to all kinds of relationships between consenting adults.<\/p>\n Thank you and Namaste!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sunil Babu Pant\/Pant – Recently a headline appeared in the Nepali media translated as \u201cSame-sex-marriage is registered with the help of a wife.\u201d But the truth is a little more complicated than that.
\nFirst: Is it really a same-sex marriage? Before we talk about what it is or what it should be called let\u2019s get the facts clear: A married person, Ramesh Nath from Dadeldhura district, who identifies himself as a man and married to a woman, has fallen in love with a person, Monica Shahi from Kailali, who was assigned …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":7904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,621,492,490],"tags":[843,588,157],"class_list":["post-7903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights","category-news","category-opinion","category-slider","tag-former-member-of-constituent-assembly-ca-sunil-babu-pant","tag-same-sex-marriage","tag-sunil-babu-pant"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7905,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7903\/revisions\/7905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}