This book is an anthropological study of the unusual coincidence of prostitution and patriarchy among an extremely marginalized group in north India, the Bedias, who are also a de-notified community.

It is the first detailed account of the implications of a systematic practice of familial prostitution on the kinship structures and marriage practices of a community. This starkly manifests among the Bedias in the clear separation between sisters and daughters who engage in prostitution and wives and daughters-in-law who do not. The Bedias exemplify a situation in which prostitution...