They said Garo women were free.
She inherited the land - and the silence that came with it.In the matrilineal villages of Meghalaya's Garo Hills, daughters inherit. Property passes from mother to youngest daughter. Husbands move into wives' households. For over a century, scholars, journalists, and feminist theorists have pointed to this system as living proof that patriarchy is not inevitable - that another world is possible.But the women who live inside that world tell a different story.
In Matriarchy Interrogated, Garo scholar and researcher Thangkan Ch Marak goes beyond the celebrated surface of matrilineal inheritance to ask the questions that outsiders have never thought to ask: Who makes the decisions? Who carries the burden? What does it actually mean to own land you cannot fully control?
This is not a condemnation of Garo culture. Nor is it a celebration. It is something rarer and more necessary: an honest reckoning - by an insider who loves his community enough to refuse it easy praise.
For readers of gender studies, postcolonial theory, indigenous knowledge, and South Asian culture, Matriarchy Interrogated is a landmark work that challenges everything we thought we knew about matriliny, power, and what it means to be a woman who inherits.
"You never ask who carries the burden." - Merol Sangma, nokna
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Thangkan Ch Marak
Thangkan Ch Marak is a Garo scholar, researcher, and writer from West Garo Hills, Meghalaya, India. Born and raised within a matrilineal family in the very society he studies, he brings to his work something that no outside observer can acquire: a lifetime of lived proximity to the questions he asks.
His work has been recognized and endorsed by community leaders, policymakers, and public figures across Meghalaya, who have affirmed that Matriarchy Interrogated is not merely an academic contribution but a necessary intervention in how Garo society understands and speaks about itself.
