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The Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs (MoLJPA) recently introduced a draft amendment to Section 175 of the National Penal Code Act, 2017 concerning the conditions under which a marriage is deemed void. The proposal drew widespread opposition from Parliament, women’s rights activists, human rights defenders and the public for containing a controversial provision: if a child is born or a woman is pregnant from a second relationship, that relationship would not be voided solely for being polygamous. Critics and rights advocates have termed the clause “regressive,” warning it creates a legal loophole that legitimizes polygamy.

Against this backdrop, this article begins by outlining the core provisions of the proposed amendment to the National Penal Code. It then critically examines the underlying logic driving the proposal, highlighting its internal weaknesses and inconsistencies. The discussion proceeds to interrogate the deeper assumptions embedded in the lawmaking process—particularly the troubling stereotype about men’s nature and behavior that the amendment appears to endorse—and demonstrates why these assumptions are both inaccurate and harmful. Finally, the article explains how the proposed amendment contradicts Nepal’s national legal framework and concludes with recommendations for a constructive way forward.

Explanation of the provision

Nepal banned polygamy more than 60 years ago with the introduction of the Muluki Ain (National Code) in 1963, which made polygamy a punishable offence but did not allow such marriages to be annulled. This changed in 2017 when the National Penal  Code Act 2017  introduced a provision in Section 175 that automatically voids a second marriage if the first one is still legally valid. The Criminal Code also set penalties under Section 175, stating that a man who marries another woman while still married can face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to Rs 50,000.

The proposed amendment mentions that if a child has already been born from the marital relationship or if the woman is pregnant, such marriage shall not be annulled solely on the grounds that the person has been punished for the offence of polygamy. This is a significant deviation from the earlier provision, which automatically voided a second marriage if the first marriage was still valid. Critics argue that this proposed clause could make it easier for individuals to commit polygamy by simply serving the punishment while retaining the marriage.

When logic takes a backseat

“If a man no longer shares a heartfelt relationship with his wife and then develops a relationship with another woman—resulting in the birth of a child—yet does not formalize the relationship through marriage, the second woman’s life can be devastated. In many such cases, a large number of women end up abandoned and on the streets”, this quote from the Secretary of the Ministry of Law Parashwor Dhungana summarizes the key logic presented by the amendment proposer to the law.  But a thorough examination of the logic behind the proposed amendment exposes deeply flawed assumptions. The proposal starts with the premise that some men engage in extramarital affairs—and assumes these affairs inevitably involve physical intercourse. It then leaps to the conclusion that such intercourse will almost certainly lead to conception and the birth of a child. Based on this shaky foundation, the amendment argues that the mother and child born from such unions will face legal, social and cultural hardships if the second marriage is annulled. The solution? Legalize polygamy to “protect” their rights.

But this so-called protection hides a troubling contradiction. While it claims to protect women and children, it ends up encouraging extramarital affairs, approving relationships outside marriage and even allowing men to father children in such situations. In doing so, it risks making polygamy seem acceptable, all under the cover of safeguarding rights.

Worse still, the provision allows this cycle to continue indefinitely, limited only by a man’s reproductive capacity. It effectively permits men to bypass existing anti-polygamy laws and engage in multiple simultaneous marriages. This undermines the very legal and moral framework that sustains monogamous marriage and family integrity.

Creatures of uncontrollable urges?

The proposed amendment assumes men are driven primarily by uncontrollable sexual urges and biological imperatives, effectively stripping them of their agency, responsibility and dignity. This depiction reduces men to nothing more than violent actors whose actions must be tolerated or legally accommodated, regardless of the moral or social consequences. Such a portrayal is a serious mischaracterization that unjustly paints men as incapable of self-control, fidelity, or respect for the law.

This assumption is not only inaccurate but profoundly unfair. It denies men their capacity for ethical decision-making and holds them to a double standard that excuses illegal behavior under the guise of biological necessity. To portray men as inherently unable to resist extramarital relationships or as individuals whose reproductive acts supersede their legal obligations is to condemn them unjustly and deny their full humanity.

Furthermore, this portrayal entrenches harmful stereotypes that reinforce patriarchal norms, suggesting that men deserve special legal privileges simply because their biology “demands” it. This is not only damaging to men’s social and moral standing but also undermines the principles of justice, equality, and personal accountability that any fair legal system must uphold.

Contradiction with legal framework

The proposed amendment, though intended to protect mothers and children, contradicts Nepal’s constitutional provisions, national laws and international human rights obligations. It undermines the Muluki Civil Code, 2017, and the National Criminal (Penal) Code, 2017, which criminalize polygamy and safeguard marital equality. Constitutionally, it breaches Article 38, which guarantees women’s rights, and Article 18, which ensures equality before the law. Internationally, it violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, Article 16), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, Article 16), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, Articles 3 and 23), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, Article 10), all of which uphold equality in marriage, protect women’s dignity, and prohibit practices that perpetuate discrimination and inequality.

Consequences and the way forward

In the last fiscal year alone, 521 out of 1,198 women, who approached the National Women Commission, were victims of husbands’ extramarital affairs. Many married men involved in these affairs were found to be living in “live-in relationships” with other women—an arrangement unregulated by Nepal’s laws—leaving their wives vulnerable to violence and exploitation. Reports from the Office of the Attorney General reveal that in the first four years after the National Criminal (Penal) Code came into force, district courts registered an average of 850 polygamy cases each year. Nepal Police data show 653 polygamy cases in 2080–81 alone, with the actual number likely far higher due to underreporting driven by family honor, lack of awareness, fear and social stigma.

Given this alarming situation, the proposed amendment—if enacted—would create dangerous legal loopholes for polygamy, fueling a surge in gender-based violence, domestic abuse and sexual exploitation beyond anything Nepal has yet faced. The government cannot claim ignorance of these consequences. Therefore, to address this, the first step must be to scrap this proposed amendment without delay. The second is to strengthen the legal framework and enforcement mechanisms to ensure that no law in Nepal undermines the rights, dignity and safety of women. The third step is to foster a transparent environment where wider and meaningful consultation takes place before any law is discussed or passed.

The author is a researcher with an interest in the intersection of media and gender

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The Council of Ministers, after massive protests from all sides, has decided to form a task force to revise the draft amendment on polygamy law in Nepal. Before this decision, Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Ajay Kumar Chaurasiya, had clarified: the government is not seeking to promote polygamy through the proposed legal amendment, and the aim is to protect the rights of children born out of wedlock. This kind of framing shifts the burden of accountability from the legal system to individual cases of infidelity and dysfunctional marriages, treating them as aberrations rather than manifestations of systemic failure. The narrative exposes the entangled relationship between law, gender and society, while raising broader questions about who bears the consequences, and what voices and lens shape the marriage law in Nepal?

Despite the government’s decision to rethink the amendment, there needs to be a critical uprising until it is reverted. In this article, I argue that the proposed amendment will reinforce the systemic treatment of marriage as a means to establish paternity, and it is acutely detrimental to gender justice in Nepal.

(Ir)relevance of the proposed amendment

The current marriage law requires children to bear their father’s (sur)name to be considered “legitimate”. The Nepali women’s struggle for their identity, their household and economic roles in raising children are undermined. Firstly, the amendment will reaffirm that biological fathers are accountable solely through marriage, while falsely viewing them as well-equipped guardians, always capable of providing and protecting. The widely perceived, dominant masculine role of men as the ultimate provider is legitimized, while it should have been that of a duty-sharer and an equal partner in current times where women’s rights as human rights have been widely-globally ratified. Moreover, the Constitution of Nepal guarantees gender equality as an enforceable right.

Secondly, the amendment will maintain the notion that marriage is primarily a means to legitimize a fathers’ role as a patriarch. There is no alternative legal means for a Nepali woman to demand economic and social responsibilities of fathers for the children born outside marriage. The amendment is further going to perpetuate this systemic malfunction, rather than providing a reasonable recourse for the parties involved.

The minister asserts that the law still stands against polygamy in other circumstances besides those that do not require such “compensation”. Marriage, one or multiple, cannot be an effective reparation in itself. It is a social institution embedded with complex gender power relations.  

In heteronormative patriarchal cultures, central to sustainable marriage has been the ideal conduct of wives, not of husbands. Unofficial unions are often secret affairs. Wives are expected to be forgiving and accepting, while the second woman is demonized as the “home breaker”. The husband’s social status is not much affected because the notion related to men as hypersexual “polygamous” beings is widely internalized. The proposed amendment will provide legal cover to men who have unofficially married multiple women or fathered children outside marriage. The affected women and children on both sides will still have to navigate stigma, having to uphold family honor. Thus, polygamy remains a problem and allowing it under specific circumstances does not play a compensatory role, just legitimizes marriage for the purpose of patrilineal recognition.

The paradox of legal reform

Despite the constitutional mandate for gender equality, the marriage law in Nepal is mired in contradictions.

Chapter 1 (Provisions relating to marriage), Section 68 describes marriage as “a permanent, inviolable and holy social and legal bond”, a sacred institution which should not be dissolved, and that the law will try to keep intact. The reality of diverse unintended marital consequences where either party indulges in multiple unofficial sexual/romantic relationships contradicts with this definition. 

How many such “inviolable alliances” a man is allowed for his children to be legitimized? Does official marriage guarantee an accountable fatherhood and functional spousal relationship? Also, as polyandry is criminalized too, the amendment creates a systemic gender gap, wherein women are morally obliged to be loyal and men get a pass in garb of patrilineal rights. The law then becomes a tool to regulate women’s sexuality through marriage.

In Nepal, the parliament is mandated to ratify all legal decisions, any legal gap that is addressed by the parliament is based on value judgement. The value judgements should ideally be based on the principles of natural justice, and notion of liberty and equality. This contradicts with the legal framework guided by historically dominant Brahminical Hindu supremacy. Hindu male scholars in the past have portrayed women’s identity in their scriptures as child bearing entities, whose character and conduct should be regulated by “virtuous” men for better procreation. The law defines and regulates the essence of marriage through the very lens. Already problematic, this further puts the inclusion and diversity issue within the parliament as well as the judicial bench under spotlight. Whose voices shape the law in a nation with vastly diverse ethnicities? What power frameworks underpin, and what theories constitute the notion of “liberty” for lawmakers and judicial committees?

Reflecting further, through “compensation” narrative, evidently, the law views women (both in official and unofficial union) in victimhood realm, which warrants recompense, male-protection and dependency. 

Alternatively, a legal approach to viewing women as agents opens ways for understanding their choices, needs and gendered predicaments in complex relationships. And, it is also important to assess the patriarchal elements, the ground-level, systemic and dysfunctional situations under which enable such relationships to unfold and majorly affect women. The law should seek to explore what are the regional and global precedents of individuals navigating through such relationships through law? How have the women, men and children been legally supported in those circumstances, without permitting polygamy?

Last but important, in most of the contexts in Nepal, marriage does not involve merely a husband-wife relationship. The power bestowed on the groom as a patriarch extends to his paternal side of the family, multiplying control, surveillance and potential abuse of the bride. Further intersecting issues such as dowry system, obsessive patrilineal claim over children undermine mother’s decisions and rights, intercaste dynamics, etc. There is legal evidence of these factors compounding to affect women disproportionately in Nepal. Legitimizing polygamy under any circumstance will thus fuel violence against women, and lead to proliferated gender conflicts, dysfunctional families and neglected children in the long run.

In conclusion, there needs to be a sincere discourse around the legally mainstreamed patrilineal legitimacy to begin with. It is high time that the lawmakers do not take patriarchy as a given framework to draft laws. For now, the counterproductive, myopic and gender-biased decision for the amendment needs to be reversed immediately.

For a long time, Nepali media took its audience for granted. Little to no research was done on reader profiles, content preferences, audience engagement or even on circulation research and readability research which form the backbone of effective print media.

Similarly, there has been a complete lack of audience ratings research for radio and television. In the absence of such insights, audiences were expected to consume and believe whatever content was disseminated. The result of this one-sided dynamic has been disastrous as traditional media are now struggling to retain its audience. 

In the 20th century, audiences did not have many ways to consume the news. The relationship between media and audiences was largely one-way traffic, and audience engagement was limited to occasional letters to the editor or phone calls.

Radio, television and print were used to influence and control public opinion, often pushing through specific narratives. Audiences were viewed as passive recipients of information, and media houses operated under the assumptions of the “magic bullet theory” introduced by Harold Laswell in the 20th century. This theory assumed that media messages had a direct, powerful effect on a passive audience.

Although audiences may have had grievances, they either did not have a channel to register their feedback or media houses simply ignored their feedback. In contrast, the digital era introduced the “two-step flow theory” which seeks greater audience participation, engagement and feedback. Still, the remnants of the old bullet theory persist in the Nepali media landscape, albeit in subtler forms.

In Nepal, things began to change with the advent and subsequent expansion of the internet. By early 2000, online news platforms began to emerge. Unlike traditional outlets, these platforms introduced comment sections from the outset, giving readers space to express their opinion and to engage with content. 

The internet, and the broader digitization of Nepali society, transformed the country’s media sphere. While audiences in the past had limited access to news, they are now inundated with options. More importantly, they now have direct access to primary sources such as government press releases, official documents and reports. This allows them to compare what media houses report with the original information and identify discrepancies.

Meanwhile, the exponential rise of social media began reshaping how Nepali people consumed news. Traditional media lost its monopoly over the creation and dissemination of information. Ironically, media houses themselves rushed to social platforms to share their contents, often produced with significant investment, without a clear strategy for engagement or monetization. 

At the same time, internet access expanded even to remote areas for Nepal, becoming affordable even for low-income communities. Equipped with smartphones and internet access, audiences began spending more time on platforms like Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). Global studies show that between 2008 and 2018, these platforms led to a fundamental shift in new consumption. Today, however, TikTok has overtaken both as a primary source of information for many users.

When media houses began sharing their content on social media, it eliminated the need for audiences to turn to newspapers, radio and television for news. Despite this, Nepali media was doing relatively well in terms of revenue and audience before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, once nationwide lockdowns were enforced to curb the spread, the media landscape changed dramatically. For the first time in the history of Nepali media, many print publications halted operations for days. Radio and television also reduced news production significantly. A few online platforms, despite health risks, continued delivering news.

As people remained confined to their homes, they turned to smartphones and digital platforms for information. At the same time, government agencies, private businesses and NGOs relied heavily on social media to communicate with the public. This combination of traditional media’s limited presence and the active role of digital platforms meant that audiences were able to fulfill their information needs without newspapers or TV.  In fact, during the COVID era, a significant portion of the audience shifted to social media for news consumption, especially in Nepal. By the time the pandemic subsided, traditional media had lost a last share of its readership and advertising revenue.

Despite these seismic changes, mainstream media in Nepal largely failed to recognize, or respond, to the shifting dynamics of news production, dissemination and consumption. Meanwhile, other platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, and short-form video formats gained rapid popularity. 

For far too long, media houses in Nepal took their audiences for granted. They failed to evolve with changing news consumption behaviors and technological trends. Now, they are faced with a three-fold challenge: finding ways to retain the audience, researching reader preferences and developing sustainable revenue models. This has become a do-or-die situation for the media.

But no scientific research has been conducted in Nepal to understand changing media consumption patterns. Neither regional nor international research organizations have included Nepal in their studies. However, it is evident even without formal data that audiences are consuming news via TikTok and other platforms rather than by reading newspapers and watching television stations. 

The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report, while not focused on Nepal, offers useful insights. The report points out that an accelerating shift toward consumption via social media and video platforms is further diminishing the influence of institutional journalism and fostering a fragmented media ecosystem dominated by podcasters, YouTubers and TikTokers.

The report also states that populist politicians around the world are bypassing traditional journalism, opting instead for friendly partisan outlets and influences. These personalities often gain privileged access, but rarely ask questions. Many of them are involved in spreading disinformation. In many ways, India’s experience mirrors that of Nepal’s, the report says.

According to the Reuters study, Indian audiences show a strong preference for accessing news via smartphones and social media platforms such as YouTube (55 percent), WhatsApp (46 percent), Instagram (37 percent) and Facebook (36 percent), especially among English-speaking users. This trend likely holds true for Nepal as well.

Another global trend that is increasingly evident in Nepal is news fatigue. With decades of political instability, the media has been dominated by repetitive coverage of political wrangling, corruption and the same political figures. On the international front, conflict-heavy news continues to dominate headlines. Audiences are growing tired of this monotony; they no longer want to read or hear the same narratives year after year.

While mainstream media has played an essential role in strengthening democracy, exposing corruption and holding power accountable, it has lagged behind in offering diverse, engaging content. This has contributed to audience fatigue and disinterest.

In conclusion, media houses must rethink their strategy. They need to increase their presence on platforms where audiences are active, especially video-centric platforms like YouTube and TikTok. As gatekeepers of institutional journalism, they still possess the credibility and capacity to serve public interest, but they must listen more to what their audience wants. 

This means developing responsive content strategies, adopting audience research methods and creating sustainable digital revenue models. More importantly, it is time to actively implement Audience Engagement Theory, which emphasizes two-way communication and greater interaction with the public. If mainstream media is to stay relevant, it must stop treating its audience as passive recipients and start seeing them as active participants in the media ecosystem.

Nepal’s political jostling always manages to keep everyone on the edge of their seats—ranging from possible communist reunification to sporadic pro-monarchical protests. However, one constant has kept looming around the mainstream ever since the current constitution’s ratification—a directly elected executive. Apart from the two major parties, this seems to be on every party’s manifesto—from CPN (Maoist Center) to the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP). There are, of course, variations to the concept—most of which I’ll touch upon very basically below. 

The appeal of a directly elected executive is clear, especially in Nepal’s polity. It brings democracy front and center, appealing to voters eager to sideline political disarray and usher in leadership to provide “effective” governance. The latter is also the reason why this change is championed by parties whilst in opposition but eschewed once in government. This might be why this concept seems irrefutable, as governments struggle to last meaningfully and public perception of governance has consistently been poor. A peaceful transition to a new form of governance—“effective” and “long-lasting”—would appear to be the way out. The issue is, this runs away from its flaws, which are consistently shunned as “details to be worked out”. The details, however, aren’t as bright as political jingoism would have you believe. 

The current constitution could be amended to account for two forms of a direct executive—through the President or the Prime Minister. The first option of a directly elected President is heavily favored by the Maoist Center and its close allies. This would mean a single head of state and the government, appealing to those against “political extravagance”. This system would also include a legislature—whether it is directly elected or PR representation as some have suggested. This would include two cases—wherein the directly-elected President holds a majority in legislature, and wherein they don’t. In case they don’t, governance wouldn’t get “effective” and would instead deteriorate as the legislature will likely look to stamp its authority when it perceives an overbearing executive. There’s a strong chance where key legislation like the budget is stalled leading to government paralysis or even shutdown—as evidenced consistently in the United States. 

However, let’s assume they do—the President’s party has a commanding legislative majority. There will, of course, be a fundamental question of checks and balances but contextualizing it to Nepal’s polity shows its dangers. A presidential majority might seem like former Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s political endgame, given the circumstances surrounding his resignation during his first term. Although it seems long gone now, it wasn’t too soon ago when former President Ram Baran Yadav had to step-in to prevent Dahal’s overreach. Even if one were to disregard that event, a simple look into Nepal’s history with majoritarian governance backed by the military, be it in 2005 or prior to 1990, should inform one of the possible prospects ahead. 

However, there’s another noble option to executive governance—one preferred by the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) and the RPP—through a directly elected Prime Minister. This appeals to ensure “effective” governance whilst shielding themselves from abovementioned critiques. It must be noted that the only modern example of such a system was in Israel, from 1996 to 2001, when they abandoned it. This system maintains the current structure of government, wherein every voter would likely just have an additional ballot for a prime ministerial candidate. This system would similarly have a legislative majority or minority Prime Minister. Although proponents of this governance structure might assume outright majorities to deliver “effectiveness”, this system is likely to render further political clutter than we currently have. Voters are likely to split ballots—more so than a direct presidential election—where legislators represent local concerns and the Prime Minister is to deliver broad governance mandates. There is empirical evidence to support this, and this was also the primary reason Israel abandoned it in the first place. A minority Prime Minister is fundamentally inept to deliver “effective” governance as proponents promise, whereas the presence of a head of state further raises questions on stability in the face of government deadlock—compromising when the head of state needs to interject to possibly replace the Prime Minister.

However, as in the presidential case—let’s assume the Prime Minister commands a legislative majority for their entire term. The Prime Minister is stable for the entirety of their term and can work “effectively”. However, even in this quixotic scenario—a head of state, whomever it might be, will co-exist alongside the Prime Minister as it does now. A majoritarian Prime Minister forces the head of state to reevaluate their boundaries of accountability, as shown by the French fourth Republic or the recent Israeli judicial reform crisis. The head of state must walk an extremely thin line—they can’t enable authoritarianism like Ahmed during the Indian emergency, nor can they impede governance like Mattarella during the 2018 Italian government crisis. 

Nepal’s history of Prime Ministers with legislative majorities and a supposedly symbolic head of state, going back to BP Koirala to KP Oli’s parliamentary dissolution, should stress how thin of a line it is for the head of state. This is of course under an “ideal” scenario, where the legislative majority lasts throughout the parliamentary term.   

My critique of these respective systems isn’t meant to invite gloom—but rather encourage honest discourse instead of political jingoism. It is completely fair to propagate for either of these systems, but political parties have been given far too much leeway to preach “effectiveness” and direct democracy without a framework of how it would actually work in practice. Nepal needs democratic stability and instead of contributing toward parliamentary maturity, every time a party is in opposition, their campaign is to upend parliamentary democracy altogether. 

Parliamentary democracy might appear messy and unstable—but the alternative cannot be to open another Pandora’s box of experimentation. There might be multiple Prime Ministers in a parliamentary term, divergent coalitions and displeasure over governance but diverting to systems unable to stand such basic scrutiny like above isn’t the solution. Political parties need to get into the nitty-gritty constitutional legalese of alternative systems or stop selling this direct election dreamland once and for all.

The author is a graduate student in economics at the University of South Florida