Celibacy as a religious ideology: Challenges of sexuality, gender, and kinship expectations among Brahma Kumaris of Central India

Abstract

This article examines celibacy as a religious ideology within the social context of the Brahma Kumaris (BKs), a women-led New Religious Movement, by focusing on the intended and unintended consequences of women practicing celibacy for spiritual upliftment. Articulations of those intended and unintended consequences pose many challenges for women, leading them to reconfigure the sociological institutions of family, marriage, and kinship. Furthermore, the analysis focuses on how celibate women reconfigure certain patriarchal constructions of gender and religion by breaking into the male exclusivity of religious authority within Hindu society. The article highlights the complexity of agency, autonomy, and empowerment by moving beyond the binaries of active contestation and passive acceptance, and by examining the ambiguous nature of this terrain, where women constantly navigate their identities through everyday resistance. © 2026 Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore.