A decade on, the government’s flagship Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme has ensured Haryana’s daughters are born and schooled, yet the patriarchal mindset remains impregnable. In the hinterland, where the father’s word is law, a son remains a social necessity even if he arrives after 10 sisters. Families are no longer killing girls in the womb; they are simply continuing to conceive until a boy is born. Hindustan Times tracked three such families in the rural outback of Fatehabad, Jind, and Rohtak districts