Understanding the position of women in India using literature as a primary source

Looking at women in ancient societies has become critical in understanding patriarchal history and how it came to be. Historians working on gender studies agree on the fact that gender as an element has not been given its due importance in the discipline of history. Treating all genders and the history related to them has been a rather new sphere of study; even though each historical process has been different, it is only the masculinity of the history which comes forward. A hierarchy emerges, where marginalization of a ‘weaker’ sex takes place.

Bruce Lincoln (1981) has defined gender as a system through which different behaviour, spheres of activities, capacities, valuations, status opportunities, preferences are prescribed to different sexes. The difference between sex and gender also becomes an important part of our study to understand gender. Generally speaking, sex is biological and gender is cultural. However, scholars like Judith Butler (1999) believe that sex is also cultural and not biological. Hence, these debates show how complicated it can get while trying to understand and study the nuances and of gender. 

Gerda Lerner (1986) in her book ‘Creation of Patriarchy’ attempts to understand the inequalities and the historical subordination of women that persist within the society. It also talks about how these inequalities have come to perpetuate the stereotypes in society. According to Learner, gender is not a ‘natural’ and ‘biological’ but a cultural construct where the role of the woman is fixed by society and culture (ibid).

One can trace the position of female from the present to colonial times through important debates that arose from different schools of thought- Orientalists, Utilitarians, Nationalists, etc. and then the coming of feminist historians.

Orientalists were like the nationalists who painted a ‘glorious past’ picture of Ancient India. Scholars like H.T Colebrooke and William Jones supported orientalism and were part of the Asiatic society. Their research covered mainly the Sanskrit literature, history, and philosophy. Colebrooke engaged himself with the reconstruction of the ‘glories’ of the Ancient Hindus and also wrote an essay on the ‘faithful widow’. His work also highlighted Sati as an ‘awesome’ aspect of Indian womanhood. They also wrote on the ‘Duties of a Hindu Widowhood’. 

On the other hand, the Utilitarians unlike the Orientalists, attacked contemporary Indian society, by especially focusing on the low status of women. Anglican writers, especially Christian missionaries, were methodically building up an indictment about the hideous state of Indian society. Some writers like Mill, Grant, and Duff suggested various shortcomings and drew important observations of where the Indian society lacked. Mill referred to Hindu civilization as crude from its very beginnings and plunged it the lowest depths of immortality and crime.

Apart from these two schools of thought, the feminists contest various images of women that have taken place over time by trying to situate women’s history from a broader perspective. Kumkum Roy (1999), suggests that it all started with the British who were fascinated with both history and the ‘woman question’ which was typical of the middle classes in 19th century Britain. Roy says that by the beginning of the 20th century, spaces for investigating women’s histories started opening.

Both Uma Chakravarti and Roy suggested that in the 19th century the ‘image of womanhood’ was getting importance. Uma Chakravarti (1993) suggests that every community at some point need to be reconstituted with their past. India experienced this in the 19th century when historical consciousness was reshaped, and a new script for women’s questions came into existence. But this script was used in the end led to the creation of Hindu-Aryan identity. The women became nothing but ‘symbols’ of ‘lost glory’ which almost seemed like a burden. 

Uma Chakravarti tells us that the 19th-century became the period of historical consciousness and this is when the myth of the golden age of Vedic women is also built where the women become an ‘object of historical concern when questions of Sati and widow remarriage comes up, they go back to the ‘glorious’ Indian past to explain otherwise. 

Clarice Bader wrote ‘Women in Ancient India’ (1867) which dealt with women’s widow remarriage and widowhood. She criticized the western materialism as compared to eastern spiritualism. She praised Indian spirituality on one hand and the other hand said that if Christianity came about they would be safe as a society. However, she talks only about upper-class women and their ideal lives and forgets about the lower class women.

Kumkum Roy (1999) suggests that the colonial state was rendered as masculine while the colonized, especially the native males, were looked at as a ‘feminine’ form. To defend their indigenous masculine identities, Indians emphasized the notion of how the ancient Indian period was the ‘golden age’ for women- which later was illustrated in ‘The Position of Women in Hindu Civilization’ by Altekar. The ‘Altekarian Paradigm’ argues that women during the Vedic Age were in a much better position than the women in the 19th century. 

Behind this paradigm lay two contradictory trends which he believed influenced the position of women. These were (1) declining religious rights, familial status and participation in public life, and (2) an increase in proprietary rights. This inquiry was further divided into four ancient periods- the Rigveda ( c.2500 to c.1500 BCE), the age of the later Samhitas, Brahmanas and Upanishads (c.1500 BCE to c.500 BCE), the age of sutras, epics and early Smrtis (c.500 BCE to c. AD 500) and, the age of later Smritis, Commentators and Digest Writers (c.AD 500 to c. AD 180).

On the other hand, Uma Chakravarti’s (1988) ‘Beyond Alterkarian Paradigm’ opened a new window towards the understanding of gender relations in early Indian history. She finds Altekar’s work based on Brahmanical understanding which creates an inherent bias focusing specifically on upper-caste women and not on Shudras. 

Altekar mentions that ‘men and women had equal education but as mentioned in the Rigveda even men did not have the education then how did women have?’ questions Chakravarti. Chakravarti emphasizes how it is important to rewrite history and make it inclusive for women.

There was a shift in writing during the 50s and 60s with socio-cultural aspects of society are discussed by historians like D.D Kosambi and R.S Sharma. Emphasis is laid on archaeological sources and not just on text. This is the period when historians write on Shudras, marginal communities and feminist historians like Suvira Jaiswal (2007) bring to light history from a women’s perspective and further how controlling the sexuality of women became central to the society. 

Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid in their work- ‘Recasting Women- Essays in Colonial History’ (1990) have raised important questions based on the colonial image of ancient Indian women. They tried to show how colonial laws like the abolition of sati and remarriage of widows were conducive to aggravate the unequal status of women. Women played an important role in maintaining the caste system; they weren't allowed to marry a man of different varna, hence maintaining the balance.

To conclude, one can say that the above historiography of the female position in India shows how it has changed through periods. Several questions in these primary sources have been raised about the security and position of women but none of them has provided with a solution.

REFERENCES

Lincoln, B. (1981), Emerging from the Chrysalis: Studies in Rituals of Women's Initiation,

Cambridge: Harvard University Press

Lerner, G, (1986), The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press

Butler,  J.  (1999),  Gender  Trouble:  Feminism and the  Subversion of  Identity.  New  York:

Routledge, Print.

Roy, K. (1999), Women in Early Indian Societies, Manohar Publishers & Distributors. Chakravarti, U. (1993). Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India: Gender, Caste, Class and State. Economic and Political Weekly, 28(14), 579-585. Retrieved July 4, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/4399556

Chakravarti, U. (1988). Beyond the Altekarian Paradigm: Towards a New Understanding of Gender Relations in Early Indian History. Social Scientist, 16(8), 44-52. doi:10.2307/3517507 Jaiswal, S. (2007). GENERAL PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS: CASTE, GENDER AND IDEOLOGY IN THE MAKING OF INDIA. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 68, 1-

Retrieved July 4, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/44147814

Sangari, K., & Vaid, S, (1990), Recasting Women- Essays in Colonial History, Rutgers University Press.