C h a p t e r IV

Women's P e r c e p t i o n s of T h e i r E m a n c i p a t i o n

Women' perception about their emancipation has been revealed through

the debate on a number of women centered social issues in the nineteenth

century. Intended to change the existing state of women, the discourse on

issues like sati, widowhood and the age of consent for marriage helped to

disclose not only the male perceptions of emancipation but also provided an

opportunity to trace the way women perceived their emancipation. While men

made use of all the available facilities both in the public and private spheres of

life to convince society of the need for a change in the prevailing state of

women. very few women except Pandita Ramabai and Parvati Athavale,

utilized the public platforms to express their views on cvomen's emancipation.

Fortunately. women who did not express their views dared to scribble about

their life in secret. These personal accounts constitute a very valuable source

of information in discussing women's concept of emancipation in the

nineteenth century. The astonishments and criticis~nsas reflected in their

writings about the very different social atmosphere of the nineteenth century

and the drastic changes in the position of women articulate the implications and

effects of the discourse on women.

E n i g m a o f Sati

Though the social anomaly called sati,the custom of self ilnmolation of

\$omen in the funeral pyre of their husbands. was the first women centred
social issue which triggered off a series of debates on women throughout the

nineteenth century. Ironically, no evidence has been recorded regarding

women-s involve~nentin the movement against sati. Even before the abolition

of sati in 1829, the desirability of the role of woomen in the campaign against

sati was suggested. In a letter published in the Asiatic Jozrrnal way back in

1824, the writer suggested that it would be very honourable to the ladies in

Calcutta, were they all to unite in presenting a petition and soliciting the Lady

of the Governor General, to do them the honour of putting her name first. This

would display. according to the writer. the humanity and sympathy of the

Calcutta ladies, and have a great practical effect, by leading many to impress

on their husbands the importance of rescuing a degraded part of the fernale

sex.' However, participation of women in the movement for the abolition of

sati was found conspicuously absent. Ram Mohan Roy, who spearheaded the

campaign against sati, also did not express the need of women's presence in the

movement. Nevertheless, the conrelnporary records of British officials,

travellers and missionaries contain brief interviews with the "would be" sati.

Based on this evidence. an attempt is made to look into the ideology, which

worked behind the exceptional courage of women to put an end to their life in a

very ghastly manner.

I
Cited in J.Peggs, Suttee's Cry to Britain. Burning Hindu Widows
(London: Seeley and Son, 1828) 9 1.
 Amidst the unabated breath of the enthusiastic crowd gathered and the

rhythmic recital of mantras, a woman stood ready in her best clothes and

orna~nentsto mount the pyre with a stoic indifference on her face - a

stereotypical portrayal of a would be sati as provided in contemporary records.

It is strange that in spite of being the central character in the gruesome episode,

she was seldom provided with a chance to express herself. Until the shrieks

come out of the blazing pyre when the fire starts to devour her body, she

assumes a deep silence and remains insensitive to the activities around. Abbe J.

A. Dubois who witnessed a sati during his travel in the Tanjore District has

given his observation of the demeanour typical of the '-would be" sati.

During the whole procession, which was a very long one, the
widow preserved a calm demeanour. Her looks were serene,
even smiling; but when she reached the fatal place where she
was to yield up her life in so ghastly a manner, it was observed
that her firmness suddenly gave way. Plunged, as it were, in
gloomy thought she seemed to pay no attention whatever to
what was passing around her. Her looks became wildly fixed
upon the pyre. Her face grew deadly pale. Her very limbs were
in a convulsive tremor.. .. The brah~ninsand her near relatives
endeavoured to revive her drooping spirits. All was of no
effect. The unfortunate woman, bewildered and distracted,
turned a deaf ear to all their exhortations and preserved a deep
si~ence.~

Abbe J.A.Dubois: Hindu customs and manners Vol.11. Trans. Henry

K.Beauchamp. (Oxford: University of Oxford, 1897) 366-367.
Her insensitivity and silence speak eloquently about the conflict in her "self'.

She may or may not have found fault with the sanctity of the custom but her

outward expression was devoid of her inner conflict. Even if the woman

mounted the pyre voiuntarily. the voluntary aspect of her decision seemed

ambiguous, as she had alreadj been chosen to die. If she resisted immolation,

she was forced to bum. Thus in both cases she was not provided with an

option. It is beyond doubt that the desperation on her face reflected utter

vulnerability and helplessness to the custom, which was imposed on her

arbitrarily.

One can only make inferences from her silence about her stance on the

custom of sati. However, some of the eyewitness accounts in the nineteenth

century particularly of Europeans included a brief account of their conversation

with the "would be" sati. Though the dialogue with the woman hardly lasted

for five minutes, it did throw some light on her internal strife and thereby

equipped one to produce a limited or restricted discourse on her perception

about sati. The Europeans' attempt to persuade the widow out of burning

herself alive produced the conversational account. While trying to reconstruct

the "would be" sati's stance on the custom based on her conversution with the

eyewitness, it should be noted that the scope of her conversation was limited.

as the person who was trying to dissuade the uidow froin immolation was an

outsider in all respects.

 An examination of the contemporary records on sati shows that woinen

were stupefied by the fantastic notion of life in heaven with her husband. The

sati was looked upon as if she had been already transported to the paradise of

I n d ~ a and
, the crowd seemed to envy her happy lot.3 This whimsical concept

of a life hereafter with the dead husband had been internalised by women to

such an extent that widows used to proclaim their intention to burn with their

husbands without giving a second thought to their fatal decision. The response

received by J. Peggs in his attempt to dissuade a widow froin immolation

dernonstrated how deeply these fanciful ideas had taken roots in her mind. He

narrated the incident thus:

The woman was a Telinga, the wife of a Brahman who had

died the morning about daybreak. Her reply to the several
questions proposed to her through the Telinga interpreter was,
"What have I any Inore to do with the world? I must go to my
husband." She said also, that she had been a suttee in three
former births, and must be four times more, and then she
should attain endless felicity.. .. From Joog to Joog (age to
age), in this manner, with the same husband, she was to be
born and die."
There were more reasons for a widow to resist immolation than to

submit to the horrified custom. Nevertheless no ideology was found more

'Ibid., 365.
J.Peggs, Suttee's Cry to Britain: Burning Hindu widows (London:
Seeley and Son, 1828) 9.
attractive than the expression of her wifely devotion through a heroic deed like

burning herself alive with her husband. It was hailed as an opportunity to

express her intense love for her husband. Though the custom of sati was taken

as the ultimate expression of devotion to her husband, the custom was nothing

but an acid test to her "virtues" like obedience, meekness, ignorance and

docility. A perusal of the primary evidence on sati shows that the motivation

behind the exemplary heroisin of the prospective sati was derived out of the

concept of pativrata rather than from the thought of the miserable experience

of widowhood as corninonly viewed by many historical writings on sati.'

IHowever deplorable the stare of a widow's life might be, a woman would never

prefer death to something, which prolongs her life. Pandita Ramabai also finds

the ovenvhelining effect of the concept of pativvata as a decisive factor in a

widow's decision to become a sati. She asks, "Who would not sacrifice herself

if she were sure of such a result to herself and loved ones?"6

Subjectivity of the prospective sati has been exemplified in writings on

sati both in literature and history. The story of those women who defied the

custom and thus escaped from burning was narrated very rarely. Indeed

eyewitness accounts articulated the defiance of women through the frantic

See for example Ashis Nandy's article "Sati: A nineteenth century tale
of women"' in Rommohan Roy and the process of modernization in India. ed.
V.C. Joshi. Delhi: Vikas, 1975. He argued that the sheer misery of a widow's
life partly negated the prospective suicide's fear of death.

6~andita Ramabai, The High Caste Hindu IYornan (Bombay:

Maharashtra State Board for Literature and Culture, 1982) 39.
efforts made by them to escape from thc blazing pyre or sometimes their last

minute lack of self-confidence to mount the pyre. However, they were not

spared from burning alive. If the family had the tradition of u7idow-immolation

or the members of her family insisted sati. a woman was provided rarely a

chance to evade the custom. Only on the pretext of pregnancy, a widow was

exempted from sati. Yet she was not completely immune from the menace of

the burning pyre. She was supposed to mount the pyre after her delivery. Quite

interestingly instances were found in the records about wornen ~ ~ refused

h o to

budge when they w-ere called upon to burn with the remains of their dead

husband after childbirth. J.Peggs narrated one such incident which occurred

about four miles south of Serampore in 1817. The widow in this incident being

denied the opportunity to burn with her husband out of despair had tried to

accelerate the time of confinement by beating herself severely. At the

expiration of the time of confinement, she refused to fulfill her engagement.

Explaining the stance of the widow, J. Peggs testified. "She had considered the

subject more at leisure, and being at home in the house of her own parents, she

positively rehsed to destroy herself; nor could all the appeals made to her

feelings, all the threats and reproaches poured upon her, alter her resolution in

the least degree."7 Another incident of the same nature mas provided in the

Madura Country ~ a n u a l . ' In both these incidents women transgressed the

7
J. Pegg, Suttees Cry to Bvitain: Burning Hindzi Widows (London:
Seeley and Son, 1828) 27.
8
See appendix v for description of the incident.
collective and organized effort of patriarchy when they were able to overpower

their convulsive and emotional state of mind immediately after the demise of

their husbands. A grief-stricken widow would not be in a state of mind to judge

the reasonability of her words or action. It is a fact that shortly after the death

of the husband, the widow was cajoled or compelled to declare her intention to

commit sati to the waiting brahmins. It was taken as a gesture of disrespect on

the part of the widow to keep brahlnins waiting. Consequently every pressure

was applied on the widow to get her consent soon after her husband's death.

This clearly demonstrates that a widow was given very little time to use her

free will or reason. Hence, her reluctant consent endorses a dubious kind of

legitimacy to the practice.

Trauma of Widowhood

While the custom of sati devours her instantly widowhood kills her

slowly through life long humiliation, neglect and ill treatment. The extreme

cruelties inflicted upon the widows in the nineteenth century were believed to

be according to the precepts of sastras. Dhav?nasastras and commentaries of

the later period advocated a stringent life style to the widows compared to the

earlier texts. Stuidhavmapadhati. an eighteenth century Sanskrit text depicts a

widow thus: "Just as the body, bereft of life, in that moment becomes impure,

so the woinan bereft of her husband is always impure, even if she has bathed

properly. Of all inauspicious things, the widow is the most inauspicious: there
can never be any success after seeing a ~ i d o w . "These
~ kinds of texts acted as

guides among the public to transform the woman to lead a virtuous and worthy
L

life on earth after her husband's death. Imagine the fate of a girl who becomes

a widow at the age of ten or eleven! She is supposed to lead the rest of her life

under all kinds of hardship and humiliation. Due to the efforts of a handful of

reformers who upheld the cause of the widows in the nineteenth century, the

voice of protest started coming out of the four walls of the house to the public.

Sharne on you, Hindu society, and great is your glory! A girl

of ten will have to pay for the marriage of an old man of fifty.
I bow a thousand times at the feet of parents who would in this
way turn a daughter's life into a desert. In no other country
does one find either such a society or such conduct. Such
oppression of women is possible only in India; in no other
country are such customs in vogue. .. I had to learn to accept
the fact at this tender age I would be a slave to other people's
whim for a handfbl of rice.''

The words, which reveal the agony and anguish over her unexpected

widowhood, came from Haimabati Sen who was widowed at the age of eleven.

The disgraceful life of a widow made her coininent against the Hindu custom,

which brought her lasting grief and pain.

9
Julia Leslie, The Perfect Wge. The Orthodox Hindu Woman According
to the Stridharatnapadhati of Tvyanzpakayajvan (Delhi: OUP, 1989) 303.
10
Geraldine Forbes, and Tapan Raychandhuri, The Memoivs of Dr.
Haiwzabati Sen (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2000) 7 .
 Until the death of her husband. a married Hindu woinan is accepted as

most auspicious. During all kinds of ceremonial occasions and rituals,

participation of these .'fortunate3' and auspicious women is essential." This

status that they enjoyed, compared to that of widows was due to their potent

sexuality, which under the control of the husband provided the perpetuation of

lineage. The woman as wife was even hailed as the nurturing ~rakriti." Thus a

sexually active woman in married state \vas considered to be the source of all

good fortune. This did not indicate that she was revered in her husband's

family. On the other hand. the burden of household chores such as cooking,

cleaning and organizing the home hardly gave her time to pause between these

activities. In her autobiography, Amar Jiban, Rassundari Debi narrates how she

was deeply attached to her mother and because of the work in her husband's

home. she was rarely sent to see her mother. She was not even allowed to visit

her dying mother. She laments in distress: "why I was born as a member of the

female sex.? ...Had I been a boy and had new-s of my mother's condition. than

no matter where I had been, like a bird I would have flown to her side. What

am I to do now! I am a caged bird."" Though burdened with household chores,

I1
H.C.Upreti & Nandini Upreti, The Mytlz of Sati. Some Di~nensionsof
Widow Burning (Delhi. Himalaya Publishing House, 199 1) 120.

l 2 Mandakranta Bose, ed., Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval

and Modern India (New Delhi: OUP, 2000) 95.
l3
Cited in Malavika Karlekar, Voices porn Withirz. Early Personal
Narratives of Bengali Women (Delhi: OUP, 1993) 1 16.
and put under strict control of the men and elderly women of the family. the

wife was not despised as w7asdone the uidow.

Once a woman was widowed, she ceased to have an existence and was

considered socially dead. All kinds of humiliation were heaped on her. Many a

mother-in-law believed a widow, especially a young widow to be responsible

for her sons' death. Haimabati Sen recalls how her mother in-law abused her

for the death of her husband. She heard her mother-in-law screaming, "You

ogress. you have eaten up my flowering plant? Leabe my p r e ~ e n c e . " ' ~On the

husband's death. a widow had to tonsure her head and remoke the sjmbols of

the married state i.e., bangles, mangal sutva -a necklace with black beads, and

vermilion, a kumkurn Inark on the forehead. She was allowed to eat simple food

and in small quantity. She was required to wear simple white saris and to sleep

on a straw mat on the bare floor. Even the sight of her by others was regarded

as a bad omen. Uma Chkravarti traces the reason for this rigid mechanism of

social control on the widow to her sexuality. which was a source of immense

attraction. She opines: "The attempt is to stamp out the sense of self and of

course to stamp out the sexuality and the total range of experiences the woman

is otherwise conceived of having."15

'"ited in Geraldine Forbes, and Tapan Raychaudhuri, The Memoirs

Dr. Haimabati Sen (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2000) 96.
15
Cited in Lathika Regunathan. 'Why pretend there is no oppression"
Humanscape, May, 2000: 12.
 Subordination of women was made possible through the patriarchal

structure. This subordination is achieved largely by imposing control over

female sexuality. The social and cultural institutions played a significant role in

conditioning women's subordinate and submissive roles in the society. These

institutions made women to look upon their sexual potential as a derogatory

attribute. Brahmanical texts sewed as the source for these various social

institutions in dictating restrictions on female sexuality. The content of these

Brahmanical texts had the force of law and was enforced by the power of the

state.

In almost all the Brahmanical texts the innate nature of women was

represented as sinful. The congenital weakness of women's nature was

especially pertinent to the problems of dealing with the innately overflowing

and uncontrollable sexuality of wornen.16 Sexuali~yof a married woman was

considered auspicious for producing progeny. Since the married woman was

under the protection of husband: her sexuality was not considered as a threat to

the society. In fact, Pativvata was the concept through which the patriarchal

society, guided by Bvahmanical laws channalized married woman's sexuality

towards her husband. The ideology ofpativrata implied the unflinching fidelity

towards one's husband and was regarded as the highest expression of a

woman's selfhood. This highest ideal of womanhood as extolled in the sastras

is viewed as the means for salvation of women. It was viewed as one of the

l 6 Ku~nkumSankari, Politics ofthe Possible. Essays on Gender, History,

iliurratives, ColoniaZ English (New Delhi: Tulika, 1999) 20.
most successful ideologies constructed by any patriarchal system, one in which

women themselves controlled their own sexuality. A chaste wife was believed

to be responsible for the long life of her husband. Savitri's efforts to regain her

husband's life from the messengers of death was highly appreciated and

cherished by the Hindu society. Even God failed in front of Savitri's

pativrata. 17 She is the role nod el for any Hindu woman to be follomed in her

loyalty towards husband. Pn brief, pativrata was the prescribed panacea for

wives to overcome widourhood. Naturally the unexpected or premature death

of the husband raised suspicion regarding the wife's fidelity towards her

husband.

Child brides who stayed with their husbands for a few months could not

be blamed for their husband's death due to their laxity in strictly observing

pativrata. Yet, the child-widows who had not even attained the maturity to

understand the meaning and implications of marriage were blamed for their

husband's death. Dr. Haimabati Sen who lost her husband at the age of nine

asked her father innocently when her mother-in-law accused her of eating the

flowering plant-"For heaven's sake what were they talking about? What had I

done? I failed to see where I had gone wrong?" Since the concept of Pativvata

mas not applicable in the case of child-widows, premature death of the husband

was attributed to her sinful existence in the previous birth.

17
See appendix vi for the story of Savitri.
 Through her husband. a woman was considered capable of reproduction.

As a &ife, her sexuality was considered auspicious, but the very sexuality,

which provided her, a place in the society, became a curse to her when she

became a widow. Soon after her husband's death steps were taken under the

name of ritual to deprive the widow of her sexuality. The most painful

ceremony a widow undenvent to mark her new status as a widow was the

tonsure. Tremendous pressure was exerted on the widow to undergo the

humiliating ceremony. Even if the family of the widow did not prefer the

tonsure of their daughters or daughters-in-law. they were forced to do it under

the compulsion of customary laws whose proponents were the brahmins. Uma

Chakravarti relates the forced tonsure of the widow with the material benefit

derived out of it by the brahmins. She explains that the relationship between

material and ideological elements of enforcing the rite of the tonsure is evident

from the expense incurred for the ceremony. The major beneficiaries for

dakshina in various ways were the brahmins themselves since almost three

fourths of the money spent was given to the brahmins.18 Sometimes the

greediness of the priests surpassed all human values. Sister Subhalakshmi

recalls one of the cruel memories of the tonsure in her Widows Home, Adi

Cottage. One of the inmates, a young widow of twenty-one years old died.

Her parents immediately arranged for her funeral. When the priests came to

perform the funeral rites, they found to their utter dismay the long hair which

18
Uma Chakravarti, Rewriting History. Life and Times of Pandita
Ramabai (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998) 25.
reached almost to the dead widow's knees. They refused to perfonn the last

rites for her unless the hair was tonsured. They told the father, '-Her head must

be shaved. We cannot perfonn the rites for a widow who has attained her age

and u7ho is nevertheless un~horn."'~Helpless as they were, they arranged a

barber to shave off their dead daughter's hair. The barbarism involved in this

action can only be described as vandalism in the name of religion. Monica

Felton, describes the scene in the Clzild Widow's Stouy, thus: "When the barber

arrived, sister and the young \vidows, along with the dead girl's mother, sat

watching between their tears as he set to work with his scissors and razors. The

sight was one which they all hoped that they might some day forget, but which

none of them ever could."20

Though the wido\vs used to protest against the tonsure, ultimately they

succulnbed to the pressure from all sides. Many widows considered this as a

religious rite. Parvati Athavale recalls in her autobiography how she thought of

tonsure as a religious rite and that it was her religious duty to continue that

practice. Even after realizing the unfairness of the compulsory shaving of the

widow's hair, Parvati Athavale who herself had to undergo that ceremony as a

young widow, favoured voluntary shaving as a rightful religious act.2' Unlike

19
Cited in Monica Felton, A Child Widow's Story (London: Victor
Gollancz Ltd., 1966) 83.

" Ibid., 83.

ma Chakravarti, Rewriting History. The Llfe and Times o f Pandita
Ramabai (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998) 25.
Parvahi Athavale who had some reservations regarding the tonsure, Pandita

Ramabai took a stance against the tonsure. Delivering a speech in a conference,

Pandita Ramabai pointed out that she had seen a great number of widows in her

time but she had never yet met one who was willing to have her head ~ h a v e d . ~ "

She asks: "What woman is there who does not love the wealth of soft and

glossy hair with which nature has so generously decorated her head? A Hindu

woman thinks it worse than death to lose her beautiful hair."" An opinion

perfectly tantamount with the experience narrated by Anandhibai Karve in her

autobiography, Mazepuuan, about her own hair-removing ceremony as a

widow at the age or twenty one. She described the agonizing experience thus:

"I did not feel sony when I actually became a widow in the true sense but when

I had to perform the hair removing ceremony I felt that I had lost my identity

and had become a meek and submissive person without realizing what was

correct for me till death approached.. ..I would readily have accepted death to

this pain and hurni~iation."'~ They had been compelled to submit to the

disgrace. Disclosing the inequality involved in the custom of tonsuring, Pandita

Ramabai flung a pertinent question to the august audience which, included

22
Padmini Sengupta, Pandita Ramabai Saraswati. Her Life and Work
(New Delhi: ,Publishing house, 1970) 194.
23
Cited in Clementina Butler, Pandita Ramabai Sarnswarti. Pioneer in
the Movement for the Education of the Child Widow oflndia (New York:
Fleming, 1922) 4 1.
24
Cited in National Council of Educational Research and Training,
Women who Created History (New Delhi: Publications Division, 1997.) p.14.
leaders of the social reform nlovement like Ranade, Telang. Bhandarkar etc.

She asked how many of the gentlemen before her would consent to shave their

heads on the death of their wives? Ramabai's query left the men to think of

the agony of young widows in a different perspective. Tarabai Shinde was

more vehement in criticizing the unequal treatment of women in a patriarchal

society. Pertaining to the tonsure of the w-idows she asks: "Why don't you hide

your faces when your wives have died, shave off your beards and moustaches

and go off to live in the wilderness for the rest of your lives?"" The queries of

both these ladies implied the idea that if men can enjoy the privilege of

avoiding the ritual of tonsure after their wives' death, the same is applicable to

widows too. To be more precise, they meant women's right to decide how she

should live.

In addition to the tonsure. a widow was subjected to a number of other

rituals, which were designed to restrain her insatiable sexuality. She was

allowed to eat simple food and in small quantities. She had to observe vratas

for which she had to abstain from food and drink. She was required to wear

simple white saris and to sleep on a straw mat on the bare floor, the wearing of

jewels and make up was f ~ r b i d d e n .All

~ ~ these measures were to deprive a

woman of her innate emotions and instincts. Indicating the futility of depriving

25Cited in Rosalind O'Hanlon: A Comparison Between Women and

Men. Tarabai Shinde and the Critique of Gender Relations in Colonial India
(New Delhi: OUP, 1994) 79.

l6 Dagmar Engels, Beyond Purdah? Women in Bengal 1890-1930.

(Delhi: OUP, 1999) 33.
women of her happiness in life. Tarabai Shinde asks those who were

responsible for the sad plight of the widows: '"Women still have the same

hearts inside: the same thoughts of good and evil. You can strip the outside till

it's naked. but you can't do the same to the inside, can you?'"'

Protest of individual uioinen against their widowhood in the family had

not gone beyond the four walls of houses. The voice of protest and refusal died

do\vn where it originated. It did not reach the public. Rasundari Debi became a

widow at the age of sixty-one. If one takes the accounts in her reminiscences as

reliable, she was respected and loved in her in-law's family. She bore a number

of sons and became mistress of the family at a very young age. She had a very

wann relationship with her mother-in-law. In brief, she looked at the past as

something worthy enough to relish at the fag end of her life. Looking back to

the sweet memories of her past, she said: "I had my share of all that brings

pleasure to householders, thank the lord - sons and daughters, servants and

maids, loyal tenants, relatives and kinsmen, status and honour, pleasure and

enj~yment."~'To an average Indian woman in the nineteenth century, the life

as described by Rasundari Debi in her autobiography can only be dreamt of.

She was widowed only at the fag end of her life: still she found widowhood

both shameful and sad. She comments on her widowed state thus "Even if a

27 Cited in Rosalind OIHanlon, A Comparison Between Women and

Men. Tarabai Shinde and the Critique of Gender Relations in Colonial India
(New Delhi: OUP, 1991) 79.
28
Cited in Tanika Sarkar, Words to Win.The Making of Amar Jiban
(New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1999) 177.
woman v ith a hundred sons is wldowed, she is regarded as most unfortunate by

the people. They always want to tell you that you have been wid~wed."'~A

very objective opinion made out of her ou7nexperience as a widow provides an

insight into women's undisclosed displeasure towards widowhood. It reveals

that women were not able to reconcile with widowhood even at an advanced

age. This questions the veracity of the society's notion that widowhood in the

old age was a natural state in a married woman's life and hence, they were

destined to cope with it. It also indicates the fact that if an old widow like

Rasundari Debi could feel the humiliation of being a widow, the degree of

disgrace felt by young u idows could be more in depth and magnitude. But the

abolition of sati in 1829 naturally brought forward the question of widouhood

into the forefront of debates related to gender. Unlike the discourse regarding

sati,the debate on widowhood was not confined to men folk alone. Though the

female voice was feeble when one takes into consideration their numerical

strength, it was loud enough to reach the authorities concerned and strong

enough to create ripples in the orthodox Indian society which repelled any fonn

of improvement in the status of widows.

Though largely marginalized by the male reformers in the discourse on

midow remarriage, the few writings produced by women in the nineteenth

century throw considerable insight into their stance on the issues. Unlike the

male reformers, women did not involve in public debates on widow remarriage.
The only exception u a s Pandita Ramabai who worked actively in public for

widows in addition to writing on widowhood for creating awareness among

women. The autobiographies of women like Tarabai Shinde, Rassundari Devi

and Haimabati Sen nevertheless help historians to examine the general nature

of the movement for women's emancipation as against the history reflected in

the writings of nineteenth century male reformers. None of these women took

part in the heated debate on gender issue. But their writings reveal them to be

both victims of male oppression and representatives of female voices, thereby

paradigmatic of their perception of emancipation.

The trauma of widowhood as narrated by widows in their personai

experience reveals that they showed considerable concern for the existential

condition of widowhood. "In the absence of a source of income. the widow has

to depend upon the relatives of either affinal or natal homes. No respectable

family even of a lower caste will have her for a servant. She is completely

ignorant of any art by which she may make an honest living. She has nothing

but the single garment, which she wears on her person. Starvation and death

stare her in the face; no ray of hope penetrates her densely darkened mind.. ..

The only alternative before her is either to commit suicide or u orse still, accept

a life of infamy and shame."" This bleak picture of widow's life as far as

their material existence is concerned was well illustrated by the concern

expressed by Haimabati Sen after her husband's unexpected death. She says in

30
Pandita Ra~nabaiSaraswati, The High Caste Hindu Woman (Bombay:
Maharashtra State Board for Literature and Culture, 1982) 44.
distress, "my parents had finished their duty lowards me. No one was

responsible any longer for this child widow. If I needed a single pie, I would

have to beg it from others. What about my husband - he had taken a third wife

and thereby cut a child's throat - what provision did he make?"" This

description of the struggle of a widow for survival must be understood in the

context of the unending life of drudgery that a widow had to undergo. This

drudgery was mostly associated with the sonless widows especially child

widows. Maintenance of childless young widows was considered as a burden

by both the affinal and natal families as they had to be provided for their

maintenance throughout life. Devoid of any means of existence, the widow was

destined to take up the household drudgery and she had to bear the insults and

humiliation of a life of ceaseless labour in return for the maintenance provided

to her. In joint families; the fequent pregnancies, childbirths and subsequent

childcare made the labour of widows much in demand. The life story of

Godubai, a child widow and the first inmate of Sharadha Sadan, illustrates how

as a child widow in her in-laws' house she managed ably the home and the

farm - two large undertakings. She was even allowed by her in-laws to keep

her hair till she reached twenty-one years in view of the benefits derived out of

her free labour. Even after coming to stay with her brothers, her toil of

household work did not cease. She had to cook for the whole household

31
Cited in Geraldine Forbes and Tapan Ray Chaudhuri, The Memoirs of
Haimabati Sen (New Delhi: Roli books, 2000) 98.
consisting of twelve and to tend her motherless nephe~v.'2Trying to recall those

days she said. --thehumid. wann climate \+as very exhausting, I had to cook for

over a dozen people either in the morning or in the evening.. .. I was not very

happy in omb bay."" Though her words do not reveal any wrath or protest it

does carry a note of complaint concealed in a familiarly feminine tone. Even if

the household chores were unbearable to a widow she had no choice as cooking

and household works were the only area in which she received some training.

With the intention of starting a home for widows and orphaned girls, Karve

asked Pawati Athavale, a young -widow, "If I start a home for widows, what

works would you be willing to do in connection with it?" "If you start the

Home I will accept the position of a cook. I do not think I know how to do

anything else", was the reply of the young widow.

Dependence for physical existence, in the absence of any acquired skill

except household work, made the life of widows an unending life of drudgery

until they breathed their last. Sister Subalakshrni testifies that 111ost widows,

who had never been wives or who had failed to become the mothers of sons,

were condemned to be mere household drudges, slaving aw-ay from morning

'"admini Sengupta, Pandita Rarnabui Suraswati. Her Life and Works

(New Delhi: Publishing house, 1970) 186.
33
Cited in Uma Chakravarti, Rewriting History. The Life and Times of
Pandita Ramabai (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998) 267.
till night, perpetually on the verge of starvation and with never a n7ord frorn

any body."

In allnost a11 the works written by women in the nineteenth century

much concern was expressed about their struggle for survival during their

widowhood. The male reformers in their discourse on widow remarriage did

not highlight these issues. Uma Chakravarti opines that men rarely recognized

the labour performed by widows, which was a major theme in the writings of

women. Pandita Ramabai was objective enough to recognize that the economic

dependence of widows u7as one of the reasons for their life long drudgery. In

the High Caste Hindu Woman;published in 1887, Pandita Ramabai outlines:

Women of the working class are better off than their sisters of
high castes in India, for in many cases they are obliged to
depend upon themselves, and an opportunity for cultivating
self-reliance is thus afforded them by bvhich they largely
profit. But high caste Hindu women, unless their families are
actually destitute of means to keep them, are shut up within the
four walls of their house. . .. if they are left without a
protector, i.e. a male relative to support and care for them, they
literally do not know what to do with them~elves.~'

She concludes emphatically that it is idle to hope that the condition of her

country women will ever improve without individual self-reliance. So, when

34
Monica Felton, A Child Widow's Stor~j(London: Victor Gollancz
Limited, 1966) 28.

j5 Cited in Meera Kosambi, (New Delhi: OUP,2000) 172.

she opened widon homes, she made provision to provide training to the

inmates to become teachers, governess, nurses and home keepers and other

types of skilled workers. Ramabai's own experience mighl have convinced her

of the need for providing the means of existence to the widows. When she

became a widow at the age of twenty-four with a daughter to take care,

Ramabai also confronted the bleak future which awaited her without any means

to support herself and the daughter. She inherited no wealth or property after

her husband's death; in fact, she was obliged to pay off a few debts incurred by

him.'6

Though some of the women who took up the cause of widows had held

the view that widows should be trained in productive skills in order to avoid

dependence on others for their life, they did not mean women to go outside

home to earn a living. Domestic sphere is considered as the realm of women

both married and widowed. Pandita Ramabai who took pains to improve the

status of widows opined in the Stri Dhavma ATitithat domestic duties w-ere the

work of women. They should never neglect them. She considered cooking as

the primary and most responsible task of women. The nature of domestic work

that Ramabai instructed women to take up w-as laborious and hardly gave

women time to relax and involve in activities other than household work. She

expected women to do all household drudgery like cooking, mopping, cleaning,

washing and keep a close eye an all other related things at home. In addition to

36
Shamsundar Manohar Adhav. Pandita Ramabai. (Madras: The
Christian Literature Society, 1979.) p.80.
this she should not say anything without proper thought. Her behaviour towards

all persons in the house should be modest, affectionate and devoted. She should

endure everybody's, rebukes or wicked behaviour with great courage. One may

wonder at the efforts required to fulfill these ideal duties of a housewife

suggested for women by Ramabai! Through these instructions for women

Ralnabai was trying to equip women with the good qualities of a housewife

who can be of great help to her husband by doing a wife's duties property. She

writes. "men require women's assistance in every task in domestic life. At

present. men have to do many tasks, which could be managed by uomen if

they were educated and sensible. Thus men's time is wasted. They have many

other important tasks w-hich they could perform during the same amount of

time, but which they cannot for want of time."j7 This shows that for the more

important works of men in public, women should keep the private realm intact.

Parvathi Athavale who was widowed at the age of twenty one and

worked for the uplift of widows in collaboration with Dondo Karve, had

shared the view of Pandita Ramabai on the importance of domestic duties of

women. She strongly disapproves of women seeking outside servitude as she

describes employment. She writes in her autobiography that in order to escape

servitude to their husbands they must not accept the servitude of outside

employment. "For women there is a greater servitude in outside employment

than there is in married life. There is no reason why women should not choose

j7 Ibid. p 173.
the servitude of love than that of money."38 This attitude towards woinen

seeking employment outside the household had only helped women to remain

at home and make the home a happy haven for her husband and other relatives.

Economic independence is not to mean freedom for women. In the mm-ds of

Parvati Athavale that freedom is unnatural, impossible, disastrous and opposed

to the laws of right living.

The unequivocal stance held by women reformers on women's

dependence (on men) for their livelihood and their affiamations of home as the

intimate realm of women shows that they could not comprehend the

underpinnings of the working of patriarchal power on women. The widow as

the epitome of domestic labour was established firmly for the benefit of the

patriarchal family structure. Not only did affinal family, even the natal family

had considered widow as a domestic labourer. The unpaid labour of widow was

utilized fully in the house. Marital families frequently extracted labour from

widows through physical violence, defrauded them, tried on occasion to sell

them to pimps, and often farmed them out as cooks.39 Consequently, many

widows, including brahmin ones, entered the domestic service sector often as

cooks. Many of them flocked to the industrial sectors such as the Calcutta jute

mills. Reformers like Ra~nabaitried to provide training to the widows as

teachers, nurses etc, obviously to prevent the high caste Hindu widows froin

38
Kumkum Sankari, Politics of the Possible. Essays on Gender, Histoiy,
hiauuatives, Colonial Englislz (New Delhi: Tulika, 1999) 354.

'9 Ibid., 354.

entering into degrading work for wages. Like the male reformers, the women

reformers also preferred the household drudgery of widows to non -

respectable professions. It clearly points out the failure of the women

reformers in revealing the inequalities directed at women under a patriarchal

structure in all its aspects. It is hardly surprising then that men's discussion of

the '-problem7' of widowhood never outlined its distinctive cultural codes

within the context of production relations and patriarchal structures. or

analyzed it in tenns of the relationship betueen caste, gender and labour. This

restricted discussion on widowhood. even when it was recognized that

widowhood was different among upper and lower castes, established

parameters within which women themselves framed their own discourse^.'^

Agony of C h i l d B r i d e s

During the discourse on widowhood, priorit) was given to the sufferings

of child widows. The reason of the presence of an unusually large number of

child widows was attributed to the custom of child marriage. Naturally, the

movement against the custom of child marriage followed by the age of consent

controbersy made it an important issue to be debated in the public. Women's

discourse on child marriage assumes a special significance as most of the

women who are studied in the present work entered into married life at a very

young age. This provides an opportunity to depict their experience as child

wives and explain objectively how they perceive the change in the age of

" Urna Chakravarti, Rewriting History. The Life and Times of Pandita
Ramabai (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998). p. 287.
consent. These accounts articulate the anxiety of the parents as soon as the girl

crosses seven or eight years of age. Their frantic efforts in search of

bridegrooms have had its bearing on the girls. In the words of Rukhumabai: "A

robust promising youth gets a rickety consumptive wife, while an unintelligent

girl gets an inferior husband."" Pandita Ramabai also supported this view. She

said:

If the parents are not wealthy enough to provide dowry, they

overlooked the negative points of the match like the advanced
age of the bridegroom. his appearance and bad habits. Parents
are more concerned to settle the marriage before the girl
attains puberty. So long as they have fulfilled the custom, and
thereby secured a good name in this world and heavenly
reward in the next, their minds are not much troubled
concerning the girl's fate.42

Dr.Ananandhibai's marriage with Copalrao Josheee, was arranged by parents

in spite of their knowledge about the bridegroom's eccentric ideas of reforms.

Gopalrao was a twenty seven years old widower and the parents found in him a

potential match to their nine year old daughter as it exempted them frotn

affording dowry, and relieved them from the concern of the dire consequence

of arranging marriage of their daughter after puberty in view of their daughter's

physical growth at the age of eight. Dr. Haimabati Sen's case seemed even

41
Cited in Sudhir Chandra: Enslaved Daughters. Colonialism, Law and
Women's Rights (New Delhi: OUP, 1998) 2 13.
42
Cited in Meera Kosambi, ed., Pandita Ramabai Through Her Own
Words (New Delhi: OUP: 2000) 144.
more deplorable. At the age of nine, she was married to a forty five year old

widower. In her autobiography, she explains about her prospective bridegroom

who was hurriedly selected by her family.

The groom was a Deputy magistrate in Jessore and his brother

was the police inspector of Khulna. The prospective
bridegroom was kulin-kayastha by caste and f o m five years
old. He had two wives as was now planning a third marriage.
He had two daughters by his first marriage; the son of his
second wife had died with his mother. Two other children,
born to the first wife, were also dead. This was the groom
everyone approved of.43

Interestingly, Haimabati Sen did not know that she got married as she

was sleeping at the time of her wedding. She narrated the embarrassments the

child bride in her autobiography in the following manner: "In the month of

Sravan (July-august), I was given in marriage to that handsome groom. I was

asleep at the time of the wedding. When I woke up I found that instead of my

elder grandmother, a strange man was lying on the big bed."44

Indeed the opinion of the girls of eight or nine years of age had no

relevance either in the settlement of marriage or about their bridegrooms. The

parents settled it. The memoirs of women about their marriage show that they

happily participated in the marriage festival as they had not reached the age to

43
Cited in Geraldine Forbs and Tapan Raychaudhauri, The Memoivs of
Du.Haimabati Sen (New Delhi: Roli Books. 2000) 70.
44
Ibid., 70.
understand the exact meaning of marriage. In her Hzgl7 Caste Hindu Woman,

Pandita Ramabai testifies the festivities associated with marriage as the prime

reason to make them feel happy about the prospects of their marriage. "What

can be more tempting lo a child's mind than these? In addition to all this. a big

elephant is sometimes brought. on which the newly married children ride in

procession amidst all sorts of fun. Is it not grand enough for a child!" She also

portrays the child brides' imaginations thus "Oh-,I shall ride on the back of the

elephant, thinks the girl, and there is something more besides, all the people in

the house will mait on me, will make much of them; e~rerybodywill caress and

try to please me. Oh. what Sister Subhalakshmi who was married at the

age of eleven soon forgot about her marriage. In her interview with Monica

Felton. Shubalakshmi recalled about her marriage thus: *'I forgot about my

marriage afterwards as completely as I forgot whether ~ n yhusband was tall or

short for my age. fair or dark. The only thing I remember was the beauty of the

wedding sari."46 The only instance of an unexpressed defiant feeling of a child

bride against her parent's selection of her bridegroom is given in the

autobiography of Parvati Athavale. She was married at the age of eleven,

indeed an advanced age compared to the prevailing norms of the age of

marriage of girls. When she came to know that her parents arranged her

45
Cited in Meera Kosambi, Pandita Ramambai Througlz Her Own
Words (New Delhi: OUP,2000) 146.

46 Cited in Monica Felton, A Child Widow's Story (London: Victor

Gollancz Limited, 1966) 26.
marriage with the man who was lame, she was not at all pleased ~ i t hthe

decision of parents. She said, "I was not at all pleased with this marriage

arrangement, but I said nothing. From the discussions that took place in the

family I learned that the man was lame. He received only fifteen rupees a

month. He had no relatives living with him. There would be no fzther or

mother-in-law. Girls eleven years of age may perhaps feel a certain joy in the

thought of the music and the glare of the wedding festival but I felt no joy. I did

not have the moral strength to say whether I wished or didn't wish to be

married."47

Rarnabai Ranade was also a girl of eleven years when she got married

Ranade, a widower of thirty-two. She did not express her opinion about the

marriage with Ranade in their reminiscences although she was mature enough

to express her opinion. Rarnabai's parents agreed Ranade as the groom for

their daughter, with their complete knowledge of the fact that Ranade was

highly reluctant to marry and he was forced to marry. Ranade's words to his

future father-in-law who approached him to propose his daughter are enough to

drop the idea of a marriage. Ranade said. 'why do you think I will be an

appropriate match? You belong to an ancient family. I am a reformer in favour

of widow remarriage. I look hale and hearty but I have weak eyesight and am

also hard of hearing. Besides, I am planning to go England. I shall not undergo

47
Parvati Athavale, Hindu Widow (an autobiogrph?ij, Trans.
Rev.Justin.E.Abbott (New Delhi: Reliance Publishing House, 1986) 12.
any prayashcitta afher I return. You should consider all this and then decide..'4*

Pandita Ramabai's narration of her mother's marriage with her father Anant

Shastri can be taken as on the best example of the ill assorted, careless way of

arranging the marriages of infant daughters in the nineteenth century.

Lakshmibai. a girl of nine years old was given away in marriage to Anant

Sahstri, a forty five years old The future of the girls was simply left

at the mercy of the God and their luck. A girl mias treated as an outsider in her

natal family after marriage. Therefore, they were supposed to put up with all

kinds of hardships in their in-law's family. Considering this aspect of the

Indian marriage system, one gets struck by the way the parents give away

their daughters in marriage without making adequate enquires regarding the

hture life of their daughters in their in-laws' house.

One of the disasters of child marriage was the exposure of young girls to

sexual harassment by their matured husbands. Women's writings do not throw

much light on this very personal aspect of their lives. Cases of sexual

harassment by husbands of their young wives got publicity in the nineteenth

century when the wives had succumbed to the injuries of forceful cohabitation.

When girls of tender years were married off to matured Inen of thirty or forty

years old, there was every chance of sexual harassment. Among the personal

narratives of nineteenth century women, the autobiographical accounts of

48 Cited in Ramabai Ranade, Ranade. His Wzjk's Reminiscences, Trans.

Kusumavati Deshpande (New Delhi: Publications Division, 1963) 3 5.
49
See appendix vii for details.
Haimabati Sen are exceptionally open about the early exposure to sexual life.

Whether they are mature or minor, girls are supposed to co-operate with their

husbands in sexual matters. Advice of the elderly women will equip them with

sufficient knowledge in this matter. When Haimabati Sen screamed on her

husband's attempt to expose her to early sexual life. other women in the family

interpreted it as unwifely. A woman relative advised Haimabati Sen thus:

Why don't you let your husband touch you? Was it proper to
scream like that? Don't you understand that people will speak
ill of you? Your husband was crying on Harish Babu's
shoulder today and said, 'My wife is a savage': and so many
things, don't behave like that anymore. Listen to what he says
and don't disobey him. Otherwise he will turn you out. Try
and act like slave. If you do what he asks, he will give you so
many clothes and ornaments.j0

While she did not comment on her early exposure to sexual life,

Anandihbai Joshee expressed her displeasure to her husband about his

treatment of her as child wife. She said: "Hitting me with broken pieces of

wood at the tender age of ten, flinging chairs and books at me and inflicting

other strange punishments on me when I was fourteen - all these were too

severe for the age, body, and mind at each respective stage. In childhood the

50
Cited in Geraldine Forbs & Thapan Ray Chaudhuri, Memoi~esofDr.
Haimnbati Sen (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2000) 92.
mind is iinmature and the body undeveloped."" One can presume from the

above description that his punishment included sexual harassment also as she

gave birth to a dead baby at the age of twelve. Though a victim of early

marriage. Anandihbai did not agree with the well-circulated notion among the

Europeans about the nexus between ill health of Indian women and early

marriage. She pointed out that the practice of early marriage is not prevalent in

many countries and yet the women there often are weak and ill constituted as

Indian wornen. In a letter sent to Mary Carpenter, in 1881, she remarked,

"Early marriage is no doubt a bane. When we deviate from the laws of nature,

we must suffer the consequence."52 She also recommended the interference of

government in abolishing the custom. Unfortunately, in a lecture delivered in

1884 before one of the missionary societies on the subject of child marriage,

Anadihbai spoke in favor of the custom. Those who were disappointed in her

pronouncement naturally concluded that her emancipation from the thralldom

of custom was not completed." Bodley L. Rachel, Dean of women's medical

- - pp

5l
Cited in Meera Kosambi, "Anandhibai Joshee. Retrieving a
Fragmented Feminist Image" Economic and Political Weekly, December, 1996:
3 192.

" ~ r s . E. F. Chapman, Notable Indian Wo~ornenof the 19'" Century

(London: W.H. Allen and Company Limited. 189 1) 62.
college of Pennsylvania also supported the view by emphasizing the absolute

impossibility of a high caste ]Hindu woman to speak ~ t h e r w i s e . ' ~

Pandita Ramabai's critical evaluation of the custom of child marriage in The

high caste Hindu woman provides a clear-cut picture of the custom in practice

during the nineteenth century. Commenting on the prevailing low age of

marriage, she remarks, "A great many girls are given in marriage at the present

day literally while they are still in their cradles. Five to eleven years is the

usual age for their marriage among the Brahmins all over 1ndia."j5 The

prevailing custom of the early marriage of boys and girls, according to her, did

not fulfill the exact purpose of maniage. In her opinion, the early marriage

denies proper education for, the period in a person's life from the age of eight

to twenty is suitable for acquiring knowledge. In addition to it, the progeny

produced out of this immature wedlock will be weak, dull and unintelligent.

She considered that marriage was a union of two mature individuals and

emphasized perfect freedom in the choosing of partners. She asks, '-In this

world, even animals have the freedom to establish a male-female relationship

according to their own wishes, why then should human beings not have this

freedom?"j6

54
Bodley L. Rachel, 'Introduction' The High Caste Hindu Woman by
Pandita Ramabai Sarswathi (Philadelphia, 1888) iii.
55
Cited in Meera Kosmabi, ed., Pandita Ra~nabaiThrough Her Own
Words (New Delhi: OUP, 2000)113.
56
Ibid., 66.
 When the male reforiners set the marriageable age as low as possible to

compromise with the public opinion. Ralnabai preferred twenty years as the

marriageable age. Unlike the inale reformers who did not have the experience

of the matured relationship in their own life Ramabai had the adbantage of

setting her life as example to the public. She manied at the age of twenty-one,

a very advanced age for a girl to marry at a time when the parents lost their

sleep if their daughters crossed seven or eight years of age. Her marriage with

Bipan Bihari Medavi was in many respects an exception to the prevailing

practice of the society. Not only was Medhavi the husband of her choice, he did

not belong to her caste or state.

Ramabai discussed the practice from a historical perspective and pointed

out the comparative dwindling of freedom of women with regard to the

institution of marriage over the course of years. She blamed the customs that

evolved over centuries for the present degradation of early marriage of girls.

While sastras had placed her in a better position, the customs stripped her off

these rights and left her unprotected in relation to the privileges of men: which

were acquired in the name of custom. She observed that though the sastras

prescribe early marriage for girls, it forbade parents to give away daughters to

worthless men and preferred girls to remain at home if good suitors %ere not

found. "But, alas". she laments, '.here too the law is defined by cruel custom."

She describes the unsympathetic nature of custom towards u-omen and the

gender discrimination involved in it thus:

 It allows some Inen to remain unmarried, but woe to the
maiden and to her family if she is so unfortunate as to remain
single after the marriageable age. Although no law has ever
said so, the popular belief is that a woman can have no
salvation unless she is formaily married. It is not, then a
matter s f wonder that parents become extremely anxious
when their daughters are over eight or nine and unsought in
marriage.j7

Goals of Female Education

Women's discourse on their education had centred on the same

established norms and values, which suit the needs of the emerging bourgeois

society. In doing this, women were brought more securely into the ambit of the

culture that was being shaped in the nineteenth century: a culture whose

definition and contours were laid down by the Indian male social reformers.

The women reformers without much opposition accepted the direction

provided by the male reformers.

The prevalent prejudices against women's education to a great extent

shaped the discourse regarding the nature of education imparted to women. The

custodians of many of these prejudices were women themselves. They guarded

zealously this tradition of ignorance of women by abusing those women who

took any interest in reading books under the instruction of their men folk.

Haimabati Sen who was widowed at the age of eleven was blamed by her

relatives for her ability to read books as the cause of her widowhood, a
common belief upheld by the nineteenth century society. When she was

rebuked beyond her endurance she turned as Kdi. the terrible Goddess and

said. "I have done well indeed. I cannot be widowed again. What was to

happen has happened. Now this is how I shall occupy myself. You can thrash

me if you like or kill me or do whatever pleases you, but I am not going to

listen to anyone. This is the vow I have taken."58 The finn resolution and

boldness made her a bachelor of medicine, an achievement rare among women

of her century. In spite of her education and job. she struggled throughout her

life with an eccentric second husband and unhealthy children. In her

autobiography, many a time she lamented the fact that she was born a w-oman.

Though not as assertive as Hai~nabatiSen in pursuing her studies:

Ramabai Ranade also suffered severe criticism from her women relatives at

home. Some of her female relatives in her in-laws' house were taught to read

and write and keep accounts. Ramabai observeed that Vansa and Sasubai who

were quite proud of their acco~nplishmentknew from their own experience

what the men folk desired. Yet they did not appreciate her efforts to learn. On

the contrary, they treated those efforts with contempt and anger as though they

too were as orthodox and illiterate as her grandmother-in-law. The women

relatives even warned her that they would not tolerate disrespectful behaviour.

One day the relatives happened to see her reading a piece of English

newspaper. That created a tremor in her house and she was showered with all

58
Cited in Geraldine Forbs and Thapan Raychaudhuri, The Memoirs of
Haimabati Sen (New Delhi: Roli books, 2000) 102.
sorts of abuses." The constant thrashing that she got from her women relatives

very often made her to think regretfully of her initiative to iearn English. She

says "I was at my wits end and when it became too much for me, I would weep

secretly to my self."60 Had her husband not stood her side, she would have

abandoned her effort in educating herself. Ranjana Harish opines that

compared to the Bengali women, Ramabai was more fortunate as Justice

Ranade, being a real reformist believing in women's emancipation, educated

her and she had the firm support of her h ~ s b a n d . ~ '

In addition to the whole hearted support of Ranade in educating

Ramabai Ranade, the traditional Hindu wife's attitude of selfless devotion to

her husband's cause also inight have influenced her in continuing her studies in

spite of the opposition from her relatives. In fact she was guided by the same

ideology, "devotion to one's husband" which prompted her women relatives to

keep away from educating themselves. It is a fact that despite her public image

as a fighter for women's rights she remained a traditional Hindu wife at core,

never forgetting to massage her husband's feet with ghee every night.6"he

believed that as a devoted Hindu wife it is her duty to obey his words and

please him. It seems that the spirit of persistence that she displayed in learning

59 Ramabai Ranade, Ranade. His Wife'sReminiscences, Trans.

Kusumavati Deshpande (New Delhi: Publications Division, 1963) 47.

60 Ibid., 48.

61 Ranjana Harish, The Female Footpuints (New Delhi: Sterling: 1996) 8

Ibid., 8.
is an attempt to please her husband. A nice specimen of an ideal Indian wifc

and a champion of women's emancipation. she is hailed as the model of an

educated woman worthy of imitation.

Until the death of her husband, Ramabai led a docile life. With the

instigation and inspiration from Ranade. she organized "drawing room

meetings" (as it was called by Margaret Cousin, a contemporary of Ramabai),

she did not acquire for herself anything to fit into the image of a public figure.

Her public life included other than the d r a ~ i n groom meetings, activities like

reading nevlspapers aloud to her husband and sometimes discussing public

questions with him. She used to accompanj Ranade on his vacations and got

acquainted with the wives of other officials. She utilized this opportunity to

discuss what she had read in the newspapers and the topics she had discussed

with her husband. Ramabai was satisfied fully with the limited access to public

life. Even this constrained pubic life was intended to make her husband happy.

The motive behind her public life after the death of Ranade was to do

something, which he has appreciated during his lifetime. She shifted to Poona

after Ranade's demise, and there she tried to soften her Sorrow in work that she

knew- would please her husband and be useful to other~.~"he observation of

her contemporary, Margaret Cousin, regarding her docility would be worth

quoting here. She observes:

63
Margaret E. Cousin, Tlze Awakening of Asialz Womuiz1;7oocl (Madras:
Ganaesh and Company, 1922)1 1 1.
 Ramabai hates to have to come before the public. She inspires
fiom within. And yet she does not shrink from leadership.
She was the leader of an agitation in Poona for Coinpulsorq
Primaq Education for Girls that was an abject lesson to the
public of women's earnestness and splendid power of public
organization, and yet she would not walk in their procession
or sit in the group photographs! She is equally keen now on
women suffrage, and yet the thought of interviewing a
councilor whom she has not before met through private
friends, causes her the utmost

The impression of Margaret Cousin regarding Ramabai's personality seems to

be devoid of any prejudices. She notes, "One feels in her presence the

psychology of the transition period of Indian womanhood from the cloistered,

intensive idealism of the past to the expansive public mothering spirit of the

future."65

In the second half of the nineteenth century, education of women was

getting popularity among the public. Along with imparting education,

simultaneous attempts were made to restrict their roles to those of wife and

mother and their activities to the home. Even woman like Ramabai Ranade did

not deviate from the accepted conception of femininity after having been

educated. The lacuna in the issue of \vomenls education lies in the integral

connection between women's education and family. and of course. the focus of

63
Ibid., 1 13.
65
Ibid., 113.
debate was on how to accomplish the one without damaging the other. The life

of Kadambini Ganguli(1861-19281, one of the first women graduates of

Calcutta University and the first Indian woman doctor is an example to

combine two roles successfully. Despite her professional commitments:

Kadambini took time off to run the house and supervise the cooking of meals,

which included a special menu for her husband's older sister who had remained

an orthodox Hindu. It is said that while going from one patient to another in

her horse - drawn carriage, she occupied herself by making yards of fine laceh6

Anandibai Joshee ((1865-1887), the first woman to qualify as a medical

doctor, tried her best to avoid any wrath fiorn the public by adhering to the

principles of an ideal Hindu wife. In order to remove the apprehensions of her

relatives she told her people "I will go to America as a Hindu and come back

and live among my people as a ~ i n d u . " ~ 'It is said that every morning she

repeated the precepts teaching a wife duties.'+he used to wear Sari and

abstained fully from taking non-vegetarian food. This submission in observing

the conventional rites and at the same time the boldness that she had in

criticizing her husband's autocratic behavior towards her as a child wife shows

66
Cited in Malavika Karelkar, 'Kadambini and the Bhadralok. Early
Debates over Women's Education in Bengal' Economic and Political weekly,
Vol. XXI No.17:April 26, 1986: WS.27.
67
Cited in Y.D. Phadke, Women in Mahavashtra (New Delhi:
Government of Maharashtra, 1989) 34.

E.F.Chapman, Notable Indian Women of the 19th Century (New

Delhi: Inter - India Publications, 1891) 6 1.
her helplessness as a Hindu wife. In a letter from America to her husband, she

disclosed her dissatisfaction on the treatment that she underwent as a child

wife. She writes, "it is very difficult to decide whether your treatment of me

was good or bad. If you ask me, I would ansu7er that it was both. It seems to

have been right in view of its ultimate goal; but, in all fairness, one is

compelled to admit that it was wrong, considering its possible effects on a

child's w his defiance of her husband's behaviour, occasional outbursts

on the patriarchal society and her sub~llission to the power of patriarchy

provide an insight into her mild feminist attitude towards woinen's

emancipation. In the opinion of Meera Ksoinbi, Mrs. Joshi's visible deference

and obedience to her husband's wishes served to negate her feminist stand,

reinforced the conventional ideal of womanhood, and resisted all social

institutional change. Unfortunately her orthodox inclination invoked wide

public support.

Pandita Ramabai who devoted her life to the cause of women envisaged

a role, which is not different from the orthodox concept of Hindu wife. Since

her concentration is on widow's education she gave priority to provide the

means for self -reliance. She says "the state of complete dependence in which

men are required by the law-giver to keep uiolnen from birth to the end of their

lives inakes it impossible for thein to have self-reliance without which a human

6 9 ~ i t e din Meera Kosambi, "Anandhibai Joshee. Retrieving a

Fragmented Feminist Image" Econonzic and Political Weekly, 7th December,
1996: 3 189.
being becomes a pitiful para~ile.'.'~1n order to make them independent. she

suggested that girls should be taught teaching, nursing, housekeeping and and

other fonns of handy work. The institution that she founded for the widows

provided training in the above said occupations. which are considered as

suitable for women's nature. The purpose of imparting education to women

was to make them better housewives and mothers. The speeches of prominent

ladies in women's club meeting emphasized the importance of proper training

in nursing and housekeeping as a girl would be later on entrusted ksith the

management of her house, her husband, her children and of other members of

the family." Reading books was only meant to refresh the minds of

housewives during intenals when they felt tired of their household chores.

One should be proficient in culinary art, sewing, embroidery, singing

etc. These accomplish~nentswere indispensable for women, according to

Pandita Ramabai, and not possessing them was a matter of great shame.

Arithmetic should be included in the curriculum for women in order to

understand the family income and expenditure, the cost of things at a particular

rate etc. Separate curricululn for girls as envisaged by Pandita Ralnabai for the

uplift of women served only to perpetuate the already existing subordination of

women. The attempt to make a refined woman through education was but an

effort to fill up the old wine in a new bottle. It did not intend to provide

70
Ibid., 172.

71 The Indian Ladies Magmine, (March 19 12: January, 1909) 1 56-2 18.
individuality to her, nor did it help to bestow on women a wider social role. As

observed by Meredith Boa-thwick, it implied some changes in domestic

arrangements, but not necessarily in social relationships. The priinary duty of

the woman towards her husband continued as per the accepted norm.

Since women are intimately connected with the domestic realm from

time immemorial, the programme of education envisaged for them was

arranged in such a manner as not to disrupt the domestic chores. The unpaid

domestic labour of women was a common ideal of family life. In fact, it was

elevated to the status of dharma or religious duty and neglect of which was

taken as unfeminine. The belief was so deep rooted that women reformers like

Pandita Ramabai reaffirmed the importance of domestic duties by providing a

separate curriculum for women. While discussing the proper conduct for

women in her Stri Dharma Niti, she reminds women of the importance of

domestic duties. She notes that a woman does not attain the rank of a

housewife merely by virtue of being born into the female sex or by becoming a

wife. It requires careful training. According to her, a woman should help her

husband in everything and the most essential of these tasks, which also carry

the greatest responsibility, are the domestic duties." The importance that

Ramabai provides for domestic duties in her Stri Dharma iCriti shows that she

intended moderate education, which would equip a woman to run the house

successfully. The kind of education prescribed for ~ ~ o i n edid

n not encourage

72Cited in Meera Kosambi, ed., Pandita Ramabai Through Her Own

Words (New Delhi: OUP, 2000) 78.
them to seek avenues outside the domestic realm. The past time other than

domestic work, in the opinion of Wamabai, is to read moral philosophy: srories

containing spiritual knowledge, the sastras that are within one's

comprehension, newspapers etc., A limited spiritual knowledge only is allowed

for women as the idle mind of a woman may go astray and break the

boundaries prescribed for women. If she neglects her domestic duties for her

spiritual uplift: she would be branded as dangerous and deviant. Women could

respond to their spiritual calling only by risking their reputation and being

termed d e ~ i a n t . ~Selfless
' devotion to one's husband is her means to attain the

highest bliss. Ignorant of the under play of the patriarchal structure, the women

reformers extolled the virtues of a devoted wife. Pandita Rainabai says, "It is a

woman's primary duty to assist her husband in every act, every time by

following his inclinations. Only the women who act accordingly may properly

be called their husband's better halves. Women who do not help their husbands

in any way are not called saintly."74 In a society where both men and women

compete to provide justification for the subordination of women to patriarchal

structure, there is no space for the development of individuality! The problem

lies in the fact that change was being sought within the patriarchal system. So it

is not surprising that these reforms in reality did not go beyond the traditional

73
Vijaya Ramaswamy, Walking Naked. Women, Society, Spivituulity in
South India (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, 1997) 10.

7 J ~ i t e din Meera Kosambi, ed., Pandita Ramabai Through Her Own

Words (New Delhi: O W , 2000)76.
boundaries of definitions of women, a point of view accepted by \\omen

activists t h e m ~ e l v e s . ~ ~

The life of those women reformers who fought for emancipation of their

fellow women is according to the ideology prescribed for women in a

patriarchal structure. In her ~\idolvedstate Pandita Ramabai's life was different

from that of the lnillions of fellow country women as she resumed the

occupation of a lecturer on the education of women within a fen months of the

~ she did not give up the life style of an orthodox

death of her h ~ s b a n d . ' But

widow of her period. Pad~niniSengupta who wrote the biography of Pandita

Ratnabai was of the view that Ramabai, immediately afier her husband's death

must have had her hair shorn. though not shaved, and thus remained with short

cropped hair. wearing the widows' white sari but no ornaments in her life.

Ramabai Ranade's rerninisences provided the picture of a girl who was

nurtured by her husband's blissful paternalism. Throughout the memoirs she

presented herself as a devoted. obedient mife to her husband.

75
Rekha pande & J.Kameshwari, "Women's Discourse on Education" in
Proceerlings of the Indian History Congress, 48th Session (Goa University,
1987) 392.

76~elelenS. Dyer. Pandi!a Ramabai. The Story of Her Life (London :

Morgan and Scott, 1974)19.