Velammal Bodhi Campus –PONNERI

(A CBSE - IIT/NEET Integrated Sr. Sec. School)

Class: VIII His: Women and Reform Sub: SST
Mind map:

New words:
1. DECADENT: Marked by decay or decline.
2. MORTALITY RATE: The number of deaths within the particular society and
within a particular period of time
3. PATRIARCHAL: Ruled or controlled by men
4. CLANDESTINE: Planned or done in secret, especially something that is not
officially allowed.
5. COERCE: To persuade people forcefully to do something which they are
unwilling to do
6. OSTRACISM: The act of avoiding people intentionally or to prevent them
from taking part in the activities of a group.
Running notes:
Position of Women in the Early 19TH Century.
 In India the nineteenth century was marked by movements for social reform
let largely by men.
  But focusing, more often than not, on questions relating to women
 The focus of these social reformers was mainly on the obscurantist cultural
and religious practices such as child marriage widow immolation and
Polygamy which were sought to be banned.
 They also called for education for women and new laws to be put in place
to protect women against these age-old practices.
Female Infanticide
 It was not just the poor who discriminated against the girl child.
 Even the well-to-do sections and upper caste where equality guilty
 Female infanticide was a regular practice.
 This pattern of preference was and still is largely connected to the
institution of dowry since the family’s obligation to provide a suitable
dowry to the bride's new family represents a major financial liability.
Child Marriage
 Children in traditional India were married off at an early age.
 Most of these marriages were made for political alliances.
 Girls were often seen as a burden as huge dowries had to be spending on
their marriages moreover it was felt that the older they remain unmarried,
the more difficult it would be to get grooms.
 Some girls were married off at as young as five. This practice led to the
mortality rate of women rising, especially during childbirth as they
themselves were too young to bear children.
Sati
 Traditionally women were expected to treat their husbands as gods and
obedience of wives to husband's remained a strong social norm in the 19th
century this expectation of devotion mad many wives follow their husbands
to the grave and immolating themselves in the husband's funeral pyre.
Polygamy
 Society in India is patriarchal in character. And all the social customs and
practices evolved as ways to benefit men.
 It was normal practice for men to have more than one wife as it had legal
sanction.
 These practices divested women of their customary rights and freedom in
marriage.
Condition of widows
 Widows were not allowed to remarry not even if they were bereaved at a
young age.
 They were forbidden from joining any festivals.
 They had to follow a strict diet re norm which comprised mostly of low
nutrient foods.
 Widows were often made to feel less outcasts.
Access to education
 Women in this period of time had no access to education. They remained in
the dark about their rights.
 So they were constantly subjected to exploitation exclusion and
subordination.
 Women were subjected to a systematic denial of right to education, training
land and livelihood resources.
 This resulted in the exclusion of women from all socio-economic and
political fields. Such restrictions made woman face a condition of near -
enslavement.
Beginning of women's reforms
 The obstacles faced by women were challenged socially and driven
politically.
 But the reforms were not political in nature.
 Its main aim was to fight for basic Human rights being made accessible to
women.
 The social reformers did not negate the prevailing traditional conditions but
just sought to change certain unreasonable aspects of Hindu society.
Ban on female infanticide.
 Lord Wellesley banned the religious custom of child sacrifice in Sagar
Island of Bay of Bengal.
 Though the ritual practice was stopped, the less visible practice of female
infanticide continued unabated in western and Northern India
 In these regions of Western North landowning high caste families found it
difficult to get suitable grooms for their daughters or pay high amounts of
dowry.
 So they resorted to clandestine killing of female offspring at the time of
birth.
  It was only in 1870 that the female infanticide act was passed by the
viceroy’s council.
 However even after that there were reports of abject neglect of the female
child resulting in mortality, which could not be detected of prevented by
law.
Prohibition of sati
 The greatest achievement that Raja Ram Mohan Roy is remembered for its
abolition of sati is self immolation of widows on the funeral pyre of sati of
their husbands.
 It was a social practice that was prevalent in India since ancient times.
 However it was practiced only by Rajput princely families in Rajasthan and
Central India and the Vijayanagar Kingdom.
 The Christian missionaries were the first to attack this practice but it was
under Raja Ram Mohan Roy that the movement gained momentum.
 Finally Governor General William Bentinck prohibited sati in 1829 by
government regulation.
Widow Remarriage
 Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar took up the cause of widow remarriage.
 The Hindu widow remarriage act of 1856 however failed to make this
practice socially acceptable.
 He failed in getting videos remarried as it involved social concerned and a
change in the mindset of people.
 As a result the practice of widow remarriage remained there and
exceptional among the educated classes of Bengal.
 This made social reformers like joytiba Phule attack the concept of celibate
widowhood.
 The reform movement in the Madras presidency in support of widow
remarriage was started by veerasalingam pantalu. He founded a society of
social reform in 1878 for this purpose.
 The first widow remarriage in this region was officiated by him in 1881.
Pandita Ramabai
 Pandita Ramabai was a social reformer and activist in India.
 She was born into a Brahmin family but she later converted into
Christianity she started the Arya mahila samaj to serve widows and helpless
women of India.
  Ramabai campaigned the cause of improving the plight of Indian women
and their emancipation.
 To this end she visited most parts of India and even went to Britain and the
United States of America.
 She was also a poet and the scholar.
Bengal
 Bengal became the pioneer of the socio religious reform movements.
 A radical trend arose among the Bengal intellectuals in the 19th century to
reform society of its social evils.
 An area of major concern among the many approval and social evils was
the various forms of exploitation the women were subjected to.
 Many schools for girls were open at this time everywhere in India but the
lead was taken by Bengal with the opening of a girl’s school in Calcutta by
J.E.D. Bethune in 1849 called the Bethune school.
 Men were not allowed in its premises and the school provided for
transportation of the girls to school.
Begum Rokeya
 Begum Rokeya was another noted social reformer who championed the
cause of women in Bengal.
 She advocated for education of women and espoused for their participation
in all spheres of life.
 She channelized her efforts mainly towards Muslim women who were
confined under the purdah system.
Maharashtra
 In Maharashtra and parts of Western India the lead in reforming the
condition of women was taken by people like mahadev Govind Ranade,
Ramakrishna Bhandarkar Jyotiba Phule and Pandita Ramabai.
Child marriage
 In Bengal Vidyasagar continued his reform movement directing it against
polygamy and later child marriage.
 He finally secured the Age of Consent Act in 1860.
 The act fixed the age of concern for the consummation of marriage at 10
years of age for women.
 It was raised to 12 years by a legislation passed in 1891.
Impact of the reform movement
 These movements are the rise of such women as Tarabai Shinde, Ramabai,
Anandibai Joshi, Rajkumari, Amrit Kaur, Sarojini Naidu and
Muthulakshmi Reddy who contributed significantly to the national
movement as well as to women's emancipation.
 However from an overall perspective reform through legislation remained
generally ineffective.
 These reforms affected only a few women belonging to the upper classes
mostly and that too in a restricted way.
 For the most part women remained recipients of male patronage.
 This also signified the patriarchal control of the educated male over the
private sphere or the domestic area reserved for women.