INTRODUCTION

Women always had distinct economic role to play right from

ancient ages and that it took its contours according to different class, age,
place and socio-religious conditions of that age. There was also a direct
link between the social status of women and their role in production. For
J.S. Mill, the most telling index of the level of civilization a society had
arrived at, was the status it accorded to its women. Moreover, in today’s
age of globalization any attempt to understand the women’s economic
role in the national scenario would be incomplete without knowing what
it was in the ancient ages.

“Women studies” term in itself is a modern concept and whatever

literature exists on this issue mainly revolves around the general position
of women in early India. If women’s history has been a relatively
neglected sphere of historical studies in Ancient India then ‘Economic
condition of Women’ is an aspect which has been left out altogether by
our ancient historians till some decades back. Studies on the economic
condition of women still remains beyond the purview of ‘mainstream’
history writing of ancient India. The association of women with
productive and creative work is an aspect on which most ancient texts are
silent, wherever the work on women we get, it usually seems to follow
the pattern laid by dharmasutrakaras, that is women in relation to
household work. Either women labour force was invisible in the
academic writings or if at all visible then it was hardly recognized and if
at all recognized then it was undervalued when compared to men’s work.
They were generally underpaid and very often unpaid, their labour was

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oppressed and subordinated and this subordination was many times caste,
class and gender based. This invisibility of women labour was for varied
reasons, firstly the history writing on early women was influenced by
male bias which was patriarchal in framework and religious in nature
which projected an ideal concept of womanhood for the Hindu society.
Secondly the economic theories and methodologies kept women’s work
out of its domain as the conventional principle of demand and supply
failed to accommodate women labour as their labour was strictly not to
meet the market demands and most of the times it couldn’t be measured
in monetary terms as their labour was largely for subsistence and were
not paid wages in the modern sense of economy. Thirdly the invisibility
was because of the sex typing of the works as men’s work and women’s
work Men’s work was valued in the society and it was considered an
important source for production which was physically demanding, needed
necessary skill and training whereas women’s work was identified as
domestic works which didn’t need any skill and proficiency, they have
been depicted as homemakers and mothers. According to Maithreyi
Krishna Raj (EPW, 1988), ‘opportunity costs or market value imputations
of market substitutes pose basic theoretical problems, unanswerable at the
moment. The market value is based on given supply and demand. If all
the work women did in the home moved into the market, the parameters
of supply and demand will change’. Historically speaking men and
women were equal partners in the production- distribution processes.
Fourthly the women’s reproductive labour and household tasks were
beyond the preview of mainstream history writing as the present tools of
research, models and methodologies fail to recognize it as regular labour.

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 It is well known that even today the largest section of rural women
are directly involved in field agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry etc.,
as they belong to landless rural households, they are hardly visible not
only in ancient sources but even in present day census reports and are
seldom taken into consideration by our social and economic historians.
Thus, the present study has been taken up to present a historic analytical
account of women’s economic condition in ancient India and to co-relate
the changes in their economic conditions with social forces. The central
argument of the study is that ancient women economic condition had
varied dimensions. The role of men and women were generalized in
public and private domains respectively in ancient Indian societies. It is
presumed that because of lack of education and training, early marriage,
parda system, women stayed away from economic activities. But this
could not have been the general feature of the early societies as these
restrictions were imposed on the small section of upper caste women of
affluent classes belonging to the northern and central parts of India. This
study is an Endeavour to restore the position of the “women working
class” in mainstream history. It is hard to imagine any society where
women folk completely withdrew from the production processes. Since
primitive society women had distinct economic roles to play. The nature
of economy of ancient ages gives no clear cut demarcation between the
gender roles and they are very much influenced by the demands of the
situation. As there was no distinction between domestic and work place
and production being largely for local consumption, women economic
participation was always there. Some of the women’s occupations are
characterized by the direct involvement of women in earning for the
family e.g., women in textile industry, women in administrative services,

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royal attendants, entertaining maids, courtesans etc. The other
occupations were those in which women had either a passive role or
supplementary roles and assisted their husbands in craft occupation and
agricultural processes. These occupations were not a full time wage
employment as production was not commercial. In such domestic craft
occupation, dairy farming, agriculture, pottery, oil industry etc., women’s
subsidiary role went unnoticed and her contribution to the family income
remained hidden. For example, in agriculture process itself women’s
contribution is inevitable at every stage of crop production like planting
of seeds, weeding of plants, husking and winnowing of paddy and such
other sundry jobs, which were done entirely by women. Nature of women
work was caste and class bound. Women belonging to the lower sections
of the society took up economic activities along with men to supplement
the family income. The lower caste women could not afford to stay away
from the public production.

The second factor which affected women’s economic condition

was their property rights. The evolution of women’s property rights was a
gradual process. Initially, a woman herself was regarded a property and
could be gifted or sold. By the beginning of the Christian era women
came to be recongnized as joint owners of the family property and
secured some milior rights in a limited sense. ‘Women had two sources to
acquire property: Inheritance and stridhana. It was Yajanvalkya, who
came forward with more liberalized principles and regarded women as
‘dayad’ for the first time. Later on, Mitakshara enlarged the scope of
women’s right over property. There would also be an attempt to explain
away the inherent dichotomies related to women’s economic condition
i.e. depressed social status and their continually expanding property

4
rights, a huge gap between the economic independence of women of
lower and upper stratas of society of different ages, distinction between
right of custody and possession and the right of absolute ownership and
disposal on free will.

Briefly, the historigraphical shifts can be marked out in women’s

history writing covering the early Indian society. Many scholars
undertook to study the position of women in Ancient India although from
different perspectives. The existing literature on women’s history can be
broadly classified as -

 General studies on women in Ancient India.

 Studies limited to specific aspects.

In the first category most of the literature is basically concerned

with the general position of women in social, religious, political and legal
contexts. Clarisse Bader’, with a tendency to romanticize the early Indian
situation argued that western women had much to learn from ancient
aryan civilization. Despite the superficial explanation offered by her, it
was the first independent study undertaken on women and this
contribution cannot be under limited by any means. But it was A.S.
Altekar who laid the agenda for women’s history in the early twentieth
century. He identified two contradictory long term trends influencing the
position of women.

1. Decline in their general status.

2. An increase in their proprietary rights.

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 Of these the first outweighs the second. Off late the Altekarian
Paradigm which dominated the women’s history for three decades has
come to be challenged. Altekar does connect the status of women with
the economic context in which they were placed in and has discussed
their contribution to production. He holds the view that high position of
women in Vedic age was because they took active part in production and
as they ceased to be productive members of the society and became
parasites they lost the esteem of the society.

The influence of the nationalist historians continued to manifest in

later works. Indra refers briefly to women in agriculture and weaving but
tries to explain away the participation of women in the latter activity,
dismissing cloth making as indeed a healthy occupation which
necessitated no great intellectual skill or no heavy physical exertion. P.
Thomas has discussed the question of women in wider perspectives, he
was more obsessed with the non-aryan women and this to an extant
serves as a corrective to the monolithic Aryan Model which tends to
dominate most of the discussion.

Some other studies on women’s history of general nature are of

E.R. Martin Mary, P Mukherjee, Kumud Lata Saxena. Their work
otherwise useful at least for the wealth of details they incorporate but lack
significantly with respect to the economic condition of women in early
Indian society. For Tripat Sharma, by ‘women’ the concern is mainly
with women of royal family and women in services of the royal family
for political purposes. He has discussed about the administrative capacity
of the women in Hindu society. Chandrabali Tripathi has projected a
comparative view of Indian women placed in the world civilization. In

6
another work ed. by S. Vats & S. Mudgal’ women is the subject of study
in different societies but references to their economic role is limited to
some stray references of the careers pursued by them as it comes out from
Panini’s Astadhayi and Patanj iii’s Mahabhashya.

Other than these there are some other works on women’s history
limited in its scope with some respect. B.S. Upadhyaya’s study was a text
based purely on literary sources projecting Vedic age as the Golden age
for women in early Indian history. He gives the list of activities in which
women of the Vedic age were engaged in a few lines. Post independence
scholars continued to rely on virtually fixed patterns of explanation of the
Vedic age. J.B. Chaudhari’ for instance pleas for the revival of the Vedic
rituals for women. Shakuntala Rao Shastri’s volume carries the subject
from vedic literature to Grihyasutras but hardly includes their economic
condition. Prasant Kumar’ has also devoted his study on the status of
women during the Vedic age.

In B.C. Law’s monograph, which is believed to be the first of its

kind, he felt that women had ‘advanced’ within the Buddhism and that
the advance was the work of the women themselves... The credit that can
be accorded to I.B. Homer’ is for recognizing the independent entity of
women in the context of wider society by introducing a new category of
women workers. Both Hornet and Law were though limited in their scope
and primarily based on Pali literature, it is nonetheless valuable for
recognizing the existence of women outside the domesticity. Diana Y
Paul’ has depicted the ambivalent attitude towards the women that has
been apparent in the Buddhist lands in all the ages and epochs. K.C. Jam’
has devoted an entire chapter for women who sought their livelihood by

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themselves and they were classified as paricharika, ganika and veshyas.
M. Taleem’ was another historian who has worked in the same direction.

We have a number of works coming out time and again

concentrating on women with respect to a particular smritikar or epic e.g.
R.M. Dais study on Manu depicts his devotion in virtually all the
recommendations of the text. Shakambari Jayal’s for instance echoes
Aitekar’s views on the responsibility of the non-aryan wife for the
general decline in the ritual status of women in the post -Vedic phase.
Some other works are of R.S. Pinkham, Vanmala Bhawalkar, Malati
Mishra, Shalini Shah, Manjushree. Ratnamayi Devi Dikshit provides a
study on women from the perception of the Sanskrit Dramatists. Then we
come across some of the works in which authors have limited themselves
to the legal aspect of women in ancient India. G.D. Banerjee has
discussed the various types of marriage and stridhana rights of women.
D.N. Mitter discusses only the legal status based on the ancient legal
texts. Saroj Gulati recognizes in her work the need to study the position
of women within a given socio-economic context and her explanation for
the deterioration of women’s position in society also reflects an attempt
to integrate rather diverse concepts.

In all these works, women’s economic status is either invisible or

finds only a passing reference. Whatever information we have is only
about their proprietary rights alone and based on it their economic status
has been generalized. It was only from the last two decades that women’s
economic issues in ancient India has started getting its rightful place as a
result we find some articles and monographs covering it. Uma
Chakravarty’ through her article was probably the first to recognize this

8
lacuna. For Uma Chakravarty, both I. B. Homer and A.S. Altekar were to
some extant a response to the colonial challenge to ‘masculine identities’.
Then we witness number of articles and books coming out time and again
as that of A. K. Tyagi, Vijay Nath, Suvira Jaiswa, Vijaya Ramaswamy,
H.C. Satyarthi, D.N. Ram etc attempting some effort in doing justice to
women’s position.

Savita Vishnoi in her study while referring to economic status of

women in ancient India, has restricted herself to their legal economic
rights only. J.S. Mishra has discussed the economic condition of women
in ancient India very analytically in different stages. A.K. Tyagi has
worked on women workers n ancient India which throws ample light on
the careers pursued by women in Ancient India. M. Subbamma’ in
‘Hinduism and Women’ states that, “the information regarding the
economic position of women was scanty ... Research on large scale has to
be carried on to fill the void”. Lastly in a work edited by Kumkum Roy a
good effort is made in collecting the articles on women’s economic issues
and attempted to go beyond the Altekarian paradigm.

Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive work which discusses the

important aspects of the women’s economic condition in ancient India.
There is a tendency to marginalize the role of women in production and
to limit their role to the socio-legal framework, which dominated the
traditional studies on women in ancient India. All the efforts made at
different times by different historians are partial in some respect. Any
information on this subject is generally available in bits and pieces from
which an effort to build up a complete picture has to be made. We don’t
find any fill fledged work being done on this topic.

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 The topic of the present study is “Economic Condition of Women
in Ancient India”, which would be covering a period between 1500 B.C
to 1200 A.D so as to bring out a holistic picture of the women’s economic
condition in ancient India. The study, it is hoped, will give a new
dimension to the current debate and discussion on the status of women in
modern society In order to give a reasoned account the topic has been
divided in five chapters chronologically and each chapter has covered
significant women’s economic issues such as ‘women labour class’,
‘economic independence’, ‘economic rights’, ‘courtesans as an
independent economic class’ etc. Economic condition of women was
largely affected by three factors; social factor, profession and property
rights based on which each of the five chapters are divided into three
sections covering ‘women and society’, ‘women and economy’ and
‘women’s property rights’. Under the first section womens social status in
the role of daughter, wife and widow is the subject matter of the study. In
the second section women economic activity has been grouped under four
headings based on their nature of work i.e.

i) women agricultural labour

ii) women skilled labour

iii) women service class

iv) courtesans I devdasis

Under the third section womens’ property rights has been analysed
under the following heads i.e

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i) Daughters right to property; brotherless daughters, daughters with
brothers

ii) Wife’s right to property and stridhana, right to maintenance and

disposal

iii) Widows right of inheritance of property, maintenance and disposal.

In the last section, the conclusion of all the chapters would be

summarized in such a way that the theme of the topic comes forth and its
relevance in the contemporary society of globalized era. This study would
provide a complete and synthetic view of the economic condition of
women in ancient period.

Writing women into history has its own limitations. First the
sources - female influence is doubly veiled from us, it is often silent,
veiled by women themselves and frequently ignored either deliberately or
as a matter of course in the sources penned by men. In view of the same,
the role of women in the sustenance and survival of civilization has
largely remained invisible. It is hoped that such an account will be
instrumental in highlighting the invisibility phenomenon. Secondly, all
the information on women that original text carries are centering around
women of upper strata, who generally stayed away from economic
activities and that they constituted only a small percentage of the whole
society.

Among literary sources, to have the more important are religious

literature including vedic and allied literature, epics, puranas and
dharmasutras. Among the text dealing with legal matters would include
smritis such as Manu, Yajnavalkya, Narada, Brihaspati, Vishnu, Atri,

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Devala, Katyayana etc along with the commentatories and digests written
on it later on like that of Medhatithi, Dayabhaga of Jimutavahana,
Virmitrodaya of Mitramisra, Vijnanesvara’s Mitakshara etc. The study
would also incorporate the main Buddhist and Jam literatures. The
sanskrit classical literature would also be a part of the study. The
accounts of foreign travelers coming to India would also be studied such
as M’crindlle's translation of Megasthenes and Arrian, Yuan Chwangs
account translated by Watter (London), life of Hiuen Tsang by S. Beal
(London), Alberuni’s India translated by Sachau (London) etc. The
information gathered from different literary sources has been
corroborated where possible with epigraphic evidences. Inscriptions too
have to be treated carefully because there was scope for exaggeration
since these contained often donations made by either the king or queen
and tend to be eulogistic on occasions. Art remains, sculpture on the walls
of the temples indicate although indirectly, not only the many activities of
women but their economic status as well. Thus archaeological works as
published in Epigraphic Indica, Corpus Inscription Indicum, Indian
Antiquary, and other Journals, annual reports on South Indian Epigraphy,
Epigraphic carnatic etc would be covered in the present investigation.

The treatment of the theme of this book is constructive, analytical

and critical. An attempt has been made to look into our ancient literature
and archaeological sources to bring the economic condition of women
with a critical view point and in historical perspective so that the gradual
shift in economic condition of women is properly and accurately
delineated. The method employed in the division of topic and sub-
divisions would be a combination of the topical and chronological

12
arrangements. For the chronological division Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan
Series has been followed.

Today’s women is aware of her economic rights, but this has not
happened all of a sudden, she has traveled a long journey. This study
would attempt to examine the contemporaniety of women’s economic
conditions and analyzing it in modern perspective. In this modern
scenario such an investigation couldn’t be avoided any more. I hope book
would go a long way in understanding the economic condition of women
in contemporary society and providing her equal economic right which
would in turn give her a respectable social status.

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 CHAPTER-1

ECONOMIC CONDITION OF WOMEN

IN THE VEDIC AGE (1500 B.C TO 600
B.C)
The twilight slowly brightened into dawn, and the sun of vedic
culture rose on the horizon of Indian History. In any study on the socio-
religious aspects of Indian life, one has to go back to the vedic age, since
it occupies the foremost place in the history of our civilization and
culture. There may be some controversy as to the exact chronology of its
various texts but there is no doubt that it is most ancient literature of our
country. The ideas and practices recorded in this literature have
influenced and guided the lives of men and women through the ages.
Hence, our study of the economic status of Indian women must also
commence with a probe of the vedic literature.

About twenty centuries before Christ a young, gay and sturdy race
crossed the north-western frontier of India and stood on the threshold of
the Saptasindhu, the land of seven rivers. The Indo-Aryan, as they are
now called, forming the extreme branch of the larger India-European
family looked in front of them.

(I) Society & Women

Daughters: The position which women occupied in Hindu

society at the dawn of civilization during the Vedic age is much better
than what we ordinarily expect it to have been. The position of a women
in society can be judged by the way in which the birth of a girl is

14
received. Although we find a frequent longing for a male child in the
Rgveda it was more because of military reasons than for religious
purposes, the consequent desire for more warriors was but natural. In
such a state the importance of the woman becomes singular and the birth
of a daughter as potential mother is not altogether unwelcome. It is
surprising, however that no desire for the birth of a daughter is ever
expressed in the entire range of Rgveda. Her birth is even deprecated in
the Atharveda. In this samhita reference is made to mystic charms for
undoing the effect of a female feotus and for changing it into a male one.
The Aitareya Brahamana preserves an ancient gatha in which a daughter
has been characterized as a misery (karpanam). But nevertheless we find
frequent references in the Rgveda to daughters being fondly caressed and
affectionately brought up by parents. Ordinarily girls were no doubt less
welcome than boys but we must add that there were also some parents in
society who would perform special religious rituals for the good luck of
getting learned and capable daughters”. It was desired by one of the
couple to reach their full extent of life with sons and daughter (putrina ta
kumarina) growing by their side. We have several allusions to daughter
nourished in their parents family and even growing old (amajuriva) while
staying there. Women, experts in animal husbandry and mothers of the
brave were specially honored in the Vedic period. Gods were invoked by
men for granting such women to them.

The young girl was called duhitr and according to A.C. Dast it is
indicative of her principal duty, namely the milking of the cow. But S.C.
Sarkar following professor Keith and Macdonell explains the word as
“the potential nourisher of the child” (from duh milk).

15
 Girls were educated like boys and had to pass through a period of
brahmacarya. They were educated both in the spiritual and the secular
subjects. The secular side of their education consisted of fine arts and
military science. In the Rg Vedic period, the girls were given training in
fine arts which included music, dancing, musical instruments etc. Rg
Veda gives the example of singing girls and there is a reference of the
songs sung by a group of women Satapatha Brahmana gives the reference
of the women singing the soma hymns. They also received training in
various arts like painting, gardening, garland making, toy making, house
decorations etc. Vedic girls were given military training, education in the
field of warfare was given to the kshatriya daughters. Rgveda also refers
to female soilders named ‘Vishpala’, ‘Vadhrimati’ & ‘Mudgalaru’, who
were very skilled in warfare.

Wife: With regard to ritual purity enjoyed by women, a clear

difference is perceptible between the Rgvedic period and the subsequent
ages. Women during the Vedic age were not only ritually entitled to
perform sacrificial rites, they also had access to upanayana and Vedic
study. In the Vedas women have been granted the highest status of being
a seer (rishika) along with men. Those maidens who study the Vedas with
the observance of brahmacharya and have perfect self control, become
the ornaments of the human race. The Atharvaveda is equally strong in its
support of women education. As a qualification for marriage the
education of the maiden was considered as important as that of men.
Women during the Rgvedic period enjoyed greater freedom of movement
than their later counterparts. They could participate in chariot races and
compete for prizes. They could also take an active part in the proceedings
of the sabha. Women were also free to attend samana or social gatherings.
16
It is evident that purdha was not followed and participation of girls and
ladies in the social and public gatherings was welcomed in Vedic society.
Since women were occupied in many outdoor professions, there was no
purdha in society.

The marriage of girls used to take place at a fairly advanced age,

the normal age being 16 or 17. Educated brides of this age had naturally
an effective voice in the selection of their partners in life,’ Surya, the
daughter of Surya, was given away to Soma in marriage only when she
became youthful and yearned for a husband, "patyo samasantim"
explained by Sayana as 'patim kamayamanam paryapta yauvanam iti'.

Notwithstanding the fact that kings often followed polygamy,

monogamy was practiced by the people in general and approved of by the
society. The wife is emphatically called the mistress (grhastni) of her
husband’s home. Woman as a wife is denoted by the words jaya, jani and
patni, each indicating special aspects of wifehood. After marriage a
women was given an honorable position in the household and she could
offer oblations to the fire whilst performing sacrifices. The wife was
considered the heart and soul of the home and that the household fire was
tended by the husband and wife. Women were regarded with due respect
in every sphere of life and they were not subject to any of the merciless
laws of an unsympathetic society. Even when she overstepped moral
laws, she was judged with sympathy. The ideal of womanhood first
begins to take a definite shape in the age of the Brahmanas. She was to be
good and affectionate to her husband.

Widow: References to widows are scanty in Rgveda and it was

not characterized by restrictions and austerities of later days. A reference
17
to widowhood is to be found in only one of the later books dealing with
funeral ceremonies. It is absolutely clear from the entire Vedic literature
that the custom of immolation of widows popularly known as Sati did not
exist in the Vedic age. According to a verse occurring in the Atharveda, a
widow, desirous of going to the world of her husband, lay down for a
while beside the corpse of her husband in pursuance of an ancient
custom. The same custom is also mentioned in a verse of the Rgveda
which makes it clear after this formality the widow was asked to get up
and come back to the world of living. Widows having very young
children without any means to support them, however must have, in some
cases at least, contracted new marriages, for there was no bar on widow
marriage in the Vedic age. An issueless young widow had the option of
raising a son for her late husband by entering into levirate with her
husband’s younger brother or contracting a new marriage with a man of
her choice. The Aryans never wanted the fertility of their women to go
waste. Dowry was not an impediment in the marriage of a girl in the
Atharvavedic period. It was generally unknown to the vedic people. At
that time, it was the bride’s father and not the bridegroom’s who was
regarded as justified in demanding a payment at the time of marriage. The
bridegroom carried away the bride and deprived her family of her
services. He couldn’t have dreamt of demanding a further dowry or
donation. In rich and royal families some gifts used to be given to son-in-
laws at the time of marriage. The Atharveda once incidentally refers to
royal brides bringing with them the dowry of a hundred cows. In such a
social ethos, women naturally enjoyed a considerable degree of social and
sexual freedom. This is attested by the sanction given to widow marriage
in the Rgveda. Even in the Atharvaveda, a widow (punarbhu) was often

18
known to marry her deceased husband’s brother.

A perceptible shift was clear in the position of the Aryans, as their

political expansion in northern India was complete and they adopted
agriculture as their primary occupation and began a settled life.
Consequently society changed into patrienal kinship structure as a result
more and more restrictions were enforced on womenfolk and by later
vedic periods the socio-economic previleges enjoyed by women were
crippled. Etymological study also reflects this definite change e.g., the
word stri as it occurs in the Rgveda for instance, simply denotes a woman
juxtaposed to man (pumams or vrsan) without carrying any overtones of
potential wifehood but from the Atharvaveda onwards, the term stri is
juxtaposed to pati (husband), thus restricting the role of women mainly to
wifehood.

(II) Economy & Women

In the early primitive society, hunting and food gathering was

supplemented by slash and burn method of agriculture (Jhum cultivation)
and every member was actively involved in it. According D.D. Kosambi
“the first division of labour was between men and women, women were
the first potters, basket weavers, agriculturists with hoe cultivation of the
digging stick”. Despite the beginning of shifting agriculture the Rgvedic
economy was predominantly tribal with cattle rearing as the basis of its
economic life which rendered surplus production impossible. In such an
economic order, typical of all pre-agricultural societies, women inevitably
played a key role in the production. Thus the economic stability and the
very physical survival of tribal groups which were constantly depleted by
wars, seem to have depended upon the optimum utilization of women’s
19
productive and reproductive labour. In the vedic economy women were
comparatively free and their place in the community was naturally
determined by her ability to share in the work of the community. So the
percentage of women who could lead sedantry lives must have been
limited to only a small section of elite women who could afford to remain
asuryasprsya. In a small subsistence economy with small population
where production was unspecialized and undifferentiated a regular sexual
division of labour was simply unlikely and unnecessaiy”.

By the later vedic age the rural-urban divide had begun to take its
shape. With the adoption of intensive field agriculture and surplus
production, there was a need for slave or hired labour. And women
belonging to the upper classes in economic production were therefore,
virtually eliminated, although women of the lower orders continued to
work in the economy. A section of the conquered population had been
reduced to a semi-servile position and its cheap labour was available for a
number of professions. Unlike the representation of women in the Rgveda
and even in the Atharvaveda, Dharmasutras don’t depict women as
weavers, making bows and arrows or breaking reeds to prepare
mattresses. From being active producers, women now seem to have been
relegated to a position of passive economic dependence.

In agricultural labour also women ceased to take any active part.

Spinning and weaving was something like a home or cottage industry and
woman continued to take a more active part in it than men. With a larger
population, and more surplus labour there was a gradual withdrawal of
high status persons from basic maintenance activities and these persons
gained superior rights of access to basic resources through administrative

20
roles. The women were not among those entering the redistributive roles
(although this couldn’t always have been the case for in the Rgveda, there
is reference to ‘Sanutri’ in the sense of a woman distributor), the
narrowing of access rights to resources immediately began to diminish
women’s status and economic opportunities open to them. Women of the
upper classes were largely restricted to procreation and attending to
household duties and their role in society was defined by their
relationship to men. The adverse impact of it was that women of upper
class themselves came to be looked upon as property with the withdrawal
of women from public production to household services and with the
growth of private property their disabilities increased. As a result of the
emergence of a complex economy and social structure, women’s non
specialist position became a real handicap. And the reason for the lack of
specialization was due to over burden in her breeder- feeder role.

Women of the lower classes continued to take an active part as

before in the economic life. Thus there was only role differentiation and
shift from women as such to ‘lower-class women’ in particular. With the
expansion of intensive agriculture on large scale the demand for labour
class must have had increased. Craft specialization, which followed in the
wake of agricultural expansion to some extant, must have led to the
separation of home and the work place. Women labour were skilled in
textile industry, pottery, mat making etc. With the coming of state into
existence, women could be seen in state services as state officials, spys,
warriors etc. Some women took up noble professions like teaching and
medicine. There was another rich class of women entertainers and
courtesans who were in a position to exploit their talent in arts to earn
their livelihood. The nature of the Vedic economy reveals the various

21
forms of women labour which are as follows:-

Women Agricultural Labour: Aryans were primarily pastrolists

and not agriculturists, their agriculture was subsidiary and subsistence
oriented. Ownership of land, like cattle, probably vested in the kin based
tribe, vis or jana, whose members dwelling at one place communally
owned the land and collectively worked in the field. In Sathpatha
Brahmana, husband and wife have been compared to two parts of a grain,
which only together gives it completeness. In Taittiriya Brahamana, the
husband-wife have been asked to be together engaged in sacrifices like
plough and bullock. Such similes refers to the involvement of women in
agriculture and animal husbandry. Iron being unknown and the tilling of
the virgin land by all means a difficult task, it required the labour of the
whole community The Vedic women derived importance not only from
being producers of producers (male children), but also from being
primary producers of food and other goods. In the early stage cultivation
was still considered a continuation of food gathering in which women
played a significant role.

Some of the vedic references clearly indicate the agrarian pre-

occupation of the ladies eg., they brought water in jars (udakam kumbhi
hiriva) from wells and watched the standing crops of the field. In Rgveda,
we find Apala helping her father in agricultural activities. In Sathapatha
Brahmana there is an instance were “khurpi” has been mentioned along
with a women. Female slaves working in the fields is first heard of in the
Srauta sutras.

By the later Vedic age agriculture became the primary concern of

the vaishyas, the most numerous of the four varnas which developed
22
during the period and their women folk perhaps actively participated in
their work. The Baudhyana Dharmasutra states that vaisyas and sudra
women are free (sexually) because they are engaged in agricultural
servicing ftinctions. Lower class women as hired labourer were working
in the fields and pastures along with their men folk for the subsistence of
their family.

Dairying and milk products: The Vedic tribes were mostly

pastoral warriors and they counted wealth in terms of cattle. The pastoral
societies have, however, greater scope to develop the sense of property
and individual ownership since cattle could be preserved and multiplied,
used as the best medium of exchange, increased by wars and raids, and
divided amongst clans, families even individuals. Evidence of some kind
of individual possession is found in the later books of the Rgveda. That in
the later period of the Rgveda even women were entitled to have some
share of cattle wealth as marriage gift is suggested in the wedding hymn.
The term mentioned there is ‘vahatu’ which has been explained by
Sayana as ‘cow and other gifts given for pleasing the girl’.

The young girl was called the duhita, the term, denoting daughter,
is found in almost all the Aryan languages. The etymology of her name
indicates her principle duty in the Rgvedic family, namely milking the
cow. Her association with milk and its other preparations is brought out
in several instances. Sisters of priestly ministrants (jamayo adhvanyatam)
mingle their sweetness with the milk (princatiramadhurapayah). The
joyous maiden is beheld where the butter flows (tiyate ghrtama). Thus
milking of the cows and preparing clarified butter and curd, seem to have
been their chief concern. Even in Atharvaveda it has been said about

23
daughters that they looked after the cattle. We may, therefore, hold that
tending and milking the cow, and the preparation of butter and ghee,
which were such important items of diet in those days, were regarded as
the chief duties of the girls of the family. Among other duties which are
referred to as normal for maidens are weaving, bringing water in a jar,
bringing the soma plant and extracting its juice and watching over crops
in the field.

We know that Vedic women carded and possibly spun wool,

fetched water and tended cattle but we don’t know whether they earned
anything other than bare maintenance for these services. Undoubtedly
women looked after household duties, the kitchen and the nursery were in
their charge, but then as now, these services were not measured in
economic terms and therefore no payment was made.

Women skilled labour: One can clearly notice the

proliferation of crafts during the period which were in the nature of small
scale cottage based industries. It is rather surprising to find that women
were taking an active part in the industrial life of these early times, there
are references of specific terms being used for some of the economic
pursuits which fell in to disuse in later ages.

Textile Industry: Textiles was one of the chief occupation in

which women were engaged. Predominance of women in weaving,
dyeing and embroidery is reflected in terms like Sri Vayirri (a female
weaver), rajayitri (a female dyer) and pesaskari (a female embroiderer) as
well as in the metaphor of night and day as two sisters weaving the web
of the year. The making of embroidered garments was a regular
occupation of women as is indicated by the pesakari, the female
24
embroiderer figuring in the list of victims at the purusamedha (human
sacrifice) in the Yajurveda, though the commentator on the Taittiriya
Brahmana interprets the word as ‘wife of a maker of gold”. The term
pesas in the Rgveda denotes an embroidered garments with artistic and
intricate designs inlaid with gold, heavy and brilliant, such as a female
dancer would wear. From a reference of Sathapatha brahmana we come
to know that women weaved cotton and wool. Women used to stitch their
clothes toot. After marriage the groom used to wear the cloth woven by
the bride herself. There is an indication that ‘urdnasutr’ a was prepared
only by women. According to a recitation (mantra) young girls used to
weave cloths. At one place we find a woman going again to finish the
incomplete task of weaving. There is an example of a mother, who
prepared clothes for her son. Since women in general are referred to as
sewing their mantle (sivyatvapah) with never breaking needle
(sucyacchidyamanya), girls also as now must have been employed in
needle work.

Artisans: Apart from this, women labour were skilled in some

small artistic and technical works. Women class working with thorns
were called ‘kantakari’ and those who prepared baskets were called
‘bidalakari’. Women class skilled in preparing face packs and
beautification were called ‘anjanikari’ and women who prepared arrow
baskets were called ‘kosakari’. Preparing mats with leaves and bamboos
was also a woman’s occupation but men were also engaged in it at times.
Women used to manufacture arrows and bows, the female arrow makers
were called ‘ishukartryah’ in the vedic literature, it disappeared later on.
The epic refers to women masseurs, women beauticians, garland makers.
Washing too had given rise to a professional category in which both men
25
(malaga) and women (vasahpaluti) took part. There are references to
upalaparksini (women employed in making groats) and a female basket
maker as bidalakari. Other crafts such as karmara (smith), kulala or
mrtpach (pottery), taksan (carpenter), rajkara (rope maker) surakara (wine
maker) and various other are mentioned in the later vedic literature.
Probably both men and women were engaged in above stated professions.

With the proliferation of crafts during the later vedic period, some
of the craftsmen and women evidently belonged to non- aryan groups. So
we can conclude that in some crafts men and women were together
engaged and they used to compliment each other whereas some crafts
were exclusively undertaken by women and some occupations were
reserved for women of specific castes.

Women Service Class: Women labour was engaged in various

kinds of services, some women used to adopt teaching and medicinal
professions for their livelihood, there were others who were employed in
state services in different roles e.g. in administration, warfare, espionage
etc. Apart from this some women labour class undertook low rank jobs
like female attendants, female slaves and female entertainers.

Leaching Career: Medic women were eligible for upanayana

ceremony, they offered the daily Medic sacrifices like men and there are
instances of women being famous poetess, scholars, philosophers and
debaters. According to the orthodox tradition itself as recorded in the
Sarvanukramanika there are as many as twenty women among the ‘seers’
or authors of the figvedat. During the early Medic period, the father was
usually the teacher of his children, later on the professional teacher
(acharya) came into existence. Some of the educated women of this
26
period are seen taking teaching as a career and were called acharyas in
order to differentiate them from the wives of teachers, who were called
acharyanis.

Medicinal Profession: It is curious that women of the Vedic

period were interested in plant life and animal life. Reference is made to a
plant black in hue - (probably indigio) as having been medically used by
asura women. It can be presumed that medical functions in the early
Medic period belonged to women. There are references to dhatri (a wet
nurse) in epic literature. The maid servants who carried the toiletry
attending to the king’s need were women with medicinal knowledge.

Administration: Women as kings and political officers don’t

figure in the early Medic times as the concept of sovereign state had not
yet emerged. The Aryan society being patriarchial, doesn’t furnish many
names of female rulers. In the Medic and post Medic literature we seldom
find a reference to a reigning queen. But the Medic women were
members of the sabha, Midatha a popular assembly, and took an active
part in its proceedings. It was also expected that the bride should be able
to speak with composure in public assemblies. In R.S. Sharmas opinion
“the Vidatha was the earliest folk-assembly of the Indo-Aryans attended
both by men and women, performing all kinds of functions, economic,
military, religious and social”. This view is confirmed by Suvira Jaiswal,
she states, “if we regard the Midatha as the earliest folk assembly of the
Indo-Aryans having distributive as well as other functions then the
question of women’s participation in it will have to be related to their role
in food production”. The Rigveda along with the collections of the
Atharvaveda taken together, furnish at least seven references, testifying

27
not only to women’s attendance in the Vidatha but also to her
participations. Thus Surya is instructed to speak in the affairs of the
assembly. However, by the time of the Maitrayani Samhita their position
had already changed. The text categorically states “Men go to assembly,
not women”. There is an intruging references to a king called Srgala who
was the head of a woman’s kingdom (strirajyadhipati) and had
participated in the svayamvara of a Kalinga princess. Some scholars have
tried to glorify the advisory role of queens like Satyavati, Kunti,
Draupadi, Midula and Gandhari. Thus the role of women in the state and
administration was marginalized to an extent that they were now reduced
to a mere token presence. In spite of the entire epic revolving around a
great war, there is no reference to any women handling weapons.

Female Attendants: Among the non-aryan tribes e.g. Ravana

women were employed as guards and weapon bearers and probably they
also participated in the wars. Ravana sitting in his court is fanned by
women attendants. Female attendants like lamp bearer, fan bearer, pitcher
bearer, rug bearer, wine bearer, umbrella bearer, golden staff bearer is
mentioned in Sundarkanda. We can’t say whether they were paid workers
or female slaves.

Warfare: Women are known to have taken an active part in wars,

which constituted an important economic activity in the Vedic tribal
milieu. There are several hymns which clearly tells, the fact that in those
days women fought battles and drove chariots. Indrasena, the wife of
Mudgala led the chariot in the battlefield and vanquised the enemies of
Indra with remarkable valour. She was very dexterous in using weapons.
Women sometimes accompanied their husbands to war and Vispala, the

28
queen of the king Khala, who had lost her leg in conflict had it replaced
by an iron (ayasi) one, through the grace of the Asvins. The reference in
the Rigveda to women warriors leads one to surmise, that women
received some sort of military training, which enabled them to become
soilders. In those days women worked even as envoys. The Vedic hymn
explicitly mentions the Act that Sarama was sent to Pani on a special
mission by Indra’. Shri Rama 1ndradeva points out that in the Rgveda the
army of dasa Sambara is described as consisting of women soldiers a fact
which suggests that among the non-vedic dasa tribes both men and
women fought on the battlefield and enjoyed equality of status. Indra cast
his thunderbolt even upon Danu the mother of Vrta, said to have fallen by
the side of her son smitten by the thunderbolt of Indra’. Women were
manufacturing arrows and bows. It is important to note that words like
female arrow-makers (ishukartryah) do not occur in later literature.

Female slaves: We shall now highlight the role of slavery and

the contribution made by women slaves in the Rigvedic period. The use
of the word dasa in the sense of slave is to be found mostly in the later
portions of the Rigveda. For R.S. Sharma, we always hear of women
slaves, men slaves being rare in Rigveda, captured from the subjugated
dasa. On the other hand, it is mentioned that slavery was purely domestic,
that slaves, mostly women captured in wars, were used for begetting
children and for household chores and the Rigveda doesn’t have any term
for wage or wage earners’. That the slaves were employed in agricultural
work is not supported by the Rigvedic references. In the Rigvedic texts,
the female slaves were frequently presented to Rishis by their patron
princes. Thus Trasadasyyu a mighty and benevolent king in peace and a
turbulent leader in war who is credited with having given away fifty
29
slaves, may have captured them in war from the enemy’s camp. A verse
of the Rigveda records, “Women for weapons hath the dasa taken. What
injuries can these feeble armies do ?" But slavery W could be useful
economically only if it could produce a surplus beyond the cost of its own
maintenance and this was not possible in the nomadic pastoral conditions.

There is an example of a king in Aeitrayi Brahmana who donated

ten thousand dasis and ten thousand elephants to the priest who presided
over the coronation ceremony. At one place, the pledge of Alopang is
remarkable in which he speaks of donating ten thousand dasis and
elephants to a brahrnana. At another place when Aruni and Swetaketu
approached Pravahana Jabali, king of Panchal for acquring knowledge
they said that they possessed cows, horse, family, dresses and dasis too.
In Sathapatha Brahmana, we see four hundred dasis washing the feet of
mahishi (the chief queen) at the time of Aswamedha yajana”. Reference
indicate that sometimes the royal girls and kshatriya daughter were also
described as dasis e.g. in Sathapatha Brahmana at one place hundred
royal princess and hundred kshatriya daughter have been depicted as
dasis. In Atharvaveda the term ‘dasi’ has been used as an outsider girl
doing domestic works of the family, largely the dasis were of loose
character and had low status in the society.

As compared to the Rigvedic age slavery prevailed on a wider

scale in the later vedic period. Women slaves generally occupied in
domestic work earlier now also meant things for pleasure. Slave girls
(dasis) were to dance about the marijaliya sacrificial fire with water pots
on their head, singing. Slaves working on land are first heard of in the
Srauta sutras. Still, women slaves largely contributed to domestic work

30
rather than to productive activities of the later vedic age, and they mostly
belonged to lower orders, owned on a considerable scale by the ruling
chiefs and priests. They were employed in domestic work and comforts of
the nobles and priests but it didn’t affect the agricultural production.
Female slaves are referred to in different places in the epic. Manthara was
Kaikeyi’s jnatidasi a slave from her mothers establishment. Janaka
presented Rama with slaves male and female”. Rama instructs
Lakshmana to present female slaves to Abhirupa, a learned Brahmana.
Female slaves figures among the gifts given away in connection with
Dasratha’s obsequies. We are told that beautiful women slaves were
presented to Rama by various kings.

Female Entertainers: In vedic literature we find some

references to the performance of maidens and courtesans. At Samana, a
vedic festival, a maidens dancing skills were put to test and courtesans
earned by singing and dancing. Women’s interest in dance and music is
depicted in Taittiriya Samhita and Maitrayani Samhita. Satapatha
Brahmana mentions samagana (recitation of sama) as a duty specially
delegated to women. Though we are not certain about such female
reciters being professional, we have some veiled references which
indicate the existence of professional dancers in the Rigveda itself.
Another instance where in a public dance of a woman adorned with
ornaments in an assembly (sabha) is mentioned in Atharvaveda. These
references from vedic literature show that there were female performing
artists during the Vedic period and probably some of them were
professionals.

Courtesans: In ancient literature there were two kinds of

31
prostitutes i.e. ganikas and vaishyas. Ganika, was a lady of gana
(republics) for kings and vaisya was a lady of vis, for common people
later these two terms came to be used synoymously. The presence of the
apsaras among the godly personages of the Rigveda establishes the
existence of courresans in the society. Reference to female dancer
(Nartaki), compared to the Usa wearing embroidered garments keeping
open her breasts went to fairs and merriments for making acquaintance of
false love among the people proves her to be a courtesan. A hymn points
out to coquetry of the apsaras. King Pururava had much to offer on
account of the celestial courtesan Urvasi. ‘Atitavari’ and ‘Rama’ are the
two earliest terms being used for professional sex workers. Perhaps,
prostitution existed from earlier times in some form or am other.

(III) Property Rights of Women

The question of a woman’s right to property has been a subject of

great controversy from the time of the compilation of our legal treatises.
It is a well established truth that the position of women in Hindu society
right through the ages has been like a rubberband, if it has stretched itself
at one point it has simultaneously sagged at another. At times they gained
a social position, they also had the privilege to lead a full family life as
long as the desire to do so was there but this they got at the cost of their
economic rights. At other times, however, they won economic
independence to a great degree, but only at the expense of their social
status. The general position of women went on deteriorating after the
beginning of the Christian era. Its surprising to learn that, inspite of this
general setback, their proprietary rights were gradually becoming more
and more extensive in course of time.

32
 The question of proprietary right emerges from the private
ownership of the land as a property. From internal evidence of the
Rigveda, it appears that the concept of ‘individual ownership’ was not
prevalent in the early vedic age. References to ‘common wealth’ or
‘collective ownership’ are found abundantly in the Rigveda. Land was
not any form of property in the early vedic age as it was a pastoral
economy largely. Landed property could be owned only by one who had
the power to defend it against actual or potential rivals. Women were
obviously unable to do this and so could hold no property. The transition
from the communal to the family ownership of land was just taking place,
the conception of the rights of the different members of the family, even
males, was yet to crystalize. Naturally therefore women, like many other
male members of the family were incapable of owning property, the
patriarch was the owner and guardian. The vedic tribes were mostly
pastoral warriors and they counted wealth in terms of cattle. Evidence of
some kind of individual possession is found in the later books of the
Rigveda. That in the later period of the Rigveda even women were
entitled to have some share of cattle wealth as marriage gifts is suggested
in the ‘wedding hymn’. We now proceed to elucidate the proprietary
rights of women in the vedic age in her capacity of a wife, a daughter and
a widow.

Daughter’s Right to Property: Ordinarily the daughter’s

right to hold, acquire or dispose of property was limited in vedic age. In
many places of vedic literature, we come across the view that women had
no right of inheritance. A girl had to struggle very hard in order to inherit
the property of her father. Rigveda clearly orders that Aura’s sons should
not give any paternal property to his sister. Sarvadhikari says that in the
33
vedic period a girl could not inherit the paternal property for the
following reasons -

(i) Because of the patriarchal system of the society,

(ii) Due to their struggling lives.

(iii) Due to the necessity of the leadership of the brave soldiers.

From one of the Rigvedic recitations we get to know that though

son and daughter both are born of parents similarly but the daughter was
to be given only dresses, ornaments and she was not dayad. According to
Maitrayani Samhita daughter is not an inheritor of property. In the
Rigveda, at one place we can find a daughter praying to Lord Indra for a
share in parental property. Quite contradictally, Arayanakas and
Upnishads speak of daughters share in parental property.

The daughters in the ancient joint family system did not have the
right of offering pindadana to ancestors that is why she could not inherit
any property. Thus the patriarchal based society regarded women
ineligible as inheritors to ancestral property. A clear distinction has to be
made between a brotherless daughter and daughter with brothers.

Brotherless Daughter: Amongst women a brotherless daughter

was the first to get her right of inheritance recognized. Circumstances
were more favorable for the recognition of her right than that of the wife
or the widows. Though in the Rigveda we get frequent references to a
daughter’s share in the property and her special separate share in the form
of dowry, we do not find a daughter inheriting the whole of the ancestral
property. The brother, a father’s legitimate son of the body (tanva) was

34
the sole inheritor of the ancestral property, and in a passage of the veda
he is even referred to as leaving no share of that property to his sister. But
this very allusion would indirectly show that in the absence of her brother
she inherited the property of her father in her own right and not through
her son, though her son also elsewhere, has been made the heir to the
property of his maternal grandfather. As a matter of fact the idea of
adoption was abhorrent to the Rigvedic Aryans. There is another allusion
in which it is said that many a maid is pleasing to the suitor who fain
would marry for her splendid riches. Thus the inheritance of the ancestral
property on the part of the daughter in her own right before her marriage
was recognized in Vedic society.

For all religious purposes the Vedic father could thus regard a
daughter to be as good as a son. He had a strong prejudice against
adopting a son. In the Rigveda, there is the description of a brother less
married daughter going to her father’s house in order to receive the
paternal property. Durgacharya made this point clear by describing that
the above mentioned brother less married daughter actually increased the
family line of their father through her Sons and grandsons. She didn’t
increase the family line of her husband that is why she had the rights to
inherit the property of her father.

The first step in breaking down the purely agnatic scheme of

kinship was the institution of ‘putrika as the fictitious son of the purrikas
father to offer oblations to him after his death. The institution of the
‘appointed daughter’ of the Rigvedic times seems to have continued as
there are references in later vedic literature to ‘putrika’ (only daughter)
and to putrika putra (son of putrika) who was almost as good as one’s

35
own son. The putrika or putrika putra was of two kinds: one when a
sonless man appointed his daughter as his son; then she was called
putrika and treated like a son, and the second when the son of the putrika
was considered as the son of his maternal grandfather. A botherless
daughter could become sole heir to her father’s property even when she
was married and enjoyed this right also when she became a widow. In the
Vedic age often a brotherless daughter had to remain a spinister as
bridegroom feared that the maternal grandfather would take his son as an
heir to the latter’s property Later on, this ceremony gradually faded out
since any brotherless daughter could be considered a putrika. A putrika
could inherit in her own right. It is also mentioned that daughters
inherited kingdoms even in the Mahabharata age. There is at least one
instance where Yudhishthira is asked to place daughters of the deceased
kings on the thrones.

Daughter with Brothers: Generally the rights of inheritance

of a daughter who has brothers were limited. It would seem that she had
some share in the property of her father in as much as she was allowed as
an unmarried daughter of the family not only to stay with her parents and
brothers but even to grow old (juryanti) in her fathers family demanding a
share in the fathers property. The Atharvaveda even refers to daughters
remaining in the parental family until death. Until she had some share in
her fathers property in her own right, it is difficult to comprehend how
her long stay in the family was not resented. A vedic stanza expressly
refers to an old maiden claiming her share in her patrimony. More than
inheritance daughters maintenance was her legal rights and a charge on
her father’s property But she could not claim any share with her brothers
for it is clearly laid down in the Rigveda that a son born of the body
36
doesn’t transfer wealth to his sister. The brother is supposed to arrange
for the marriage of his sister and not to give a share in the property.
Married daughter living with their husbands could inherit from their
father only when they had no brother. Usually the daughters got married
so they were not given any share in their father’s property Unmarried
daughters were given some share in the patrimony, as they were deprived
from stridhana or other wealth. In the Vedic age, the married daughter
carried of sufficient wealth as dowry to her husband’s house.

We contend that a daughter with brother didn’t have a legal right to

inherit her father’s property. She had a privilege of her maintenance only,
if she remained unmarried. On being married she could claim possession
of only gifts given to her at the time of her marriage. Yaska in his
Nirukta had discussed this matter vividly. From this it becomes clear that
at that time some Sastra writers strongly claimed the inheritance of the
property by the married and unmarried daughters. Durgacharya and other
commentators also discussed this matter. It was believed that both the son
and the daughter took birth from the bodies of their father and mother.

The daughter, according to the epics, couldn’t claim any share in

patrimony as long as she was supported by her brother. However, an
unmarried daughter had the right to inherit her mother’s yaucaka. The
word yauraka has ambiguous connotation as epic writers don’t describe
dowries as yautaka, the separate property of the mother has been classed
as yautaka’. In case of the mother, yautaka was a property she received
from her father, which devolved from the mother on the daughter.
Mahabharata says that the brotherless but married daughter should get at
least half of the paternal property if not the whole.

37
 ‘Wife’s Rights to Property: In the vedic age the theory
approved by Hindu society was that the husband and wife should be the
joint owners of the household and its property. The husband was required
to take a vow at the time marriage that the rights and interests of his wife
in economic matters should not be transgressed’. The concept of joint
property of wife and husband remained a legal fiction. She didn’t have
any legal status i.e., she neither held nor inherited property. Taitiriya
Samhita affirmatively declares that women are not shareholders of the
property of their husbands and hence it recommends an affectionate
treatment. For a long time there was no question of the women holding
any property, she herself was an item in the moveable property of the
husband or the patriarch. The husband was deemed to have a natural
proprietary right over the wife. According to Taitiriya Samhita the wife
was the mistress of the household and similar references are found in the
Samhitas as well. Probably in the contemporary society wife was
considered a dayad in the patriarchal property. According to Sathapatha
Brahmana, the wife is an inheritor of the husbands daya. In
Brihadranyakopinishad there is a mention of Yajyavalkya dividing his
property between his two wives Maitreyee and Katayani. Jaimini, a great
sage of very great antiquity states that a certain vedic text shows that
women have the capacity of owning and possessing wealth. Women were
denied of this right possibly in the later vedic age when the sacrificial
ceremonies became rigid and wife’s were declared ineligible to perform
the sacrifices. Due to this curtailment of the religious right of the wife,
she was banned from the property rights too. Its said in the Taitiiya
Samhita that the soma offered by women in the sacrifices turns nii-viya.
Thus women are Nirindriya those who don’t accept the share in property.

38
A husband’s proprietary rights over his wife is the characteristic feature
of a patriarchal society We learn from the instance of Sasiyasi that
women could at times give away much wealth as presents or alms but
again we are not sure if this right was one incidental to love and as a
concession made to the wife by her husband or if it was a property owned
by the wife in her own right. In the epics the wife appears only as a good
manager of the husbands property. At several places it is said that women
could not give away the wealth given to them by their husbands, though
they could enjoy it.

Stridhana: It was only with reference to immoveable property

that Hindu society was for a long time unwilling to invest the wife with
full or exclusive ownership. As far as a moveable property like
ornaments, jewelry, costly apparel etc., was concerned, women’s right to
own was recognized at a very early date. The story of its development is a
very interesting chapter in the history of Hindu law. The word ‘stridhana’
literally means the property of the woman. There is a lot of controversy
regarding the nature, types and the list of the successions of stridhana.
According to Julius Jolly, the term stridhana, which occurs first in the
Bramhasutra of Gautama, is compound word made of’stri’ - ‘women’ and
‘dhana’- 'property’. Jolly further states that judging form its derivation, it
is capable of denoting any type of property belonging to women’.
Originally stridhana was vitally connected with the custom of the bride
price (sulka). In asura marriage the husband used to get a bride by paying
a reasonable price for her and a portion of it was given to the bride as a
marriage gift. Such a gift to the bride was known as stridha. Vedic
literature is silent about the precise scope of stridhana. ‘Parinahya’ was
the term used to denote it, the vedic text declared that wife was to be the
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sole owner of However vedic literature is silent about the precise scope
of the parinahya. It is silent also on the point of whether the wife could
dispose of her property (parinahya) without her husband’s permission. In
the epic age the presents given from time to time according to ones status
formed part of stridhana. The Ramayana mentions it as kanyadhanam and
in the Mahabharata its called vaivahikam, parichhedam haranam,
gyatideyam and yautakam. I can be said that the word stridhana was the
later form of kanyadhanam.

Widow’s Right to Property: The widow was not allowed to

inherit the property of the husband. Joint families were the order of the
day and so neither men nor women could inherit in their individual
capacity. Vedic texts, which declare women to be incapable of inheriting
any property are particularly aimed against the widow. It is evident from
the Rigveda that the custom of niyoga’ was prevalent in the vedic time.
Therefore widows without sons were few. As a result of this custom
widows used to get their husband’s share, if not directly as heirs, at least
indirectly as a guardian of minor sons. Secondly they were allowed to
remarry. Therefore the question of giving them a share in their dead
husband’s property didn’t arise. Satpatha Brahmana does not recognize
the right of widow’s to dead husband’s property. Still we find a wish for
leading of a happy life of the widow in the Atharvaveda and she is called
the owner of the dead husband’s property. Once again in the Atharaveda,
among the 16 pans of the debtors four is of the wife so that in case of her
widowhood no one should be able to transgress her right to property.
Even the most of the Dharmasutra writers were opposed expressly to this
right. The position of the widow was insecure, socially as well as
economically even in the epic age. The Mahabharata allows a husband to
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give his wife three thousand coins. The wealth thus given to the wife
could be spent or disposed of by her as she liked. It may be inferred that
such a right was exercised by the widows as well. In the Ramayana we
notice Kausalya enjoying this right even after the death of king
Dasararha. Besides, there are references of childless widows inheriting all
the riches.

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