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Women’s Srudies hr. Forum, Vol. 12, No. 4. pp. 425-437, 1989 0277.5395/89 $3.00 + .w Printed in the USA. 0 1989 Maxwil Pergamon Macmillan plc THE LIMITS OF GENDER IDEOLOGY: BENGALI WOMEN, THE COLONIAL STATE, AND THE PRIVATE SPHERE, 1890-1930 DAGMAR ENGELS German Historical Institute London, 17 Bloomsbury Square, London WClA 2LP, U.K. Synopsis-Colonial as well as Indian nationalist concern for so-called female issues was to a certain extent due to the significance of the “female discourse” within the colonial conflict which was primarily articulated by men. Women’s interests clearly came second. Here the concept of the “private sphere” is singled out in order to investigate the development of gender stereotypes in a changing historical context. The British and Bengali discourse on gender was marked by culturally specific notions of femininity and masculinity. Despite these differences, women’s identification with the domestic sphere allowed British and Bengali men to acknowledge the situation of women when it suited their wider political aims, but to banish women- figuratively speaking-to their zennna when legislative innovations or female activism threatened to clash with male political or patriarchal prerogatives. Purdah, the set of social practices most com- tion with it in the context of colonial domi- monly associated with the seclusion of wom- nation and Indian opposition? To what ex- en, was often criticised by Western observers tent did colonial authorities respect the of Indian social conditions as the cause of domestic sphere as out of bounds to their poor health and arrested intellectual develop- representatives? Were Bengali men ready to ment amongst women (Girl’s Own Paper, accept the erosion of women’s identification 1892; Urquhart, 1926; Weitbrecht, 1875). with the domestic sphere once they became They saw female seclusion, which was in fact involved in the wider world? rigidly practised only by a minority of wom- In Bengali and British middle-class cul- en, as the dominant social custom regulating ture the concept of the “private sphere” was the relations between men and women be- linked with a strict code of conduct for wom- cause it fitted in with late-Victorian sex roles en. In Britain the affect-controlled lady was which firmly located women in the private the ideal. In Bengal, as the notion of purdah sphere of the household. Yet Bengali gender might suggest, spatial aspects were equally ideology and social practices were very dif- important. Family and home were referred to ferent to those of their colonial rulers, and it as bari, that is, “house.” While men spoke of is an analysis of those differences that con- amar bari, my house, home, family, married cerns us here. What was the significance of women differentiated between baper bari the private sphere and of women’s identifica- and sasur bari, that is father’s house and in- laws’ house. If they said amar bari they were most likely referring to their fathers’ houses where they felt more at ease because there 1 am grateful to Kenneth Ballhatchet, Geraldine purdah-related values were less strictly Forbes, Rob Turrell, Julie Wheelwright, and Deborah enforced. Gaitskell for their comments on earlier drafts of the Legislative regulation of the domestic paper. Earlier drafts were presented at the Seventh Berk- shire Conference on the History of Women, Wellesley sphere occurred in connection with virtually College, MA, 1987, to the Modern South Asian History all social reform. Legislation, such as the ab- Seminar, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and the Women olition of sati in 1828, the Widow Remar- and Colonialism Seminar, Institute of Commonwealth riage Act of 1856, the Age of Consent Act of Studies, London. I am grateful for all comments made on these occasions. I also wish to thank the School of 1891 and the Child Marriage Restraint (Sar- Oriental and African Studies London for funding my da) Act of 1929 reached into the private research in India. sphere and attempted to redefine women’s 425 426 DAGMARENGELS position therein. All but the abolition of sati ferent from the Hindu equivalents which pre- had little positive impact on women’s lives. vents social historians from any summarising Those laws which fixed the age of marriage analysis of the two groups. Similar reasons or consent were useless as long as birth regis- can be given for the omission of peasants tration was not obligatory. In fact, what little and the working class. But in this context it is concern there was over age was limited to the important to note that while middle-class private sphere of middle-class families. Muslims and Hindus shared some values re- In the early 1920s women in the national- garding the status of women such as purdah ist movement actively sought to escape from and purity for instance, the majority of the private sphere. The colonial political Bengalis did not. This study is thus clearly strategy of reinforcing gender segregation class-specific. was challenged and its patriarchal bias be- came an issue of contention. Indian men INDIAN PATRIARCHAL RIGHTS AND faced the challenge of women leaving their COLONIAL NONINTERFERENCE homes for the first time in significant num- bers and confronted or defended a tradition- Until the early 1920s representatives of the al Hindu ideology which cast secluded Raj did not attempt to implement colonial Bengali women in the role of guardians of policies when this meant interfering with In- Bengali culture. dian middle-class women who were in theory, During the nineteenth and early twentieth if not in practice, restricted to the domestic centuries the colonial discourse on social re- sphere. This became particularly obvious form and gender issues in India often centred when social legislation for the protection of on conditions in Bengal, in particular when women, such as the Age of Consent and Sar- gender relations within marriage and inside da Act, was passed after lengthy and excited the domestic sphere were at stake. The con- debates in the Legislative Council and As- temporary discourse suggested that social sembly. The Indian Government warned lo- conditions in Bengal were worse than else- cal Governments and police authorities that where and thus in need of special attention implementing these laws might be politically (Age of Consent Report, 1929). But it is unwise and should, if possible, be avoided. more plausible to suggest that Bengal’s ex- Despite such concerns for political feasi- posed position at the forefront of, first, bility, the Age of Consent and the Sarda Act colonial co-operation and, later, nationalist were passed because they were a matter of opposition, moved the province’s social principle to colonial administrators. The acts problems, that is, female issues and condi- embodied the idea of individual legal protec- tions in the so-called private sphere, into the tion of women, as opposed to the traditional centre of colonial discourse. To highlight the Indian concept of female protection by the political relevance of the “private sphere” in social system, that is, the joint family. There, colonial India it is thus useful to pay particu- according to Hindu gender ideology, the fa- lar attention to the pattern of events in ther and husband acted as the sole guardian Bengal. of a woman. When the Age of Consent Bill Here two qualifications must be added. was introduced into the Legislative Council This paper deals with Bengali Hindu middle- in 1891, the Legal Member, Sir A. Scoble, class culture alone omitting references to the supported his Government’s initiative to raise Muslim as well as peasant and working class the age of consent from ten to twelve with the population. These omissions follow the pat- argument that “giving effectual legal protec- tern of the colonial discourse on gender and tion to these poor little girls” (India Office sexuality. As Bengali Hindus, not Muslim, Library and Records [IOLR], P/3951, App. were singled out by the Raj as their most D) was the duty of the colonial state. In con- articulate and dangerous opponents, British trast, a petition to the Viceroy by “the inhab- officials focused their attention on the for- itants of Bhowanipur, Kalighat and the mers’ sexual practices because only these neighbouring places in the suburbs of were relevant in the political discourses. In Calcutta,” insisted that male family members addition, Bengali Muslim culture and social could look after women properly because response to colonial rule were distinctly dif- “the dishonour of their women is worse than The Limits of Gender Ideology 427 death itself” (IOLR, P/3951, App. W). context of modern industrialised societies in Nonetheless, the Bill became law because the which civil servants including the police had traditional (male) honour-based concept of internalised the social values on which the female protection in the joint family had to “rule of law” depended. This was not the make way for the modern concept of individ- case in colonial India. Most policemen used ual safety and legal protection (Heimsath, their power more like “oriental despots” than 1962). like guardians of the law. But they were the In practice, however, the Age of Consent representatives of the state with whom villag- Act became a dead letter because British ad- ers were most likely to come into contact. ministrators were reluctant to interfere in the The passing of the Age of Consent Act enti- Indian domestic sphere other than through tled them to extend their authority into Indi- ideological means. Indian patriarchal power an bedrooms (Arnold, 1985; Foucault, 1979; which was based on the ideological and actu- Stedman Jones, 1983). al restriction of women in the private sphere However, before the police could step into was not curtailed by colonial interference.

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