Chapter 2 a -A Historical Perspective on the Position of the Women in the Indian Society

Chapter 2 A -A Historical Perspective on the Position of the Women in the Indian Society The history of the changing status of the Indian woman may be divided into the following six divisions- 1) The age of the Rigveda (From c.2500 B.C. to c.1500 B.C.) 2)The age of the later Samhitas, Brahmanas and Upanishads (From c.1500 B.C. to 500 B.C.) 3)The age of the Sutras, Epics and early Smrities ( From c.500 B.C. to c.500 A.D.) 4)The age of later Smrities,Commentators and Digest-writers (From c.500 A.D. toe. 1800 A.D.) 5)The age of the British rule (From 1857 to 1947) 6)The post-Tndependence period The following is a brief review of the position of the Indian woman in each period. 1) The age of the Rigveda :- The position of the Indian woman in the age of the Rigveda was highly satisfactory. This is rather surprising because-as Dr. P.S. Altekar rightly points out in his book The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation-generallv the condition of women improves as society advances to modem times but the case 45 of Hindu women is an exception. According to Dr.Altekar, this satisfactory position was partly due to political and partly to religious causes. The political cause was that as the Non-Aryans were probably outnumbering the Aryans at that time, the Aryans wanted to have as strong and numerous an army as possible. In this situation, the Aryans could not go in for the sati custom or prohibit widow remarriages. The religious reason was that asceticism was at a discount in the Vedic age- instead, according to the Aryans, maidens and bachelors could have no admission to heaven. They also believed that gods accepted no oblations offered by the unmarried , that it is necessary to offer sacrifices to Gods for prosperity and happiness and that those sacrifices could be offered only by the husband and wife officiating together. In this situation, the status of the Indian woman was bound to be high. Another reason, advanced by Dr.Altekar, is that in the Vedic age, women used to take an active part in agriculture and they also manufactured clothes, bows, arrows and other war material. Being useful members of society, they could not be treated with an air of patronage or contempt. Due to all these reasons, the Vedic woman enjoyed a lot of freedom and a high social position. Though girls were generally less welcome than boys, some parents performed special religious rituals to have intelligent daughters. A verse in the Brihadaranyakopanishada tells us that a particular kind of food was given to a pregnant woman so that she could give birth to a talented daughter \ Girls' 46 education was not a taboo- instead, the Vedic society set a great store by female education, as evidenced by the Atharvaveda which observes that a maiden can succeed in her marriage only if she has been properly trained during the period of 'brahmacharya' (studentship). ^ Dr.Altekar's book informs us that some Vedic women excelled in a difficult science called 'Purvamimansa', which discussed the diverse problems related with Vedic sacrifices. The same book also informs us that a theologian called 'Kasakritsna' had written a work on Mimansa called 'Kasakritsni' and women scholars, who specialized in it, were called as 'Kasakritsnas'. It is not surprising that in such a situation, some women distinguished themselves as poetesses and that some of their poems had the great fortune of being included in the canonical literature. The Rigveda contains some hymns by female seers like Lopamudra, Surya etc. There were lOio child marriages in the Vedic age. Educated brides of the age of 16 or 17 naturally had a significant voice in the selection of their life-partners. Love- /marriages were not taboos- instead, women could freely move in society, often even in the company of their lovers. They were accorded a prominent position in religious and social gatherings. Sacrifices could not be performed without women-they could even perform some sacrifices independently, which shows that there was complete gender equality in the eyes of religion. The wife had friendly relations with the husband. Though in theory, she was the joint owner of the household with her husband but never in reality. In rich and royal 47 families, polygamy prevailed to some extent but this practice was confined to ' some few families only. A widow could go in for a remarriage, either regularly or through the custom of 'Niyoga'. The only drawback in this situation was that women could not hold or inherit property but that was quite understandable. Even male members of the family could not hold or inherit property- it was only the patriarch who was the sole owner and guardian of the family's property. As the idea of the rights of the different members of the family was yet to come, it was not surprising that women had no special rights. Except this she enjoyed a respectable position in the society. 2) The age of the Later Samhitas, Brahmanas and Upanishads (From c. 1500 to c.500 B.C) There was a gradual decline in female education as this period advanced, ' as the custom of sending out girls to famous teachers or centres of education discontinued. Since it came to be prescribed that only near relations like the father, the brother or the uncle should teach them at home only, female education got confined to rich and cultured families only. In the result, there arose a tendency to curtail the religious rights of the woman. Many functions in the sacrifice, which formerly could be performed by the wife alone, now came to be assigned to male substitutes. Of course, some sacrifices like Rudrayaga and Sitayaga were still performed by women alone. In cultured families, women 48 still used to recite their Vedic prayers morning and evening. They still performed sacrifices on behalf of the husband when he was otherwise preoccupied. However, the overall religious position of women began to dwindle. 3) The age of the Sutras, the Epics and the Early Smrities (c.500 B.C. to c. 500 A.D.) The position of women further deteriorated in this period. As a semi- servile status was assigned to the Shudras, the tasks of making clothes, bows, arrows and other war material - which were formerly performed by women - were now given to the Shudras. Women thus ceased to contribute to society, which naturally degraded their position. Intermarriages of the Aryans and the non-Aryans also began to take place. With her ignorance of Sanskrit and Hinduism, the non-Aryan wife could not perform religious sacrifices properly. However, as the non-Aryan wife alone could not be prohibited from performing rituals, the whole class of women was prohibited from it. The growing complexity of Vedic rituals also caused this prohibition, as even the slightest mistake in the performance of a Vedic ritual came to be regarded as dangerous. It required a long training to perform these complicated rituals and the average women did not have time for it. In the Rigvedic age, a son was required for secular purposes but in the days of the Later Samhitas, the son became a religious necessity. Performing post- 49 death rituals became the prerogative of the son and so in their anxiety to get a son as early as possible, people began to lower the marriageable age for girls, which naturally discouraged female education. During the first half of this period, widow remarriages and Niyoga continued to be allowed. However, in the second half, both these things went down in the public opinion and so they gradually began to go out of vogue at about 500 A.D. While the husband could easily discard his wife for a trivial reason, the wife could not even dream of taking a similar step. Nor could she marry again. As women were kept uneducated, they were ignorant of their former position and so they could not effectively oppose such things. As the Hindu kingdoms in this period became fairly extensive and the harems of Hindu kings also increased, their example was imitated by their rich subjects. This had adverse effects on the status of the vast majority of women in the upper classes. Far from being a companion of the husband, the woman became just an object to enjoy, which had natural repercussions on the status of wives in ordinary families. During the period of 500 years between 200B.C. and 300A.D., the plains of Punjab and the Gangetic valley were firstly invaded by the Greeks, then by the Scythians and the Parthians. These invasions reduced the Hindu population by one half, 25 % being killed and 25 % being carried away. Then came the Kushanas, who practically overran the whole of Northen India. A wave of 50 despondency swept over the Hindu society as a result of political reverses, war atrocities and the decline of population and prosperity. So the ideal of renunciation (sanyasa) began to find acceptance, which strengthened the hands of those who were opposed to Niyoga or widow remarriage. They began to argue that a widow should lead an ascetic life instead of going in for a remarriage, which naturally ruined the position of the widow. A greater calamity that the widow had in store was the revival of the 'sati' custom. Though basically confined to the warrior class, the custom of sati came to be regarded as a supreme religious sacrifice and so it began to spread wider in society in the course of time.

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