Roles for Bengali Women in Love and Family Judith Walsh

-15-of each other, that would not be enough-the Hindu wife has to bethe co-practiser-of-duty of the Hindu husband, the one who, with herhusband practices virtue. otheJ::wise don't you talk about a kini oflove in which the husband's duty becomes the loss of his work?Don't you talk about a kini of search for happiness in which thehusband's future fruit becomes sorrow?"IDve is certainly a good thing," the husband says, =eluding his restatementof an older, orthodox position. "'!he search for happiness is certainly a goodthing. "&It you don't UIrlerstand these things well. 'Ihat is why you have tobe given education in this way." (Raychaudhuri 1887:12)other chapters in GrtJa I.akshmi echo the same themes and show how isolatedthe irrplication of exlcusivity and romance in the chapter on literacy are. In"In-laws' House" a great emphasis is placed on the necessity of avoidingquarrels with in-laws. It is the wife's responsibility to subordinatepersonal feelings to the greater demarxi of family tranquility.'lhere is no JrOre ill-fated husband than the husband of a maliciouswife. In the house where there is always envy. malice, competition,mutual bad-feelings, always quarrels, grombling--in that houseIDkkhi does not stay (Raychaudhuri 1887:34).In the chapter ''Husbarrl Going Abroad" the wife is discouraged from asking toaccompany her husband when he goes away frOm hane to work or school. Herdeparture might disrupt and damage the family. Her obligation is not only tofulfill her own familial obligations but also to help the husband to do thesame. "'!his then is the work of women," says the husband in conclusion:"It is necessary [that they] encourage the husband [to do] his dutyand work and to prevent [him from neglecting] his duty. To cause[the husband] to fall into darger for her own happiness is the workof a bad woman (Raychaudhuri l887:Olap.6).Contradictory Roles for womenGrha I.akshmi offers its readers two contradictory roles for women: oneexplicit, one irrplicit. 'Ihe first, defined by the need to subordinatepersonal wishes and desires to family obligations, is consciously articulatedand defended. '!he second, inspired by the fantasy of a romantic and exclusivelove relationship, is merely (not deliberately) irrplied. '!he two roles-thatof educated helIEl'lte and dutiful daughter-in-Iaw-are presented withoutacknowledging their contradictions, and to some extent the separate contextsout of which they arise helps the author to do this. In the chapters ontraditional subjects--in "Husband and wife" for example, or "In-laws' House"-­the l::louOOaries within which the author works are familiar to him. He is inthe world of the "grtlo-Iokkhi," the traditional world of extended families,social duties, and the authority of elders. His ideas easily shape themselvesto fit a context set by older indigenous patterns.&It the context of the chapter on literacy is different. 'Ibis is asubject surrourrled by western criticisms of Indian society which were madenecessary, in fact, by the new conditions of life in British India. Even the