Roles for Bengali Women in Love and Family Judith Walsh

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-18-their husJ::>arrls. '!he agency for the most obvious restrictions on women innineteenth century society, after all, was not the young husbani, but theelders of the exteIrled family. Prohibitions against literacy an:i restrictionson education an:i travel outside the horne most often came from elders. Irxieed,studies of this period show that young Western educated husJ::>arrls were oftenagents of the liberation of their wives an:i insisted on education over familyabjections, arran::Jing for escapes from more rigid orthodox households (~id1983; Borthwick 1984). It is not surprising then that young girls, far fromidentifying their husbarxls as q:pressors, saw them as allies; nor would it besurprising if young wives saw the possibility of more exclusive relations withtheir husJ::>arrls as an avenue for gaining same release from the controls offamily elders.'IWo recent studies of nineteenth century Bengali women have presented acurious anomaly; the individual life stories of these women are full ofaCCXlll!lts of the bravery an:i tenacity with which women struggled to becameliterate, educated, an:i free of the restrictions of orthodox society (~id1983; Borthwick 1984). Yet both authors are uncomfortable with an analysis(their own) which credits men with the "emancipation" of women in theirsociety; both are disappointed with the failure of women in this period toidentify an:i struggle against a patriarchal society which assigned them to aseparate an:i subordinate SIilere.Blt the conflict between "love" an:i family outlined in Grha I.akshmisuggests that women did not identify their own needs against those of theirhusbani's because they may have seen relations with those husJ::>arrls as crucialto escape another kind of oppression. certainly as this analysis has shown,we do not need to be unstinting in our praise of the Bengali men who sought torefonn women's roles in this period. '!heir efforts were motivated by theirown needs an:i concerns, an:i their cammitment to the "emancipation" of thewomen of their society was, at best, ambivalent. Blt even as we read aCCXlll!ltsof same educated Bengali women drinking the water in which their husbands'feet were washed (a traditionally enjoined practice), or of others declaringthat they worshiped their husbands as gods, we should consider these accountswith a clear urxierstarxiing of the choices available to women in this period(Borthwick 1984:147).High caste Bengali Hirxiu society had within it two hierarchies ofq:pression--one of gerxier an:i the other of age. YOUl'XJ men in exterxiedfamilies suffered from the age hierachy am sought to mitigate its effectsthrough. the creation of more exclusive relations with their wives. Youngwomen in Bengal, however, suffered urxier both hierarchies; but because thedegree of their q:pression within the exteIrled family unit was so much greaterthan that of their husbands, they were more eager to seek an escape from it.If the portrayal of women in these "advice for women" texts is accurate,dc:aninating but more exclusive relations for young women in nineteenth centuryBengal with their husbands may have seemed an acceptable alternative to theboredom an:i drudgery of an illiterate life restricted to the women's quartersof their in-laws' homes.
-19-Notes1. I.akshmi is the Hi.rrlu goddess worshipped for wealth ana good fortune inIndia. She is especially worshipped by women to bring prosperity to theirhusbands' homes. "Eight annas" is about three quarters of a ruppee, orabout six cents at current values.2. AIthough the stories of the bratakathas may be traced to episodes inmedieval l3er¥]ali literature, the printed texts referred to in this paperappearErl only in the twentieth century.3. '!be earliest printed oollections of the bratas listed in the l3er¥]alicatalogue of the National Library in calcutta were VipradasaMukhopadhyaya, NeveU Brata-I5otha, calcutta, 1906, ana TarakbhusanKothakcunmadi, Sosthvadi Kotha, Murshidabad, 1909. within the twentiethcentury,a particular author's version of the stories could be reissuedagain ana again with virtually no cha.n:Jes in the text; AsutosMukhopadhyay's Meveder Bratakatha was issued seven times between 1914 ana1931 (13er¥]al Library 1914:42-43; Mudkopadhyay 1931); the Irrlia OfficeLibrary's 1926 edition of Asutos Majurrdar's Meyder Bratakatha is identicalto the 1978 edition by the same author ana available on calcutta streetsten years ago (Majurrdar 1926; Majurrdar 1978).4. Meredith Borthwick suggests that the curricultml for women's education wasbroadly ilnitative of an English curricultml for girls. '!be major emphasisof the texts I have looked at is on the maintenance of traditional Indianstructures of family life (Borthwick 1984:80-86).5. '!be jow:nal is Barno Im'shan, foun:led by Bankim Cllarrlra Olatterjee. '!heauthor of Grtla I.akshmi. wrote three books on Bankim ClIan:ira' s novels anawas a well known =itic of that novelist. (sengupta 1976:121)6. In Grtla I.akshmi. when the wife asks the husband for a piece of Englishcrepe (a popular nineteenth century fabric) the husban:l explodes: "Chi!Chi! Wearing that is like standing nude•••'!hose women who wear this cloth,fie on them! ana to that husband who causes his wife to wear this kim ofcloth ana exposes her to everyone, truly, truly fie!" (Raychaudhuri1887:23-24)7. But then, even anong the Brahmos, authors oould be quite conservative.Isancarrlra Basu, author of stridiger Prati Upadesh, was a student ofRajnarain Bose, a writer for Tattvabodhini Patrika ana a member of theJOOSt conservative of Brahmo sects, the lIdi Brahmo 8amaj (8en;jupta1976:56). His text shows an unusual precx::clJpation with "chastity." 'Ihreeseparate chapters are devoted to this subject-explaining it, giving the"signs" of it ana "preserving" it. A table in the apperxiix even lists thecharacteristics which separate the chaste woman from the unchasteprostitute (Basu 1884:70).Reviewing this text for the 1884 catalogue ofPrinted Books, an editor noted that the author "inclines towards theorthodox views" on the subjects of women's character, social ana domesticobligations, education, ana child marriage (Bengal Library 1884:28-29).8. Most texts were arranged topically, but there were other possibilities.One author divided his work acoording to the different tasks of a girl's
Page 1 and 2: AbstractThis is a study ofa collect
Page 3 and 4: FACE 'IO FACE:ROLES FOR BENGALI ~ I
Page 5 and 6: -3-education in In:tia and Bengal.
Page 7 and 8: -5-extended families, the rearing o
Page 9 and 10: -7-Prqler education, it was believe
Page 11 and 12: -9-But however bitterly authors opp
Page 13 and 14: -11-husbar¥:'Is away at college or
Page 15 and 16: -13-over your face. SlCMly, slCMly,
Page 17 and 18: -15-of each other, that would not b
Page 19: -17-struggle to redefine women's ro
Page 23 and 24: -21-ReferencesBagal, Jogesh C.1949
Page 25 and 26: -23-1884 Sorgini. calcutta: Ben:Jal

Roles for Bengali Women in Love and Family Judith Walsh

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