Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c7.s1.11

c7.s1.11

2. *The Position of Woman.*—The functions and the position of a woman were distinctly subordinate and in the long run came to be understood as the service of the male and dependence upon him in every stage of life. As a daughter, a woman lived under the wardship of her father, as a wife under the tutelage of her husband, and as a widow (that is, if she was permitted to survive her husband) under the care of her eldest son.² In a word her life was a state of perpetual wardship, and the social laws and customs stamped her with a sort of mental deficiency. When she was born, a girl appeared as an intruder on the scene, for, speaking from the religious view-point of the Hindus, the luckless daughter might not ‘expiate the guilt fathers piled up in forgotten hours’. ³ She was therefore killed among some tribes even when in infancy.⁴ If she was permitted to live she was given away to a husband in an indissoluble tie. If she died in pregnancy, she sometimes turned into the most dreaded of evil spirits, known as the *churail*, and haunted the neighbourhood. Death or self-immolation alone consigned her to oblivion. Thus, from her birth to her death, the position of a woman was most unpleasant. Religion and other ameliorating spiritual movements gave her all the consolation they could in reconciling her to her fate; but they too carefully excluded her from every position of power, even from a place in their inner hierarchy.⁵