How did the “Women question” become

relevant in the 19th Century India?

SHIKHA SHARMA

Abstract
In the pre-modern era, women and girls were pressured to behave and dress more
traditionally femininely. The society was particularly patriarchal, and women were
subjected as subordinates. The women's question emerged in India in the nineteenth
century. This period was marked by the growth of middle-class reform movements
across different parts of India, which raised critical questions about social practices
such as sati, widow remarriage act, women's education, Etc. The most critical analyses
of women and men in Indian society have explored their positions in several ways.
The women's question spiralled into the national movement as a political concern that
needed people's attention and shaped a new India for Indian women. Although the
debate is still ongoing, the results remain outdated.
Indian women have been analyzed as symbols of status and prestige, whose seclusion
and supervision are essential to maintaining family purity and reputation. They have
been analyzing as objects of exchange (the giving of a daughter in marriage) which is
the pivotal ranked transaction. Men were likely to curb women's rights and let them be
in household chores.
Moreover, women have been analyzing as economic goods, productive capital assets,
or luxury goods.1 This analysis has helped explain different female mortality rates at
various ages by the economic value of women. Globally, over 2.7 billion women are
legally restricted from having the same jobs as men.2 Indian women have been taken
as symbols of status and prestige, whose seclusion and supervision are essential to
maintaining family purity and reputation. They have been term as objects of exchange,
and the giving of daughters in marriage is the crucial ranked transaction in which girls
lower in status are given to men higher in status.3
SOCIAL REFORM MOVEMENTS
The social reformers believed in the principle of Individual liberty, freedom, and
equality of all human beings irrespective of sex, color, race, caste, or religion.
Accordingly, they had attacked rigorously several orthodox, traditional, authoritarian,
and hierarchical social institutions and launched social reform movement to liberate
the Indian women from their inferiority.
The socio-religious reform movements in the nineteenth century paved the way for the
emerging change in society and the position of women. The centrality of women's
problems was an intriguing element in these reform movements. The two immense
Indian reformers led vast movements for developing women's situation in Indian
society.
Furthermore, these analyses show that controlling women at all stages of their life
cycle was essential to the continuation of traditional family and caste patterns. Social
reformers like Raja Rammohun Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar understood and
raised women's questions in nineteenth-century India. They both given an immense
account of women's condition in nineteenth-century India. The immoral practices like
Sati and Widowhood showed womanhood's brutality, unfairness, and dementing
condition. The term 'Sati', also often referred to as 'suttee', translates to a "chaste
woman" in Hindi and Sanskrit texts. Raja Rammohun Roy had stood up against the
orthodox practice like Sati. He was commissioned to put a stoppage on this immoral
practice of sati. Moreover, on the other hand, Vidyasagar was shocked by the plight of
women after widowhood. They both stood up for the woman's question, which needed
reframing.
Raja Rammohun Roy, regarded as the first modern champion of women's rights, made
efforts to abolish the orthodox rites called Sati, or widow immolation. Also, historian
Lata Mani explored the ideological issues that informed the movement for sati
abolition. She wrote a book named Contentious Traditions: the debate on Sati in
Colonial India. She argued in this book that the women burned were marginal, and the
controversy was over the definitions of Hindu traditions. The history of widow
burning is one of the paradoxes. The chief players in the argument argued over the
religious basis of sati. The debate normalized the violence of sati and supported the
misconception that it was a voluntary act of wifely devotion.5
In addition, the Hindu caste system depended upon maintaining relationships between
hierarchically ranked castes. Caste endogamy, or marriage within one's caste, was
enforced through the control of marriages by families and mainly through the control
of women. Thus, while women in India are highly idealized, they have been
systematically subordinated. In the past, the reasons for their subordination were very
explicit, vigorously enforced by religious and secular authorities, and most strongly
enforced by the social units of caste and family.
Raja Rammohun Roy founded the Brahmo Samaj in Calcutta in 1828. It advocated
reform and eventually abolition of the traditional caste system and legislation aimed at
improving the social status of women and more excellent protection of children.
Brahmo Samaj altered Bengali society in the nineteenth century. It was a Hindu
reformist movement that began in the era when the reform movements were taking
place. The focus of this society was the emancipation of women in the society and
equality of religions, rejection of the caste system. However, the question arises,
"Does this movement change the perspective among traditionalists that women should
not be accustomed to being engaged in these horrific acts of Sati?"
On September 4, 1987, Roop Kanwar, an 18-year-old, decided to jump into her
husband's funeral pyre in the act of self-immolation. The large group of people
watching this action described it as a voluntary action. This act shook the state of
Rajasthan and sparked massive countrywide attention. Moreover, the acts of voluntary
sati lead to the question of women's perspective and consent in self-immolation.
Furthermore, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was a powerful voice against the oppression
of women in nineteenth-century Bengal. He opened a school for women and was
instrumental in bringing the Hindu Widows' remarriage Act in 1856. He had made
awareness in society about widow remarriage. He propagated the idea of 'Hindu
widow remarriage', and while working on this issue, he came across the more dynamic
approach that was women's education. Whenever we talk about the Bengal
Renaissance, we always encounter his name. He was a crucial figure in contemplating
the new future for women in a Patriarchal society in the nineteenth century.

HINDU WIDOW REMARRIAGE ACT, 1856

Marriages used to happen at an early age in the nineteenth century. That counted in as
a reason for the early widowhood. After the cruel Sati practices, the next issue in
society was widowhood, and in some villages, women had to leave the village when
they became a widow of someone. If a man died early due to fairly chances of poor
healthcare, or any other matter, a woman had to suffer her whole life with the
financial, social, and horrible circumstances in the nineteenth century.
So, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar came up with the Act (Hindu Widow Remarriage Act,
1856), which legalized widows' remarriage in all India's jurisdictions under East India
Company Law. It was drafted by Lord Dalhousie and passed by Lord Canning before
the Indian Rebellion of 1857. In the nineteenth century, the conditions of widows were
undeniably horrible. They did not have rights or property and faced immense
exploitation from family members.
In some parts of India, the widows have to live like a saint. They were expected to
lead a life with no makeup and had to leave every aspect of a married woman's life.
The widows were considered the unlucky person for the whole family. Remarriage
was not legalized, even if a widowed woman was young. This Act would transform
this perspective in the society that widows had to stay like a saint and leave
everything.
However, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's efforts resulted in the legalization of the
Widow Remarriage Act on 26th July 1856. The law stated that "No marriage
contracted between Hindus shall be invalid, and the issue of no such marriage shall be
illegitimate, because of the woman having been previously married or betrothed to
another person who was dead at the time of such marriage, any custom and any
interpretation of Hindu Law to the contrary notwithstanding."
There was concern about the after-effects of the passing Act and how the audience
will react to the bill's coming about the remarriage of widows. Vidyasagar took the
challenge and performed the first widow remarriage in Kolkata on 7th December
1856. When the great rebellion of 1857 happened, the power was transferred from the
East India Company to the British Crown. Then, they decided not to interfere in the
Indian personal spheres and laws. By the time, he strikes over the practice of
polygamy among high caste Hindus in the 1870s.
"What is fascinating about Vidyasagar is how a traditional Sanskrit scholar in a
patriarchal society used his command of the ancient scriptures to argue against
opponents in his community and to campaign for very 'modern' reforms against child
marriage, polygamy, and the mistreatment of widows." Writes Dr Sarmila Bose.7
Vidyasagar had set an example of enlightened thought within a cultural and religious
community for the progress of their people. He worked and argued against the ill
conditions of women and the upliftment of inferior classes in Bengali society. His
thoughts were provocative and internationally accepted during the nineteenth century.
However, the women's question was not just a result of the influence of liberal ideals
of equality and reason. However, it was also equally a result of the acute problems of
interpersonal adjustments within the family. The changing position of women in India
can best be measured using quantitative methods in the context of family and caste
history. Changes in the social order in modern India, particularly concerning women,
are far more complex than nationalist historians suggest.
Studies of women in the classical texts, or surveys of contemporary attitudes and
behaviour, have given no reliable guides to change over time. Most scholars have
treated the changing position of Indian women as intellectual or political history. The
social reform debate in late nineteenth-century India indeed centred upon
improvements in the position of women. They accepted the contemporary British
administrative and missionary evaluations of the progress of civilizations.
According to the position of women, Indian men confronted their dilemma by a
Bengali social reformer: "Indian women are the fishbone sticking in our throat; we
cannot swallow them, and we cannot get them out." As a result, many reforms were
instituted to benefit women: the eradication of the practice of Sati (burning a widow
with her husband's body); the raising of the legal age for marriage and sexual
intercourse; the sanctioning of widow remarriage; the education of women.
Western-educated social reformers helped develop the vernacular languages, using the
spoken rather than the classical dialects, at least partly to reach female readers. Unique
vernacular literature for women was developed in this way. There was also a point of
women's question in the Dravidian movement, also known as the self-respect
movement.

THE SELF-RESPECT MOVEMENT

The advent of Suyamariathai Iyakkam (self-respect movement) was launched by
Periyar E.V Ramasamy Naicker, also known as Periyar, in 1926. The yearning for
total change during the movement led him to think about the position on women's
questions too. However, he did not put him across the conventional emancipation like
widow remarriage and women's education, which would not satisfy the patriarchal
norms. Instead, he raised attention to the basic norms that lead to the private lives of
women.
He noted 'the quality of education imparted to women till now has been one of the
training women to be efficient housewives by following a curriculum include cooking,
music, tailoring, Etc. Thus, a woman's education is an advertisement for acquiring a
qualified husband. Therefore, he felt a need to uplift women by providing education
and opportunities to them.
He further argued that women's education should aim to employ women and thus
make them economically independent. He remarked that marriage enslaves women,
leading them towards the cages of patriarchy. Spoke at a Women's meeting at Victoria
Hall, Madras, in 1948, "he attacked the concept of marriage and family by stating that
the husband and wife relationship has been one of the master-slave relationships."
He opposed the ritualistic practices associated with marriages, which treat women as
inferior to men. He was also against arranged marriages and advocated that men and
women should choose the partners of their own free will. He argued that women
should have the right to decide to have children. He focused on women's consent and
choice by propagating birth control. They have only thought of family and national
welfare through birth control. He gave an analysis while criticizing Hinduism that the
concepts of varnashrama Dharma states women should be treated as dasis (prostitutes)
of gods who tested only women's chastity and not that of men. 4
Moreover, he noted, 'the self-proclaimed liberators of women, the Dravidian
intellectuals have kept their daughters, sisters, and mothers as mere decorative pieces
at home. He was against the Justice Party ministry's attitude towards women's
questions and failure to implement the anti-child marriage act effectively. He wanted
the resignation of A.P Patro and other Justice Party leaders as they failed to enact
legislation to improve women's conditions.
Periyar's views on women's questions found pragmatic expression in the activities of
the self-respect movement. The movement followed self-respect marriages, organized
women's conferences to raise their consciousness and underline their problems, and
engaged women in mass agitations. However, the mainframe of self-respect marriages
was only to free the institution of marriage from Hindu rituals, which emphasized
traditional norms and focused on legitimized patriarchy.
Some examples showed the marriage of a young widow, sivagami (who belonged to
an orthodox Hindu Family in the Thanjavur district with Sami Chidambaranar, a
Tamil Scholar (who was a dedicated activist of the movement) took place in 1930.
Both wanted to get married with consent, but there was still a bit of opposition to the
marriage from both families. Finally, however, with the help of Periyar, the wedding
happened; they both exchanged rings and took an oath (which emphasized friendship
and equality between them) declared as husband and wife.
All the self-respect marriages used to propagate their views on women's questions.
The marriage venues were decorated with the symbols and slogans of the movement.
Like, long live self-respect movement and long live vaikkam veerar. This movement
supported the banishment of old rites and rituals which subordinated women in a
profoundly patriarchal society.
To conclude, it led to the promotion of inter-caste and inter-religious marriages and
the legalization of marriages without Brahman priests. The movement aimed to lead a
prosperous life for women in society. It is filled with a sense of self-respect and self-
confidence to fight against social injustice perpetrated by the Brahmins of the day. It
was the first fight for dignity, and its focus on uplifting the women's status by
proposing education for them is found to be a far-reaching approach in history.

RASSUNDARI DEVI: Woman who shattered mirrors of

Patriarchy
When usually girls were married off, she began her identity journey by starting with
reading and writing and then publishing her autobiography in Bengali Literature.
Rassundari Devi was a Bengali writer. Her autobiography Amar Jiban (my life) gave
her fantastic popularity, and it became an inspiration for a young woman. She was
born to a rural zamindari family in the small village of Potajiya (west Bangladesh).
Unfortunately, her father expired when she was extremely young.
She had an emotional relationship with her mother (widowed). Her mother was a very
religious woman who taught her to remember God in good and bad times. She did not
get a higher education, as it was a sacrilegious act during those days. Even though she
married at 12 to a well-to-do man who lived in Rajbari, Faridpur, she was among the
women writers in Bengali Literature. Her autobiography is known as the first
published autobiography in Bengali Literature.
During her times, education was unimaginable for women, and a literate woman was
synonymous with a cursed woman. However, Rassundari refused to remain an
unlettered woman all her life. She taught herself secretively how to read and write.
She wanted to construct an identity independent of her husband and children. Between
all of this, she bore twelve children (of whom seven died early). Her husband died in
1868.
Those times were cruel to women; the people thought that if a woman would go out
and work, it would be a curse to the home. Also, if a woman is educated, it would lead
to her husband’s death. Rassundari changed this perspective among people. She taught
herself to read at the age of 26. Although she was separated from her husband from
her family, she found people in her in-law’s village much caring and helpful. A
vaishnavnite like her husband and his family, she became highly religious. Rassundari
kept herself busy with household chores and even did her duties as wife and daughter-
in-law with complete determination and loving nature.
During her younger years, she used to listen to the lessons at the local school. She was
allowed to sit quietly outside the class at the doorstep. Over two years, she memorized
the Bengali alphabet by heart (she hid that from her family). She quietly stole things
from her husband, like pages from his Chaitanya Bhagavata, and from her son, a rough
paper on which he had been practising writing his letters. She read every book in the
household.
As time passed, one of her younger sons demanded that she reply to his letters herself
and sent her paper, pen, and ink. So she learned how to write only for her son’s decent
demand. Gradually, she started to write her autobiography after years of writing
letters. The autobiography was titled Amar Jiban (My life). The book helps us
understand how the normalization of the Purdah (veil) kept women away from
education. Rassundari stood up for the right to education for women as circumstances
gradually started to change, and women’s education became a topic for initiating
Equality.
The ‘Amar Jiban’ came out in 1868 and 1897 in two sections. As the autobiography is
the first ever printed book by Bengali women, the book received extreme praise and
appreciation just after its publication. She further added the second part in 1897. The
book came into existence after Rassundari Devi was widowed at fifty-nine. She had
chronicled her life and struggles on the road to educating herself. She shared her
experiences as a daughter, child bride, wife, daughter-in-law, mother, and then a
widow and ended with being a learner.
Later, a preface was added by the famous literary figure of the nineteenth century,
Jyotirindranath Tagore. Tanika Sarkar, in her book Words to Win, The Making of
Amar Jiban: A Modem Autobiography, quotes him glorifying Rassundari Devi as
“Her Domestic skill match her piety and her love for God…. It was her religious quest
that inspired her to educate herself…. It was not to read plays and novels but to read
Chaitanya Bhagavata that she was so keen on learning… It is extremely unusual to
come across such an elevated exalted religious life.”
The book creates a picture of the changing world, the status and role of women and
Rassundari’s views on the changing times. Society at the time was vehemently
opposed to female education. However, she took her part in the journey secretively.
She saw the significant issues in society then, not only education but different curses
that women had to bear, orthodox thinking, and narratives in the minds of some elite
families.
Nevertheless, she came out with intense energy and broke all mirrors by learning how
to read and write. One of the most intriguing elements she wrote about is some
objections to being called her father’s daughter. Her father passed away while she was
very young, so she grew up believing herself to be her mother’s daughter. Although, it
was her father’s name that was used to refer to her. She shared how this had affected
her and turned out to cause great anxiety. She had seen many Bengali women (also her
mother) suffer through some unsaid rules and regulations, which she did not aspire to
accept in the future.
To conclude, Amar Jiban gives an insight into the life of a housewife in the house of a
prosperous East Bengali Zamindar. It chronicles the devastating realities of a girl child
in the nineteenth century. It talks of pain, subordination, and oppression. It reflects
angst, loss, and a cry for help. To an extent, a few Hindu women, mainly from lower
castes, widows, and prostitutes, undercut communal constructions and boundaries
through their actions.
It talks of the woman who wrote the first published autobiography, a woman who
practised letters on a kitchen wall. Jyotirindranath Tagore read Amar Jiban and shared
his view, “I started reading ‘Amar Jiban’ with excitement. I decided to mark important
and interesting sentences with a pencil. While reading, I realized that the whole book
had been marked with a pencil.” During the nineteenth and twentieth century, upper
caste Hindu and Muslim women lived a life similar to that of prisoners. There were
also written accounts by Rabindranath Tagore and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay on
the pathetic life of women in nineteenth-century Bengal.

CONCLUSION
Thus, the women's question arose as a topic of discussion in the nineteenth century
because the most exploited sector in those times was of social strata. Men's and
women's roles at that time were differentiated regarding inferiority and superiority.
Patriarchy was prevalent for a long time, meaning a society dominated by a male
figure, and men have greater power and decision-making.
However, the literary and reform activities were led by men, and men principally
engaged in them until the twentieth century. Nonetheless, more radical reforms like
widow remarriage made little headway. On the other hand, the growth of education for
women and the rising marriage age had significant and irreversible effects on women
and Indian social institutions. As a result, women's situation worsened during the
nineteenth century, and the social reformers looked up to it to bring out a change that
could transform women's lives in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Social and political reforms also brought women into new spheres of public life. For
example, the nationalist movement included political reforms such as voting for
women and involving women as participants, especially under Gandhi's leadership. In
addition, women gained equal rights in the constitution of independent India. Thus, the
new nation's legal system and political and social goals provided a context in which
some women could take advantage of new opportunities, and Indian women have
achieved higher participation rates in public and professional areas than women in the
United States.
Sometimes the values sanctioning the increased participation of women in public life
were traditional, as in the professions of medicine and higher education. In the first
case, male physicians' treatment of Indian women posed cultural problems, and female
physicians filled a real need. Most women specialized in midwifery and gynaecology,
and patients preferred married female physicians to unmarried ones. There was also
family pressure for daughters to become doctors rather than nurses, for nursing was
initially associated with polluting tasks and Christian or Anglo-Indian practitioners.
Finally, a doctor's career was both prestigious and lucrative.
Missionaries and the Indian government encouraged not only female medical students
through the creation of separate schools and financial support but also provided secure
employment so that Indian female doctors avoided the entrepreneurial activities
associated with private medical practice. In the case of higher education, emphasis on
the seclusion and purity of women necessitated the development of separate
educational institutions and female faculties for female students. It thus contributed to
the high proportion of female academics in India today.
Despite an improvement in the position of women in modern Indian society,
evidenced by general patterns such as those above, it is hard to measure the extent to
which women control their lives. That is the goal, however distant, against which any
progress toward women's liberation must be measured, and that kind of change, in
India, must be measured at the levels of family and caste. Social relations
institutionalized at these levels most directly affect individual women.
Women of all spheres were attracted to the reforms and participated in the revolution.
Women like Sarojini Naidu and Aruna Asaf Ali gave an immense literature level.
Bengali women like Rassundari Devi had vibrantly written Bengali literature. Women
like her encouraged so many who were subordinate during the 19th century.
Sarojini Naidu had spoken on the differences faced by the Indian women in society,
which divide them based on gender. The main issue was the rights of the widows. She
stood up for the widows to have equal representation in society as men. At the 22nd
session of the Indian National Conference held in 1908, she was instrumental in
passing a resolution demanding educational facilities for widows. In addition, she
established women's homes and remove obstacles to the remarriage of widows.
Furthermore, all these subjects became controversial at that time.
Furthermore, quoting the book written by Ruby Lal, "Domesticity and power in the
Early Mughal World" aptly present this narrative of the public and private spheres.
The private spheres are considered to be the domestic, the banal, and the household.
Usually, when talking about the women from the royal family, they were close to the
Emperor/king. They might take part in royal decisions and matters as well. The levels
of domestic life were relevant through many stages of historical times.
The Mughal harem showed the private life of royal households in India. The account
of the harem was written off from a narrow lens of stereotypical. Mughal harem
The Indian women were seen to be engaged in the knowledge that made them inferior
from the worldwide view. Captain Willard quotes in 1834 about the Indian women
fond of singing songs that mostly appear licentious and voluptuous. The plight of
women in the modern Indian framework has been seen in the Bengal region in the
Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries.
Women played a leading role in implementing a model of female education in Bengal
that was primarily fashioned by contemporary English missionaries. The patriarchal
hegemony had framed the private lives of women to be bearers of the minor children
and handlers of household chores.
Moreover, the narrative that women cannot be superior to men had been seen to be
changed when the outbreak of the revolutionist movement took place by women
suffragists in the West in the nineteenth century. Indian women tend to think more
provocatively about their rights and power.
There were subtle differences among nineteenth-century Bengali urban elite members
over how women should be educated and allowed free movement in society. The
deplorable spate of "honor killings" or female foeticide, and the refusal to pass the
women's reservation Bill, are all testimony of the challenges ahead. There are still
many battles that the country leaders need to fight for the comfortability of women's
lives in the coming centuries.
NOTES
1. Shirley Lindenbaum, “The Value of Women,” paper presented at the Ninth
Annual Bengal Conference, 1973.

2. World Bank, Women, Business and the Law 2018. (Washington, D.C., 2018).
Available at: http://wbl.worldbank.org/

3. The quotations by R.S. Khara, “Hierarchy and Hypergamy”.

4. Hanna Papanek’s Journal Article “Purdah: Separate Worlds and Symbol Shelter
water” was published by: Cambridge University Press.

5. Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India by Lata Mani

(Author)

6. Journal Article Women's Question in the Dravidian Movement c. 1925-1948 by

Anandhi S.

7. How one religious scholar fought for women’s rights and won, an article by
Sarmila Bose, is Senior Research Associate, Centre for International Studies,
Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford.

8. Tanika Sarkar’s book “Words to Win, The Making of Amar Jiban: A Modern
Autobiography”

9. https://www.eng-literature.com/2022/01/rassundari-devi-amar-jiban-
summary.html

10. Chaudhuri, Maitrayee (2011). (First print, 1993). The Indian Women’s
Movement.

11. Vina Mazumdar Emergence of the women’s question in India and the role of
women’s studies

12. Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan, Real, and Imagined Women: Gender, Culture, and
Postcolonialism, Routledge, London, 1993.
13. Forbes, Geraldine, Women in Modern India, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1996

14. Sangari, Kumkum, and Sudesh Vaid, Recasting Women, Essays in Colonial
History, Kali for Women, New Delhi, 1989.