Status of women in the Medieval India
Relevance: Mains: G.S paper I: Indian Society; Medieval Indian Women
The Medieval period (Period between 500 A. D to 1500 A.D) proved to be highly disappointing for the Indian women, for their status further deteriorated during this period.
Medieval India was not women’s age it is supposed to be the ‘dark age’ for them. When foreign conquerors like Muslims invaded India they brought with them their own culture. For them women was the sole property of her father, brother or husband and she does not have any will of her own. This type of thinking also crept into the minds of Indian people and they also began to treat their own women like this. One more reason for the decline in women’s status and freedom was that original Indians wanted to shield their women folk from the barbarous Muslim invaders. As polygamy was a norm for these invaders they picked up any women they wanted and kept her in their “harems”. In order to protect them Indian
women started using ‘Purdah’, (a veil), which covers body. Due to this reason their freedom also became affected. They were not allowed to move freely and this lead to the further deterioration of their status. These problems related with women resulted in changed mindset of people. Now they began to consider a girl as misery and a burden, which has to be shielded from the eyes of intruders and needs extra care. Whereas a boy child will not need such extra care and instead will be helpful as an earning hand. Thus a vicious circle started in which women was at the receiving end. All this gave rise to some new evils such as Child Marriage, Sati, Jauhar and restriction on girl education.
Sati:
The ritual of dying at the funeral pyre of the husband is known as “Sati” or “Sahagaman”.
According to some of the Hindu scriptures women dying at the funeral pyre of her husband go straight to heaven so it’s good to practice this ritual. Initially it was not obligatory for the women but if she practiced such a custom she was highly respected by the society. Sati was considered to be the better option than living as a widow as the plight of widows in Hindu society was even worse. Some of the scriptures like ‘Medhatiti’ had different views it say that Sati is like committing suicide so one should avoid this.
Jauhar:
It is also more or less similar to Sati but it is a mass suicide. Jauhar was prevalent in the Rajput societies. In this custom wives immolated themselves while their husband was still alive. When people of Rajput clan became sure that they were going to die at the hands of their enemy then all the women arrange a large pyre and set themselves afire, while their husband used to fight the last decisive battle known as “Shaka”, with the enemy. Thus protecting the sanctity of the women and the whole clan.
Child Marriage:
It was a norm in medieval India. Girls were married off at the age of 8-10. They were not allowed access to education and were treated as the material being. The plight of women can be imagined by one of the shloka of Tulsidas where he writes “Dhol, gawar, shudra, pashu, nari, ye sab tadankeadhikari”. Meaning that animals, illiterates, lower castes and women should be subjected to beating. Thus women were compared with animals and were married off at an early age. The child marriage along with it brought some more problems such as increased birth rate, poor health of women due to repeated child bearing and high mortality rate of women and children.
Restriction on Widow Remarriage:
The condition of widows in medieval India was very bad. They were not treated as human beings and were subjected to a lot of restrictions. In Vijaynagar kingdom women were present in each and every field. Nuniz, another famous traveler to the South also agrees to it and says that women were employed in writing accounts of expenses, recording the affairs of kingdom, which shows that they were educated. There is no evidence of any public school in northern India but according to famous historian IbnBatuta there were 13 schools for girls and 24 for boys in Honavar. There was one major evil present in South India of medieval time. But it was the custom of Devadasis.
Devadasis was a custom prevalent in Southern India. In this system girls were dedicated to temples in the name of gods and goddesses. The girls were then onwards known as ‘Devadasis’ meaning servant of god. These Devadasis were supposed to live the life of celibacy. All the requirements of Devadasis were fulfilled by the grants given to the temples. In temple they used to spend their time in worship of god and by singing and dancing for the god. Some kings used to invite temple dancers to perform at their court for the pleasure of courtiers and thus some Devadasis converted to Rajadasis (palace dancers) prevalent in some tribes of South India like Yellamma cult,(Sharma,2002).
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META TAGS:
child marriage, Devadasis, Indian history, INDIAN SOCIETY, Indian women, Jauhar, Medieval India, Purdah, Sati, Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), Widow Remarriage
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Exaggeration of the fact that women were free before Turkish invasion. Not to be rude, this essay is devoid of proper facts and sources and self contradictory and blaming everything on the Turks.
Aitareya Brahmana considers “daughter as the source of misery”. In Shatpatha Brahmana it is stated that “women neither owns themselves nor inheritance”
Polygamy was prevalent even before “these invaders”. It is mentioned in Vashistha Dharmasutra that “a Brahmana can have three wives, Kshatriya can have 2 and Vaishya and Shudra can have only one”. It clearly shows that having more wives meant prestige. And obviously was prevalent in the period before the Turks came along.
Can we forget Manu Smriti? How Pathetic the status of women is portrayed in it?
Baudhayana Dharmasutra says a “Father should marry his daughter off to a man devoid of good qualities rather than keep her at home after she attain puberty”.
Again, many of the Dharmasutra and shastras were contradictory to each other.
For example while Niyoga practice was acknowledged by Gautama, it was was considered sinful by Baudhayana.
Also, writer of the essay himself/herself says about Tulsidas’s opinion about women. Was it also due to the Turks as it is claimed in the introduction?
Talking about the Turks, they too brought with them new ideas- for good or for bad. Let’s say, women were hard hit from both the sides. Whilst there were new ideas that came with them, it had nothing dashing to offer for the women folk. Their lives remained miserable.
History is a complex process. There are aspirants out there who are opting for this paper even without having a degree in it. It is your responsibility to genuinely help them.
This website is to help IAS aspirants. Please don’t put up biased, incomplete and misleading readings like this.
While reading the article I made it sure twice whether this article truly belongs to an institution for CSE. Flawed!
Yes, I totally agree with you. History should not be used for biasing of facts.
It is really big misconception about medieval period was brutal for Indian women.. Infact this article is written with lack of research and unauthentic data. Ancient( Manusmirti was there ) Medieval and Modern are never fairly favorable for Indian women.
The take of this article on tulsidas shloka ” dhol ganwar shudra pashu nari shakl tadna ke adhikari” is completely baseless and wrong
If one doesn’t know the context in which the following lines were said then they do not have any right of quoting these lines over here
Firstly go and get your facts correct!