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Gender Historiography

Women in History (Ancient Period)

- R. Mahalakshmi*

In this paper, the historiographical perspectives on gender as they have developcd in the past
several deccades will be discussed. The purpose of this is to mark the shifts in interpretation and
to highlight how women as the subject of study in ancient India has thrown open new questions
and insights with regard to the society, polity and economy of the times.
Aparma Basu in her historiographical survey of women's history in the Indian context points out
a very pertinent [Link] visibility of women in the historical record caught the attention of
scholars particularly in the context of the frecdom struggle, when more and more women
participated in the various movements. A number of gencral works on ancient Indian history
also began to include discussions on the lives of women. Many of these were descriptions of
'women worthies' - the queens, saints and thinkers. There were some that focused exclusively
on women in the ancient period, which sought to address the status of Indian women within
religious traditions and broad historical periods. Works like Clarisse Bader's Women in Ancient
India: Moral and Literary Studies (1925). L.B. Horner's Women under Primitive Buddhism
(1930), AS Altekar's The Position of Women in Hlindu Civilization (1938), focused on women's
prescnce and contribution in specific texts and contexts. Bader's work was originally published
in French in 1867, and paid glowing tribute to the Eastern imagination that held women at the
centre of sacred and social lifc. The descriptions in the Vedic hymns, Upani_ads, Manu's codes
and the Sanskrit cpics were used to demonstrate the conspicuous presence of women in ancient
India. Altekar's monograph traverscd the same textual terrain, but what is striking is the
emphasis on certain themes such as girlhood, marriage, widowhood etc. While Bader also
focused on marriage and widowhood, her emphasis was on what she called the 'Aryan' culture,
which she saw as representing the high culture visible in Greco-Roman traditions. For Altekar.
the colonial context of knowledge production and the nationalist upsurge was definitely a major
stimulus. He stated:

"The history of the position and status of women is... of vital importance to the student
of Indian civilization. The subject is a very wide and comprehensive one, for we shall
have to ascertain not only the general estimate formed about women in the different

*Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, JNU, New Delhi

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Women in History (Ancient Period)

periods of our long history, but its actual effects also upon the diverse spheres of their
activities during the different stages of their lives,
While Bader and Altekar focused primarily on brahmanical traditions, Horner's study of women
was focused on Buddhism, which had received tremendous attention in the West ostensibly
because of its puritan and sublime religious ideas. Such works paved the way for mnore detailed
analyses: however, a significant breakthrough in gender historiography, with a view to
highlighting the agency of common women and men, came with the shift in emphasis from
dynastic to socio-cconomic history from the 1950s. Here, the material changes due to the
cmergence and cxpansion of agrarian society, the steep social hierarchies based on varna-jti
Identity, and the political process in tems of nature and institutional structures of the state
became central in historical discourse. In the 1970s, we can identify yet another depárture from
the carlier rends, where the tendency to subsume women under the generic category of 'men'
was severely critiqued, and a renewed effort was made to identify women as historical agents.
from a socio-cconomic perspective. Their role in political life, access to resources, familial and
household status, visibility in public life, cconomic activities and religious roles became the
subjcct of discussion " One of the substantive changes in the research emanating from this time
onwards was that women as a social category, and not individuals, were the subjecct of inquiry.
This also meant that a triumphalist highlighting of women's achievements was replaced with a
more realistic reading of the structural subordination of women.

More recently, discussions have centred around the construction of feminine and masculine
identities, sexuality, and the diverse regional practices with regard to women's social roles, and
to also move beyond the literary sources to the rich archacological and cpigraphic records. In
this cssay, we will look at two broad themes, namcly, the manner in which women have been
studied in relation to the family and kinship ties, and second, women's ecconomically productive
activities and access to resources. The sources used will pertain to the broad period between
1500 BCE and 500 CE.

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Amily and Kinship

mportance of women as wives, and as central to the maintenance of the gärhapatya or
Jomestic fire, is emphasized in the Vedic literature. Aman was able to perform his ritual, and
thereby social, duties only when he was a householder. Women were essential in this
performance, as they significd the perpetuation of the male line through their capacity to
reproduce. The institutions of marriage and the family were yoked to the ritual life of the
householder. and fomed the pivots around which the pastoral and newly emerging agrarian
society were reflected in the Vedic literature.

Marriage was seen as a socially sanctioned and ritually secured institution," P.V. Kane describes
the vivha samskra as a a sacrament which brought about a union of two personalities into one,
for the purpose of the continuance of society and for the uplift of the two, by self-restraint.
sacrifice and mutual co-operation." The famous marriage hymn in the Rg Veda describes various
rituals and practices through which the enactment of the gift of the daughter and ownership of
the wife by her husband are presented (x.85),* The Grhyasätras, which are ritual texts
composcd around 500 BCE relatcd to the maintenance of the houschold, claborate on the various
ritual performances, indicating greater rigidity, increasing number of rituals, and the social
cmphasis on marriage as a rite of passage. The narrative literature such as the Sanskrit epics
Rmãyana (5h) 4h century BCE-3 century CE) and Mahbhrata (4h century BCE4h century
CE)are concerned about marriage within the matrix of power relationships related to political
and social life. Marriage in these texts were a form of communication, intending to
communicate the kinship networks and power relationships in society, and the ritualized control
over the woman who is bound in matrimony to the man, placcd her family in an apparently
uncqual relation with that of her husband. This preoccupation with social acceptability of
marriage appears to have led to the elaboration of cight forms of marriage in the Mãnava
Dharma[stra (2nd century BCE- 2nd)4th century CE). The Brähma (marriage without any
objections/ stipulations). Daiva (divine type for brhmanas), Arsa (seer type gifts from the
groom received) and Prajparya (groom given gifts) marriages were auspicious, while the
Gndhanva (based on sexual union and love). (demonic type based on payment for the
woman). Rk_asa (forceful abduction) and the Pai[ãca(abduction and rapc) were considered the
worst forms of union, in that [Link]

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Women in History (Ancient Period)

at the identity of the woman was primarily through hcr husband is scen in the conceptual
premise of the pativrata - loyalty/ fidelity to the husband, translated as a devoted wife. Shalini
Shah highlights the terminology in the Vedic literature that underscores the wife's secondary
status
she is patni (wife), avidhav (not widowed), patijuyã (loved by husband). parivkta
(abandoned by husband), patynuttã (expclled by husband). patidvis (hated by hustband). patirip
(cheats on her husband), patighnt (death of her husband), In the post Vedic traditions, she is
pativati (with a husband), pativatsal (with loving husband) and pativrat. The latter term in
particular became the defining framework for women within the family and society. particularly
in the epics and Purinas.

Arguing that patriarchal societies had an unfavourable attitude towards the birth of a daughter,
scholars have drawn our attention to the charms in the Athanva Veda that were meant to ensure
thc birth of a son,"" Awoman is given the bencfaction of bcaring a heroic son, to bc followcd by
many sons upon having the juice of the 'celestial' plants (IIL23)." But girs were also welcomed,
particularly if they were well educated and scholarly, as described in the Brhadranyaka
Upani_ad. The Grhyasütras provide details of the garbhlambanam (conception). pumsavanam
(third month ritual for a male child), and s+mantonnayana (69/ gh month ritual), with a view to
ensuring the birth of amale child.""Even at the time of marriage, the groom was to hold only the
thumb of the girl if he wanted male heirs, and all her fingers if he wanted girl children, during
the pnigrahana ceremony. Jaya Tyagi and Sukumari Bhattacharji point towards the
numerous benefactions for the bride and mother-to-be suggesting her status within the household
depended on producing male progeny. Kumkum Roy links this to the importance given to the
heroic male - the vira at least in the pastoral society depicted in the Rg Veda, but a more open
desire for 'children' in the later Vedic [Link] The post Vedic preseriptive texts, in her
analysis, are where a sharp prcference for the malc child appear. Whilc instances of feticide/
infanticidec appcar in gencral contcxts, there are specific instanccs of death of fcmalc feticide and
girl children mentioned as heinous crimes in Manu."i The fear of miscarriage was great, and the
Rg Vedic hymn (10.162) that provides an expiation of this is elaborated in a special text by the
commentator of the Rg Veda in the 4th century BCE, `aunaka, in his Rg Vidhna x

The family-houschold as providing a spatial residence for the immediate linc of blood
relatives and the extended group of kin and non-kin has also been studied in several works.i

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Women in History (Ancient Period)

fhe semantic shifts in the Vedic grha from the Rg leda to the later
Vedic literaturc is discussed
by Suvira Jaiswal, The grhapati was the leader of the extended kin
group, taking care of its
ritual and material needs. With the rise of the houscholding cconomy, which coincided with thc
shift from nomadic pastoralism to sedentary agriculture, organized on the principle of patriliny.
the single-couple families living under the larger umbrella of the clan, gets transformed - the
idea was of the household including complex patrilineages, uit For Tyagi also, the Rg Vedic
conceptualization of the grha reflccts the relation of the dampati or couple with the jana or the
larger kin group. The kula was a wider and more encompassing social unit necessary for
pastoral society; the need for compact household units came up only with the development of
settled agriculturc. Thec Grhyasütras in that sense were sccn as reflccting the transformation that
had occurred in terms of the emergence of individual grha units and legitimizing this. The
portrayal of women's roles and importance in these latter texts therefore reflects this
transformation.

For the sake of activities like production, distribution and reproduction of material and
socio-cultural attributes, individuals in the society were ritually bound into a set of relationships
through marriage The physical structure of the house was indicatcd by the following words:
nive[a, gra and [la. But these did not appear to fully corespond to the grha, which is more
specifically the household, «vi In this sense, the grha is imbued with extra-material meaning,
where it is constitutcd by space, ritual and membership to [Link] The man was the grhapati/
grhastha, while the woman was referred to as grhi and grhapatn+. The cmcrgencc of the
household as a cohesive unit, having members clearly related to each other spatially and
materially, led to the evolution of the tems grhapati and grhastha, which were further
differcntiated with thc growth of the houschold cconomy and the emergence of the wealthy
landowner vi

Tamil texts of the mid-first millennium CE also display a similar kind of investment in
the physical, material, kinship and cmotional dimensions of the houschold. The Tirukkural, a
didactic treatise in three parts -Arattupl (*on dharma'), Porutpl ('on materiality/wealth'; here.
kingship) and Kmattupl ('on love/ desire'), discusses the virtues of the householder in the first.
Here, the term illanm is uscd to refer to the domestic sphere, which is also a physically
demarcated space. It is peopled by the man whois the hecad of the illam, his wife and children
(sons) ix

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Women in listory (Ancient Period)

While emphasizing the significance of the family and kinship ties, we should not
overlook the women who became homeless voluntarily the bhikkhunis in the Buddhist and
sõdhvi in the Jaina traditions, respcctivcly, *The frecdom from domesticity is particularly
striking in the compositions of the former, compilcd as the Therigthä. Their role as influential
thinkers and proselytizers of their respective religious traditions is also evident, indicating their
social standing outside of the familial structure within which women generallygained an identity.

Economic ResourcesS and Activities

The issue of women's work and control over resources lacks clarity in carly sources. primarily
because of the invisibilization of certain chorcs and over-valuing of others. Further, the
patriarchal structure altributed ownership of work even if done collectively to the male, a
practice which continucs till today. Terms like pcasant, trader, potter, goldsmith cte. invariably
indicate the work of men, cven if particularly in pre-modern contexts this would be patently
untrue as the household itself appears to have acted as a workshop. and the members had specific
assigncd tasks,u Thc Vcdie texts refer to sir+ (female weaver). pe[akr+ (femalc cmbroiderer),
bidalakr) (female splitter bamboos) and upalaprak_in+ (woman corn grinder). There is
mention of Apala who looked after her father's fields, and Vispala who lost a leg on the
[Link] There arc also refercnces to women who servcd such as parive_tr and anucar.
Uma Chakravarti, in her well known essay on the Vedic ds+, draws our attention to the slaves,
servants and attendants who were largely ignored in the Orientalists and Nationalists' search for
grcat womcn in the Vedic tcxts, iv

The lack of clcar, detailed descriptions of women's work from the cnd of the later Vcdic period
has been linked to the growth of the patrilineal patriarchal society, in which proprietary rights, as
wellas work itself became classified by the male gender. The Artha[stra, a 4h/3rd century BCE
2nd century CE text on statecraft from a political-economy perspective, mentions different types
of women's work inside and outside the home. For instance, there were women who spun yarn
inside the house, whose work was sourced by the superintendent of yarns and textiles through his
slaves,u Old female slaves, devads+ (tcmple women), rüpajiva mtrk (mothers of prostitutes)
also spun yarn. Women entertainers, hunters, fisherfolk, cow herders were also known.

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Women in llistory (Ancient Period)

nthe Rg 'eda marriage hymn, the bride is referred to as joining her hushand in his houschold,
becoming the mistress therein, and controlling the ceremonial distribution (ostensibly after the
rituals), She is also exhorted to have children and merge hersclf with her husband; this would
result in her controlling the resources of the houschold, She is said tobe the cause for the
well-being of the livestock, and also the bringer and harbinger of wealth." All these instances
suggest that women had access to resources, but there is ambiguity regarding her controlling
these resources independently of her husband.
Tems like kany[ulka (bride pricc) and varapana (dowry) appcar in the context of marriage, and
women were also mentioncd as recciving some stridhana (property). Sukumari Bhattacharji
refers to the Taittir+ya Sapmhit 's refusal to accord the girl child a share in her fathcr's property:
this is rciterated in some later texts such as Gautama Dharmasütra (3rd ccntury BCE),xxxik Thc

latter text, however, also mentions a woman's property which goes to her unmarried and or
destitute daughters. It also mentions that if a man dies without male heirs, a share of his

property gocs to his wife.x The Mãnava Dharma[stra cxhorts the king to protcct thc (property
of women who are barren, without sons or family, women devoted to their husbands, widows
and thosc in [Link] It is further stated that if the in-laws of such women takc away their
rightful propcrty, the king can punish the in-lavws as if they were thicves,tli The Yajñavalkya
Smrti defines the str+dhana as: "what has been given to a woman by the friends, mother, the
husband, or brothers, or is received by her at the nuptial fire, or presented to her on her husband's
marriage with another wife". xiv Manu agrees with this, and also statcs, *When their mother dics,
all the uterine brothers and sisters should divide the malemal estate equally among themselves. If
those sistcrs have any daughters, onc should joyfully give them also, as is proper, something
from their maternal grandmother's property." The saudyika (given by family at the time of
marriage), pana (wealth) and yautaka (gifts by family and friends to bride) are generally terms
used for stridhana,xi The Artha[astra refers to disputes regarding property involving women.n
One of the interesting ways in which scholars have tried to examine women's access to resources
is by their donations to rcligious orders. The concept of dnadharma is cxalted in the
brahmanical and sramanic traditions. Ellison Banks Findly focuses on the role of the mistress of
the house in ensuring that this dharma of the houscholder is fulfilled. thu The woman's role as
providing ãtithya or hospitality represents her centrality in maintaining the houschold's position
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Women in listory (Ancient Period)

in a hicrarchical and segmcntcd socicty. In thc Buddhist texts, however, there appcars to be a
move away from the household's responsibility in this act of
giving and emphasis on individual
acts.i In the former case, there is cmphasis on the caste and
gcnder of those involved in the
exchangc; in the latter, the inncr qualities of the donation and the concept of
of merit) are emphasized. In the Jaina tradition, the
puññakhetta (ficld
religious identity is important for sccking
alms - only those households that are identified as Jaina
would be approached by the renunciates.
Allof thesc cxchanges are primarily in the contcxt of food, gencrally
preparcd and distributcd by
the mistress of the household, the grhapatn+, who also
controls other household goods -
prinahva. The Buddhist texts are not concerned with ritual behavior of the
brhmanas; a wider
social community marked by the gahapati and gahapatn+, thcir accumulation of
propcrty, and
their liberty to dispose the property are visible. The Buddha's advice to his disciple
Uggaha"'s
daughters was that they leam the trade and skills of their husbands related to cotton and wool, in
addition to managing the household. Four obiects of donation were food, medicine, robes and
land. Marricd and unmarried womcn, and ganikas werc major donors to the
monastic institution,
and their acts of dãna appear tohave been executed independently of their male
relatives.
As mentioned earlier, women's work was invisible and there is no
question of her being paid for
her household chores. We do hear of women outside
nmarriage receiving an income prior to the
mid-first millennium BCE, and these women were known by various names
such as varastri,
varngana, smãnya str+ [Link] is mentioncd that wicked mothers forced their daughters to have
sexual relations with different men for wealth. Bhattacharji points to the
Vedic sacrificial
daksin that includcd gifting of virgins to the officiating pricsts, and of
other categorics of
married and unmarried women, including those with children." In the
Artha[stra, different
ways in which prostitutes were recruited is mentioned: by birth,
purchase, in war, or as
punishmcnt for adulterous wives. hi The Kãmasktra spccifics the fecs for a ganik for a
singlc
night on the basis of her location, status, scason and thc local
custom.v Thesc women were also
great patrons of the sramanic faiths, and made
numerous donations, according to texts and
inscriptions of the ancient period.
Conclusion

The discussion above demonstrates the rich

historiography on women in ancient Indian
history, and their conspicuous prescnce as well as inadvertent
mention in a varicty of sources and
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Women in History (Ancient Period)

sntexts. Focusing on two themes relatcd to thcir affective and
kinship tics, and their cconomic
hold in society, we have sought to identify
certain broad features of their roles and social
importance.

Within the first theme, we have highlighted the

development of marriage and household as social
institutions signifying women's importance in socicty. Linked to this, the defining of the
of the woman through her husband is clcar in the
identity
carly traditions. The power rclations that
accompany marriage has also been touched upon, as has the importance being given to the boy
child vis-à-vis the girl child. Here, the devclopment of the patrilincal patriarchal
family structure
in the context of sedentary agricultural socicties has also been notcd. Lastly, unmarricd women
outside the patrilineal, patriarchal household provide a different view of women's place in
society.

The second theme takes up the issue of women's economic roles and productive labour, where it
is recognised in the public domain. The houschold as the institution for organizing productive
relations is another important sub-theme we have studied. Women's control over resources
within the household and their inheritance and property rights have also been discussed. Lastly,
the issue of prostitution as the social institutionalization of women's sexual labour is also taken

up.

and womcn's
These themes are continuing to clicit the interest of scholars in the ficld of gender
other aspects of
history, and this essay seeks to promote further enquiry on these and various
their political and religious
women's lives in ancient India. Some of these other aspects such as
women in ancicnt India, and
participation arc also significant in understanding thec history of
would enrich our overall historical understanding.

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