Women in Dharmasastras : A Phenomenological and Critical Analysis

Contents: Introduction. I. Persona of women in India's intellectual tradition: 1. Women's education in Vedic India/Pranati Ghoshal. 2. Women in India's intellectual tradition/Chandrakala Padia. II. Women in Dharmasastras: search for a perspective: 3. Woman and the Dharmasastras/Kapil Kapoor. 4. Social dimensions of the discourse on women and sex as reflected in Manusmrti--the earliest known Indian code of life/Pushpa Tiwari. 5. Women and the notion of Kama in the Dharmasastriya discourse/Shalini Shah. 6. Re-reading Dharmasastras through Indian eyes: a feminist perspective/Preeti Singh. 7. My hours with Manu and some unlikely answers/Devapriya Roy. III. Diverse images of women in Dharmasastras: 8. Mahabharata through the eyes of women/Kavita A. Sharma. 9. Women in Manusmrti/Vinita Chandra. IV. Dharmasastras and the socio-political panorama: 10. Social status of women in Dharmasastras/Anjali Chatterji. V. Economic status of women in Dharmasastras: 11. Gender perspective of law in classical India/V.C. Srivastava. 12. The economic position of women in the Dharmasastras/Sati Chatterji. 13. Studying the economic position of women in Dharmasastras: perspectives in occupation, Stridhana, property and inheritance/Annapurna Chattopadhyaya. 14. Property rights of daughter in ancient India with special reference to Dharmasastras/Anita Singh. VI. Dharmasastras in the light of colonial and post-colonial interpretations: 15. Revisiting Dharmasastras during the colonial period/Binda Paranjape. 16. The nineteenth century construct of Dharmasastras: a historiographical enquiry/Priyamvada. Index.

"The book presents the critiques of women's position in the social philosophy of Dharmasastras coming from both the east and west. It challenges the authoritative status of the western philosophical interpretation, and an imperfect understanding of the orient.

The book does not aim at eulogizing the Dharmasastras, but at making a candid analysis of women's position in Dharmasastras. It does not acquiesce in all that the socio-philosophical texts say about women, nor reject it impatiently in toto. An attempt has also been made to historicize and to put them in the context of the times.

The book will be of interest both to general readers as well as scholars of social sciences, humanities and gender studies." (jacket)