Gender Relations in Early India

Contents: Acknowledgements. 1. Introduction. 2. Gender dynamics within the household. 3. Property and legal rights. 4. The ideal and the reality. Conclusion. Bibliography. Index.

The present book is a modest attempt at shredding off few existing myths: that the women in early India were a homogenous category; that the dharmasastras are the foundational documents of Hindu way of life, responsible for tightening the noose around the lives of women in India; that the dharmasastras are the representative texts of Indian tradition seeking to protect Indian women under specific historical circumstances; and that the dharmasastras are the most important sources for the study of gender relations in early India.

It rather argues that Gender relations were shaped and manifested differently across different regions and cultures in early India. The entire dharmasashastric discourse is aimed at the preservation and perpetuation of Brahmanical patriarchy, where maintenance of gender hierarchy was actually a corollary to the maintenance of varna hierarchy. The book explores important linkages between varna and gender in this context. The dharmasastras may neither be considered as foundational documents nor can they be considered as representative texts of Indian tradition. The dharmasastras were only one of the many genres of literature produced in ancient India. Though the texts presented the ideal, the real was not always in consonance with it.

Providing informed and balanced analysis of extensive primary and secondary source material, the book will be a resource for anyone interested in studying women’s lives in India.