To determine the underlying causes of a problem, it is important to understand its history. All issues pertaining to women, that are prevalent today, occur because of something that happened in the past. Here are some examples in the Indian context.
The patriarchal structure of the society came to India with the Aryans. It could have also existed in the Indus valley civilization, but not much is known about that, and most historians infer that the Harappan civilization was a matriarchal society. Anyway, patriarchal society was not a problem in itself.
That’s because patriarchy means that the head of the family is a man or that major decisions are taken by a man. The keyword here is ‘decisions’. In the period of the early Aryans, these decisions didn’t revolve around the lives of women. They were either ritualistic, that is which God to worship and how to worship; or involved planning of ‘Gavishti’, that is stealing of cattle of another Aryan clan to provoke war. The victor used to seize the cattle of the defeated and this is how the number of cattle, which was basically wealth, was increased.
Other than patriarchy, the society was mainly egalitarian. Women worked and could choose their profession. Some women were gifted cattle during their wedding, as a safety net, so that they wouldn’t have to depend upon their husband’s family and could earn an independent livelihood. This voluntary gift was called ‘Stridhana’ and over centuries changed its form to become what is today known as ‘Dowry’.
Real complications arose in the period of the later Aryans, which was somewhere around 1000 BCE. Now, everyone had ample amount of cattle wealth and it was no longer a major reason to provoke war. How would one prove their supremacy?
Hence, began the kidnapping of women of other Aryan clans, so as to trigger a war. As a result, women were told to stay at home in order to avoid such circumstances. Note, that when there is no financial independence, there is no independence at all. As women became dependent upon men for livelihood, the deterioration began; which reached its peak in the Gupta period, around 500 CE, when practices such as Sati, Devadasi, child marriage and rape entered our society.
It is peculiar that rape began only in the Gupta period when in the later Aryan period there existed a practice where Brahmin men could take women they desired and use them for sexual gratification. Why was this never considered rape? Because, a rape is carried out forcibly, and women in the later Vedic period had been brainwashed to believe that it was a proud moment of their life if a Brahmin man chose them.
Chanakya, one of the most intelligent men ever, wrote in Chanakya Neeti that a woman was an unrealised soul who would never attain ‘Moksha’. Her only purpose was to serve her husband. Women (and Dalits) had to be beaten at will to keep their minds right. He warned men to beware of women as they were the root cause of all evil desires for they enticed men. All this provides an insight into the society of that time (and that of today).
The Mahabharata and Ramayana that we read, have been edited and rewritten many times to include the changing practices. For example, ‘Agnipariksha’ was included in Ramayana only in the Gupta period to encourage women to perform Sati. This custom where a woman was supposed to burn herself alive in the pyre of her husband started around 500 CE and was banned in 1829 CE. This means that it hasn’t even been 200 years since this 1300-year-old practise was abolished. It is nevertheless practised even today in some parts of the country.
It, therefore, becomes essential to understand that institutions that are 1500-3000 years old, can’t be removed overnight. They are inbuilt in us and it will take generations to unlearn them. For us to prosper and evolve as a society, we have to stop considering women’s issues as problems affecting only women and perceive them as they are – societal issues.