Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India: Gender, Caste, Class and State

This article by Prof. Uma Chakravarti was published in the Economic and Political Weekly on April 3, 1993. Prof. Uma Chakravarti is a well-known veteran feminist historian who taught at Miranda House College for Women, University of Delhi.The article notes that studies on women in early Indian history have tended to focus on the ‘status of women’, and this has led to a limited understanding of the processes that have shaped social institutions in the country. Instead, Prof. Chakravarti examines the ‘structural framework of gender relations’ and the specific forms of the subordination of women in ‘early Indian society’.She states that a marked feature of Hindu society is its legal sanction for subjecting women and the lower castes to “humiliating conditions of existence” – an “extreme expression” of social stratification. She argues that women were represented as ‘gateways’ or points of entrance into the caste system due to their reproductive role. Ancient brahmanical codes of law institutionalised the subordination of women’s sexuality to maintain the practices of ‘patrilineal succession’ and ‘caste purity’...