2. The Position of Women in India
India also applies patriarchal society. Women in this society have a low position. As stated by Madsen 18, in a patriarchal society women are considered
as others or the ignored, often as invisible and silent. In India as the caste system remains, rules everyone in his or her daily life.
The caste system appears to be an institution of an origin which is very complex indeed that in its very nature it must be limited to a single area Hutton 46. It also
makes the women’s position in India unequal with men’s. It rules the women to have their partners, how they should behave, and how they should wear their
clothes. Women from the Ksatriyas caste cannot love or even marry men from the lower caste. The caste already arranges the women and the society about who
deserve their love and who do not. It is stated by Hutton 74 that women in India eat after their husbands
have finished eating. The caste restricts a woman especially a wife to eat before the husband. If the husband does not touch any food the wife has to do so. If the
husband only drinks a cup of tea, the wife does so. Whatever the husband does the wife has to do so.
Since they are born, women are not really expected to live Mayo 70. After they are born they are ignored for three days and there is no nourishment for
a girl baby. The men think that a boy is better than a girl. The Indians think that a boy is taken care by the parents and a girl is taken care by gods. It can be seen
when a girl is sick, the father does not pay much attention to the girl. It is only the mother who is in charge with this.
Being in a patriarchal society, women in India should accept whatever their husbands do to them. When a husband threatens his wife, abuses her grossly,
or even beats her unjustly, she should answer her husband meekly, should lay hold of his hands, kiss them and beg his pardon, instead of uttering loud cries and
running away from the house Mayo 74. This is the culture in India that makes the women’s position powerless in men’s eyes.
A woman as a wife in India will not be really honored if she cannot give a son to the family. For the society, a son is a prestige. Sometimes a mother’s
position as a wife only becomes a passive object who must be abjectly submissive to her husband’s will and fancy Mayo 75.
Since the attention on women’s education and health are less there are some women who struggle for the equality. Some of Christian women try to
achieve the equality by furnishing the main body of Indian teachers for the girls of all castes, and trained nurses for the hospitals although it get some rejection from
the superior castes Mayo 149.
C. Theoretical Framework
Kategori