Examining Empowerment among Indian Widows: A Qualitative Study of the Narratives of Hindu Widows in North Indian Ashrams
2009; Bridgewater State University; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1539-8706
Autores Tópico(s)Anthropological Studies and Insights
ResumoAbstract Contemporary discourse on widowhood in India tends to concentrate heavily on quantitative evaluation. Discussion of the narratives of the women is confined to more popular medium, and tends to focus on the need of the women to be empowered. By simply visiting ashrams in Vrindavan it becomes clear that the term is vastly up to interpretation. This study focuses on the models of applied by two different widow ashrams: Ma-dham and Chetan Bihar. Through obtaining narratives of the women's lives, I attempt to assess the success of the ashrams in empowering the widows, and question the necessity and implications of this empowerment. There seems to be no unified vision of what constitutes for any two women to the extent that while most dislike the state of widowhood, a significant and surprising number seem to prefer widowhood to marriage. In all, empowerment of women, a phrase used by nearly every women's organization, is ambiguous and at times misused. In analyzing the situation of widows in Northern India, there emerges the need to distinguish between personal power and external by researchers in the field, as well as by the ashrams working to alleviate social injustice. Keywords: widowhood, India, empowerment, quantitative comparative interviews ********** Widowhood in India is often described as a definitive and tragic moment in a women's life---one in which her identity is stripped away with the death of her husband. As early as the second century BCE, the Laws of Manu, an influential text in Hindu scripture, had created a set of structured gender relations in the Brahmin caste. Included in the text are the statutes that a widow must remove all excess adornments, observe fasts, eat limited meals each day, forgo hot foods, replace the red sindoor (2) on her forehead with ash from her husband's funeral pyre, and observe tonsure (3). The same text also pronounces that a woman who is widowed cannot remarry. The ideal Hindu widow remains with her in-laws--a result of the patrilocal (4) system of marriage in most of India--embodying this state of holy asceticism. This system of marriage places women in a situation of vulnerability after their husband's death, particularly if they do not earn income: they can neither reintegrate with their parental family, nor do they necessarily receive adequate support to live contentedly in their husband's village. Within the normative structure of Brahmin (5) gender roles is the assumption that the ban on remarriage of widows is reserved as a privilege for the higher castes (6). Less acceptable forms of marriage, derived from the eight forms listed in the Hindu shastras were ascribed to the lower castes, namely a system of remarriage known as pat which is prevalent among the agriculturalists (7). Because women in these societies are seen as producers--and reproducers of producers--their continued sexual activity after widowhood is viewed in parallel to the success of their economy (8). For these reasons, a historical divide has been created between terms of widowhood for the higher and lower castes. While this ancient delineation of widowhood is still considered an idealized space for a widow to inhabit, the extent to which any given woman adheres to these structures today is largely dependent upon a variety of factors, including socio-economic status. (9) Because of these financial considerations, many widows from lower-income families are not able to remain in the house of their in-laws without working or, in some circumstances, getting remarried. Oftentimes, if these women cannot, or do not wish to, work or remarry, they will leave their family structure for a variety of reasons. Some of these include, but are not limited to, a desire to relieve the burden on their family, a lack of connection to their in-laws or children, or a wish for independence from a life of familial ties. …
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