The Social Evils that plague Hinduism Part 3 – Place of women in Hindu society
- In Religion
- 12:45 PM, Jan 17, 2017
- Sagar Kinhekar
Welcome back to the Series on ills of Hinduism. In this third part we will talk about place of women in Hindu society. Here is part 1 and part 2 of the series.
Let me start by a Sanskrit quotation we all might have heard –
“Yatra naryastu pujyante ramante tatra Devata,
Yatraitaastu na pujyante sarvaastatrafalaah kriyaah"
This means, “Gods dwell in the place where women are respected and where they are not respected all noble actions are fruitless. This is a verse from Manusmriti.
However, what is the condition of women in today’s Hindu society? If one looks at mistreatments suffered by an average woman in our society, we have to admit that we are not worthy of such grand verses anymore. Forget about respecting women, we are not even able to give them their rightful place in society.
In this article, I will not go too much into scriptures as we have all read and heard there oft-repeated examples from the scriptures proving Hinduism as a religion that doesn’t sanction any oppression of women. Also, all of us give examples of few great names like Gragi or Matreyi when we want to provide proof that women in the past were well treated in India. May be it was the case, but can we say that it is still true? Definitely not! Today we have illustrious names of women who have outshined everyone in their chosen fields like Indra Nooyi, Chanda Kochhar or Kiran S Mazumdar. The share of female workers has steadily increased in our workforce as well. However, this is surely in pockets and in general, the condition of woman has not changed much especially if one looks at villages and small towns all over India. Three biggest issues which infest society are -
- Female feticide
- Dowry system
- Violence against women
Female feticide is one of the worst crimes against humanity one can ever do. Hindus have a strange fascination for a male child. There is a whole industry out there around identification of gender of the fetus and then killing it if it turns out to be a female fetus. Why are Hindus so particular about a male child? As is with everything with Hinduism, it is also a complex phenomenon. One reason is a notion of keeping one’s family name alive. Everyone wants a son who will keep the family name alive, as in Hindus, female changes her family name to her husband’s after marriage, like in most other religions. The other reason is the tendency of the parents to see their children as a retirement planning. Most parents hope that their children will take care of them in old age. Traditionally girl leaves her parents’ home for her husband’s, therefore it is expected that the son takes care of parents while the girl takes care of her in-laws after marriage. This is another reason, a big reason why people would rather have a son than a daughter so that their old age support is guaranteed. To make sure they have a son there are many things that the parents try, from taking a vow to God to following some real strange superstitions. People start crossing all limits in their madness of having a son and start killing new born babies if it turns out to be a female. With progress in the field of medicine, it became much easier to kill the baby even before it was born. This madness has gone to the extent that it has made our gender ratio skewed. This is one thing we as society should be very ashamed of. When the scriptures call for worshiping women, we are killing them even before they are born. While some of our most important deities are in the female form, following practices like female feticide makes us as a society with the worst kind of hypocrisy.
Second issue which has jeopardized the status of women in the Hindu society is the dowry system. Dowry in Sanskrit is called ‘Stri Dhan’. It was supposed to be the wealth given by girl’s parents in lieu of her share of ancestral property, expected to be owned by the girl. However, this at some point started becoming a demand by the bridegroom. Depending on the education and social status of bridegroom the amount demanded as dowry now goes to astonishing amounts. This can be to the extent of making girl’s parents reach a state of virtual bankruptcy. The dowry has always been defended in the name of tradition, whereas the tradition has been in contrast to today’s practices. Manusmriti prohibits dowry and has condemned it at many places. The marriage involving dowry has been called “Asuri” (demonic) marriage in Manusmriti. Eyewitness accounts of Arian in his book Anabasis of Alexander states that Indian people (in 3rd century BC) do not care about dowry and look for beauty and quality in a bride. It is really shameful that we take shelter under tradition to justify a ghastly act when we don’t even know what our traditions really are
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