Women were held in high esteem in ancient India, according to our scriptures. A woman was regarded as the embodiment of Shakti. No Yajna was complete without the participation of women in it. We know of women like Khana and Gargi. Manu, however, had derogatory remarks about women. Women were dependent on parents before marriage and on husbands after marriage.
In a male-dominated society, women were inferior to men. In European countries, the position of women was not very high. In medieval romances, we get to know that courtesy was shown to women, and women graced the feast given by the king in honour of the warriors when they returned from war.
During the Mughal rule in India, the position of women became worse. The Purdah system was introduced, and women were confined within the four walls. They were slaves to menfolk. Mughal rulers had many wives, and many of them were called 'bandis' (slaves). The Sati system prevailed among the Hindu women, and widow marriage was prohibited. In Elizabethan England, women seldom went outdoors and were not allowed to participate in dramas and music.
Respectable women visited the theatre wearing masks. In the eighteenth century, aristocratic women often came out, and they were frequently depicted in literature as vain and fashionable.
Female education was confined to the houses, and few women had the opportunities for higher education. Attitude to women was not very favourable, as we know from the pages of Addison and the dramas of Sheridan and Goldsmith. We do not come across any woman poet or novelist in the eighteenth century. Young women were expected to accept the husband selected for them by their parents or guardians. We get many examples from Fielding's Tom Jones of fathers giving their daughters in marriage to persons whom the girls did not like, simply for money.
Mrs Delany was sacrificed at seventeen to a gouty old man of sixty. Mrs Delany detested the commercial estimate of matrimony. In England, women's education did not get much state support till the Victorian age. It was due to the efforts of Miss Beale that the doors of public school education for girls were opened. Girton College (1869) and Newnham College (1871) were attached to the University of Cambridge, and Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville were associated with Oxford.
Women students were not admitted as regular students of either of these universities. They were allowed to appear at the degree examination but not to take the degree. In Victorian England, with the spread of education, women took a dominant role in literature. Women poets like Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christiana Rossetti, and women novelists like George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte and Emily Brontë became very prominent figures. But still in the Victorian age, dual standards of sexual morality were observed.
In the twentieth century, the women's liberation movement got a fresh impetus. Women's organisations have been formed in many parts of the world, and they are vociferous in their demands for equal rights and privileges. Ursula in D. H. Lawrence's Rainbow is the prefiguration of the modern woman yearning for liberation from the bondage of home, school and environment for a fuller development of self.
Women are now taking part in all spheres of human activities and are competing with men in educational, administrative and adventurous jobs. They are now prime ministers' secretaries, governors, scientists, poets and novelists. As members of the parliament, they play distinguished roles. In many respects, they surpass the male counterparts in their merits, excellence and competence.
In India, women have forged ahead in every human activity. In polite societies, women are as prominent members as men. These are women who have attained eminence in particular cases. But still, it cannot be said that a woman's position is the same as that of a man, especially in countries like India. Women are still regarded as the weaker sex.
There are instances of harassment, tortures and molestation of women. Bride-burning or killing is still prevalent. The dowry system shows the low position in which women are kept in modern Indian society. Parents still find it difficult to get their daughters married to suitable young men. Women in the villages are uneducated, dependent on their parents or husbands, have to drudge all day and are subject to torments and harassment.
In polite societies, working women do not get as much prestige as their male counterparts. Husbands are still dominating. Women are allowed to earn, but they are not given equal status in the family. Womeneducation has not spread in the villages, and there is still hesitation on the part of the parents to send their daughters to school. They are employed in houses or are kept indoors to do domestic work and take care of male children. A female child is still detested. Eve-teasing, wife beating, and child marriages are still prevalent.
Gradually, women's position in society is being recognised. A parliamentary bill in India is on the anvil for an equal share of representation in the parliament. Women are now taking a greater part in the manifold activities in the political, economic and social spheres, in sports and education, and even in aeronautical engineering.
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