ABSTRACT
When we are speaking of a social world that is close to two millennia old, it is hard to know exactly what the conditions of people’s lives were in the beginning, or, for that matter, through much of its evolution. We have to rely for our knowledge on the one hand on textual material of the widest variety, comprising religious, literary and sociological treatises, and on the other hand on surviving social customs and practices. In the present study, my attempt to understand how women have been thought of in early Hindu society will be based on evidence from textual sources, beginning with Vedic texts. As we confront this vast repository of thought, it is difficult not to be struck by surprise that so much energy was spent on thinking about women. Why was this necessary? Were women considered such alien creatures
Judgements on the nature of women, their roles in society, and injunctions on dealing with women form important parts of Brahminical texts of sacred law going back to early India. These constitute a continuing discourse on gender that includes debate and controversy but nevertheless establishes the subordination of women on the social plane, which, this chapter argues, is facilitated by the idealization of women as icons of virtue and the deification of the female.
