ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to show how “cultural,” in the broadest sense, “class” is and as such how deeply gendered is the agenda of “class” and “classified” the construction of gender. Nineteenth-century Bengal is characterized by its preoccupation with social reform, much of which concentrated on women. Education is always a moral proposal, and the concept of morality allows us to be social and personal at the same time. It is only fitting that the educational proposals for and by women are primarily conceptualized in moral terms—of “educing” or cultivating moral sentiments of the woman and her family. Women’s education in the nineteenth century, and well into the twentieth, had little to do with economic functions, needs, or development of professional expertise among women. Since the organization of andarmahal and griha are both gendered and patriarchal, it is not surprising that the women writers display an ambivalence, bordering sometimes on antagonism, regarding both.
