ABSTRACT
The home is the world for most women, while for some, maybe for a very few, the world is the home. And for many, it is a tortuous and complicated negotiation between the two, the dynamics of which, most often, they are totally unaware of. The dialectic between the two encompasses a significant part of the history of the two genders in all its complexity and historicity. Tracing the historical journey from a time in the distant past, when both for men and women there was almost no distinction between the home and the world, to a time when both the genders in most parts of the world are ensconced in two different and, perhaps, divergent and antagonistic worlds and yet inextricably linked can help to historically map the lineage of diverse social formations and the location of men and women in all its rich historicity and groundedness.
