Introductory - Global Sikh Studies

own womenfolk strongly highlights the above view. Because, normally
people cannot be expected to be more tender towards others than to
their own women relatives. In fact, the dealings of a society with its
womenfolk is considered to be a fair index of its social progressiveness.
And, in the process of downgrading women, it is precisely the ones
from the upper castes, which became the greater victims of the
oppressive caste rulers and practices.
The period, if any, during which the women of the Indo-Aryans
enjoyed equal religious and social rights with men, appears to have
been shortlived, because the trend to downgrade their position can be
traced to a very early time. Keith writes, ‘Women in India has always
suffered much from all religions, but by none has she been so thoroughly
despised as by the Brahmans of the period of the Brahmanans. 36a ‘If
treatment of women is a criterion of a civilization, when the civilization
of Brahmana texts can expect only an adverse verdict from posterity. ’36b
Maitrayani Samhita (1,10,11 and iii-6 3) identifies women with evil.
The Satapatha-Brahmana (xiv-1.1 21) declares that ‘the women, the
Sudra, the dog and the crow are falsehood’. A ‘woman is never fit for
independence’. 37 Manu made the subjection of women to men almost
servile in character. He laid down (vii.299) that the husband had
absolute rights over the wife to the extent of inflicting corporal
punishment and of discarding her immediately, she said anything
disagreeable to him. A wife has ‘to worship, as a god, her husband
even though he might be destitute of virtue, or be seeking pleasure
elsewhere, or be devoid of good qualities. ’38 At a later period, women
were even denied the right of the Upanayana ceremony and were
forbidden the study of Vedic literature. 39 ‘Thus was the woman
reduced, atleast spiritually, to the status of the Sudra, and this is clearly
reflected even in the Bhagavadgita. 40 Dubois attests that in his time
(seventeenth century) women were given a low place in private life. 41
The prohibition concerning wide-remarriage has the sanction of
Manu (V.156-7) and Yajnavalkya (1-75). In actual life, ‘it has become
a touchstone for the social status of castes; those who practise it are
esteemed. Its abandonment by the higher castes causes them to sink
in the social scale; its adoption is a means of raising and of
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