narratives of three generations of urban middle-class - eTheses ...

ecognize the structural imperatives of a tradition that outcasts and condemns a woman
who outrightly rejects compliance to the patriarchal structure is just as blind as viewing
the woman as a mere dupe of tradition with no agency (Bulbeck, 1998).
Modernity: A New Language of Family, Conjugality and Love:
With the compulsions of urbanization, office jobs and limited living space, a new
normative discourse on the family was produced in nineteenth and early twentieth
century Bengal (Bose, 1996: 118 cited in Karlekar, 2995: 93). The new family marked a
radical departure from the ethos of the joint family, the norm for several generations.
Conjugality as well as parent child interactions that were subsumed within the overall
rubric of complex joint family ties and emotions soon gave way to a section of
bhadrasamaj that loyally nurtured the Victorian concept of the married couple as a unit.
Many anglicized Bengalis, like the Victorians, looked to the home as a bulwark against
disruptive social change a source of order and morality, a counter-balance to the
individualistic and commercial pressures buffeting modern life (Mintz, 1983: 67 cited in
Karlekar, 2005: 93). The new family became a refuge in this fast changing uncertain
times and also became thereby the subject of considerable debate and discussion. In
the Westernized, upper rungs of Bengali society the notion of the wife as a companion,
emerged as a new value (Chakrabarti, 1995: 301). The companionate wife was
expected to act as a buffer between the pressures of a fast changing outside world with
often contradictory expectations and the secure home (Karlekar, 2005: 93).
The new normative discourse on the family and conjugality was accompanied by a new
language of love – a new romantic attachment between individuated selves as Kaviraj
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