The women’s questions arose in modern India as a part of the 19th century social reform movement. What…

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The women’s questions arose in modern India as a part of the 19th century social reform movement. What were the major issues and debates concerning women in that period?

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

The nineteenth-century women's question centred on sati, enforced widowhood, child marriage, female education and purdah, debated as scripture versus reason and colonial law versus self-reform. It produced the sati ban (1829), the Widow Remarriage Act (1856) and the Age of Consent Act (1891).

**Introduction**

In the sati debate, wrote Lata Mani, women were "neither subjects nor objects but the ground" of argument. Reformers, officials and the orthodox all made women's condition the test of Indian society.

**Major Issues Concerning Women**

1. **Sati and widowhood**: Rammohan Roy's campaign ended sati in 1829, and Vidyasagar, citing the Parashara Smriti, won the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856, though few widows remarried.
2. **Child marriage**: Malabari's campaign, Rukhmabai's case and Phulmoni's death produced the Age of Consent Act of 1891, raising the age from 10 to 12.
3. **Education and purdah**: The Phules' Pune school (1848), Bethune School (1849) and Pandita Ramabai's Sharada Sadan (1889) challenged seclusion.

**Debates Around the Women's Question**

SKETCH: comparison | Reformers vs Orthodoxy
a: Reformers
b: Orthodoxy
- Sati not scriptural :: Sati a sacred duty
- Widows may remarry :: Remarriage defiles
- Consent at twelve :: State must not intrude
- Schools for girls :: Learning corrupts women

1. **Scripture or reason**: Rammohan and Vidyasagar argued from the shastras, Phule from equality, so the debate was often about texts rather than women's wishes.
2. **Colonial law or self-reform**: Tilak opposed the 1891 Act as foreign interference, while Ranade's National Social Conference (1887) put social reform first.
3. **Purpose of education**: Partha Chatterjee shows nationalists cast the educated woman as guardian of a spiritual home, a better wife rather than a free citizen.
4. **Women's own voices**: Tarabai Shinde's Stri Purush Tulana (1882) and Ramabai's The High-Caste Hindu Woman (1887) made women participants, not the ground.

**Way Forward**

1. **Agency with law**: Consult women directly and back laws with schools and livelihoods, as the weak Sarda Act (1929) showed.

**Conclusion**

The century made women's condition a public question and won the first laws, but autonomy waited for the Constitution's Articles 14 and 15.

The women’s questions arose in modern India as a part of the 19th century social reform movement. What were the major issues and debates concerning women in that period?

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