av福利社

Basing her work on Bengali-language sources, such as women’s journals, private papers, biographies, and autobiographies, Meredith Borthwick approaches the lives of women in nineteenth-century Bengal from a new standpoint. She moves beyond the record of the heated debates held by men of this period鈥攐ver matters such as widow burning, child marriage, and female education鈥攖o explore the effects of changes in society on the lives of women and to question assumptions about 鈥渁dvances鈥� prompted by British rule.

Focusing on the wives, mothers, and daughters of the English-educated Bengali professional class, Dr. Borthwick contends that many reforms merely substituted a restrictive British definition of womanhood for traditional Hindu norms. The positive gains for women鈥攊ncreased physical freedom, the acquisition of literacy, and limited entry to nondomestic work鈥攐ften brought unforeseen negative consequences, such as a reduction in autonomy and power in the household.

Originally published in 1984.

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