The following is an excerpt, published in Scroll, from the always absurd Romila Thapar's new book 'the future is the past'.
Women were equal to men in early Aryan culture.
i.e. the Vedic Age when female Rishis contributed to the Rg Veda. At that time, it was quite usual for men to give birth to babies. That's why men were the equal of women. Moreover, it was easy to change gender.
It changed when they settled on Ganga plains
Early cultures of all types had higher equality and lower social stratification, division of labour, gender inequality etc. All ancient peoples went through pretty much the same process of evolving from low fertility hunter gathering to higher fertility settled agriculture. Whether or not modern feminists thought the women in those societies were free or oppressed made no fucking difference to anything. All that mattered was fertility and demographic replacement.
As for 'Aryans' or 'Dravidians' or any other linguistic group- no doubt, they all had different sub-cultures with different fertility rates, but what won out, thanks to demographic replacement, was a regime where women worked hard at home while having babies like crazy. Whether they liked their husbands didn't matter. Indeed, it didn't even matter if their life expectancy was low. What mattered was that they bred like rabbits.
Romila, speaking of her Aryan ancestors, is merely affirming what is obvious- viz. by the time any language group expanded into a different territory, it had greater social stratification and gender inequality. But the same could be said of heterogenous populations with a similar habitus.
On the other hand, nomadic pastoralists could suddenly have a baby boom fuelling very rapid expansion and the propagation of particular X chromosome lineages- e.g the 'Genghis Khan gene'. But this didn't necessarily lead to linguistic replacement or any change in religion or habitus.
The Brahmanical religious sects were strongly patriarchal
but this applied only to some priestly lineages which were small relative to the population. It appears that some areas in the North West had greater gender equality and sexual license than other areas. But this sort of variation was quite usual around the world at that time. Ancient writers were always describing the women of certain neighbouring regions as incredibly liberated and licentious.
However, it is still the case that hereditary priestly or monastic lineages are patriarchal. The Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Grand Mufti or Ayatollah or Dalai Lama etc. can't be a woman.
and were in confrontation with Shramanic sects mainly Buddhist and Jaina.
Which were and are highly patriarchal. A female Buddhist or Jain ascetic has to reborn as a male monk to attain Nirvana. Just as in Catholicism, even the highest female Abbess is inferior to the lowest ordained male.
Since Thapars are Khattri, Romila thinks Brahmins are bad and Kshatriyas are good. The Shraman religions were founded by Kshatriyas so they are very sweet and nice. But Kshatriyas are more patriarchal than other castes. Men do the fighting. Sons inherit from fathers. Daughters are used to build alliances. Indeed, they may be- as in Anglo Saxon times- 'peace-weavers'- i.e. if a guy from your clan kills a guy from another clan then our clan gives daughters to the other clan as compensation.
Thus Kshatriya dominance is worse for women than priestly dominance. Sadly, India's Kshatriyas- including Romila's Uncle, General Prem Nath Thapar- were somewhat shit at fighting and so Hinduism declined.
The Brahmanical sects gave little freedom to women in the form of personal choice and social activity.
The Kshatriyas gave even less. If a Brahmin lass chose to run off with someone from another caste, nobody greatly cared. Indeed, as Nehru pointed out, when Thapar was born, a Brahmin woman's marriage to a non-Brahmin was no marriage in law. She was simply a concubine or, alternatively, she was using the guy for sex. But if a Princess eloped, she and her husband had to be killed because inheritance rights were at stake.
Thapar is truly as stupid as shit. She is also very very fucking old. She lived in India. She must have seen with her own eyes that ladies from Royal or 'Thakur' or other such families had less freedom than Brahmin women. Consider the Rani of Jhansi. She was Brahmin. Which Rajput or other Kshatriya Princess personally led troops in battle? None at all. There were Princesses who ruled Kingdoms and expanded the patrimony of their sons- e.g. the Guleri Rani mentioned by Spivak- but these women kept purdah and their names remained unknown to wider history.
The code of social behaviour as set out in the Dharmashastras and enjoined on Hindu society
enjoined only on Brahmins- that too notionally. Every other caste kept its traditional customs. Had Thapar studied Law, she would have known that, in India, female autonomy was inversely related to ritual status. But this was also true in England. Aristocratic ladies had less chance of going to University than girls from the middle class.
made it clear that women had virtually no freedom as they were to be controlled by their father, husband, and son, in the three phases of their life as daughter, wife, and mother.
They had no inheritance rights except to 'sthridhan'. But if they decided to set up in business for themselves or marry into some other community, they were free to do so.
The Shramana sects were much more liberal in the freedom they allowed women.
Because they were mainly recruited from the Brahmin caste. Kshatriya females who became Shramanas gained no extra freedom. Indeed, Lord Buddha stipulated that they could only be admitted to the Sangha if their families agreed. Kshatriyas had less freedom because of greater possibility of conflict over heritable claims to territory.
There was an initial controversy about whether women could become nuns. But soon after, this was allowed, although permission from the husband was required of married women. Shramana texts present a picture of women being active in social life.
While the Vedas have female Rishis who were equal to men. There is also a lady who renowned for affluence and generosity. An impecunious poet asks Night to convey the message that if she marries him then (since wife and husband are equal) he would gain great religious merit! This is the Bollywood theme of poor boy wanting to marry the rich girl given a religious justification. Romila, being a stupid Khatri woman unversed in the Vedas, would have no idea which chapter of the Rg Veda this episode features in.
Shramana Religions assert the absolute superiority of male preceptors though, just recently, some Jains recognize one particular female Acharya. On the other hand, some Shvetambara sects did recognise a female Tirthankar but her story underlines my point. Kshatriya women had less freedom. They were pawns in a game of arranged 'peace-weaving' marriages where they weren't simply breeding stock.
In the Hindu case there is a curious contradiction where the woman has little freedom as she has to observe Shastric norms,
unless she doesn't want to in which case she is welcome to get rich and just give the Brahmins a little money from time to time in return for some ceremonial and astrological services.
Hindu wives were always permitted to worship their own kula and ishtadeva. They were welcome to adopt Shramana or Bhakti or any other sort of belief. If they gained wealth and influence, no doubt they might be pestered a little to build a temple or whatever. But, as the Vyadha Gita reveals, they were welcome to tell any fucking Rishi or Sadhu or whatever to go fuck himself. Don't come round here with your begging bowl or I'll set the dogs on you. If this happens- just as when some mad fellow beats you and urinates on your head- it is de rigueur to claim that the Supreme Lord, Himself, had taken the form of that rude housewife or drunken ruffian so as to open your eyes to the illusory nature of the phenomenal Universe.
nevertheless the same society observes an intense and almost desperate worship of the female goddess.
your worship can be as intense as you like. But there is nothing desperate about it at all. Only if you are literally starving or getting repeatedly fucked in the ass by all and sundry might your worship become 'desperate'. But, in that case, you very quickly give up any type of worship. Beat people and they will feed you rather than fuck you in the ass incessantly. Violence is the best type of worship if you are desperate to stop being pestered or slowly starved by a dilatory type of cook or waiter.
God knows what it is Thapar so desperately worships. All we can say is that this stupid Khattri lass is bigoted against Brahmins. But it wasn't Brahmins who chased her people out of their ancestral homes in Lahore, was it? Still, as a Khattri woman we can't expect too much from her. After all, bigotry is a type of loyalty.
The deity is all powerful and is adorned by all the symbols of power. The worshipper is abject in his worship of her.
This cretin is abjectly repeating stupid anti-Brahmin lies.
Yet this is not referred to as a matrilineal society
There were matrilocal societies- e.g. Kerala- but this had nothing to do with the gender of the Deity. It is simply a fact that women were never the equal of men in India. A particular widow or daughter might exercise power as a Regent, so to speak, but, as with the rest of the world, there was no fucking gender equality. Sonia didn't exactly bitch slap Rajiv. Priyanka, it must be said, is the last word in loyalty to the elder brother. What's not to like about this ultra-Aryan dynasty- save that the heir by primogeniture is a fucking moon-calf?
but one that is asserting patriarchy.
Fuck is Thapar asserting? That Buddha had a vagina?
In subsequent history there are variations in degrees of freedom for women.
If women had greater freedom they had lower fertility and thus contributed less to the subsequent gene-pool.
But despite some concessions in special cases the essentials of matriarchy did not exist.
Anywhere. The Amazons were a myth. Gender dimorphism prevailed. It may be that, as fertility rates for 'liberated women' collapse around the world, there will be de facto demographic replacement by pious patriarchal 'handmaids'.
The governance and administration of a political entity was not in the hands of women although occasionally women did succeed to the throne, with hesitant control.
This was true all over the fucking world! Why is Thapar mentioning it? There were no Brahmins or Aryans in the Aztec Empire. Yet there was no gender equality there. Women stayed at home and made tortillas. By contrast, Buddhist women in Africa were setting up Merchant Banks when not exploring the Galaxy in Rocket Ships. This is because there were no Brahmins around to ruin things for them.
Lineages recording power going through matrilineal descent were rare.
Because Mummies who were good at looking after babies, tended to be shit at killing people or conquering territory.
The history of certain Upanishadic teachers identified by their mother’s name was known but not common.
like whom? Krishna Devaki-putra?
Such markers of identities were not the norm.
They may have been. We have no means of knowing. It is likely that widows managed property or were heads of households and the sons of such women would be known by a matronymic.
Women do occasionally comment on the morality of ascetics
especially if those ascetics keep jizzing on them
but moral authority was rarely in the purview of women.
Mummies had no moral authority back then probably because Buddhist ascetics kept jizzing on them- right?
Property was equally rarely owned solely by women.
unless they were whores who charged for being jizzed upon
However some did have a minimal ownership of property because they are known to have made donations to religious institutions, as for example in the construction of stupas.
Just as some women are known to have donated money for the construction of Temples, Churches, Mosques etc.
In medieval times royal women or wives of the wealthy donated wealth to temples and some religious buildings. This was charity and not strictly a secular ownership of property. The women had no control over the use that this wealth was put to.
Men making donations would have been in a similar position.
Women at the two ends of the social spectrum possibly had a freer life,
No. Those at the bottom had more freedom because no inheritance issue was involved no matter what they got up to.
but for different reasons. Those of the elite were symbols of status where freedom was in any case more for effect than for actual function. Those at the very lowest occupation where they either laboured themselves or assisted their husbands in their work, such women were also relatively more free except when the mores of the upper castes reached down and their freedom was curtailed. For example, what did rules such as forbidding women to touch the plough or the wheel of the potter do to their self-esteem?
They were also forbidden to grab the dicks of ascetics.
Women laboured in various occupations but had no control over the result of the labour.
Only to the same extent as male laborers. Nowadays, on the other hand, a male working on the assembly line of a car factory gets to decide who should buy the car in question whereas his female colleagues have no such right.
It was the women of the middle castes who loyally followed the rules laid down for all women.
Only if the men of the middle castes were loyally following that shite.
It is thought by some that there was a time, many centuries back, when matrilineal societies were the accepted initial social pattern in the Indian subcontinent.
India had matrilineal or matrilocal groups in certain places or certain occupational niches. This was independent of ethnicity or religion. But, it didn't matter very much one way or another.
This was in the days before the coming of the Aryans who brought with them a patriarchal culture.
Is this woman utterly senile? I suppose so. What she is saying is 'non-Aryans were too stupid to understand that the guy who habitually jizzed in their Mummy's vagina was actually their Daddy.'
Vestiges of the matrilineal system have remained and are met with more frequently in peninsular India or the Northeast, where the impact of Aryan culture is thought to have been less.
The impact of 'Aryan culture' was even less on Semitic countries like Saudi Arabia and Jordan- where, by law, a woman can't leave her house without the permission of her father, husband or other male guardian.
Initially, the arrival of the Aryans soon after 1500 bc perpetuated the system of clan societies in northern India.
Though every part of the world had 'clan societies' back then.
Despite the patriarchal form, the fact that the clans were nomadic pastoralist, moving from place to place with their herds of cattle ensured an equal status for women as is suggested in the early hymns of the Rig Veda.
Fuck off! Pastoralists don't give equal status to women. They are less valuable than cattle and may be bought and sold for less than a particularly good heifer or bull or whatever.
But as the Aryans moved into the Ganga plain, cleared the forests, settled in village communities and changed from being pastoralists to agriculturalists, the patriarchal element was asserted.
This stupid, senile, fool doesn't get that there was an expansion of agriculturalists separate from the expansion of pastoralists. The former traded grain for milk and meat with the latter. It is likely that the languages of the latter prevailed thus creating Aryan, Dravidian and other such linguistic groups.
The unit of Aryan society was now the patriarchal family,
Just as it was the unit of Dravidian or other types of society.
with authority invested in the eldest male, and lineage being traced through the males in the family.
Unless, like Rajiv & Rahul, it is more prestigious to trace that lineage through the maternal side of the family. By contrast, Jinnah's descendants in India, trace their descent through their male, Parsi, ancestors who were as rich as fuck. Since they too are as rich as fuck, there is no problem in their being accepted as Zorastrians, just as Rahul is accepted as a janeodhari, Dattatreya gotra, Brahmin.
Incidentally, when Indira married Feroze, some Parsis pointed out that she had become his concubine. Obviously, the reverse was the case. Feroze was just a supplier of sperm which is why, at a later point, various Hindu, female, politicians raped the fat cunt.
This was coupled with the fact that property was inherited by the sons and not the daughters. The increase in the status of the male led to a proportionate decline in the status of the female.
No. What led to the decline in the status of females is that they were shit at fighting but good at making and nursing babies. If you see the same phenomenon all over the world, then the explanation for it can have nothing to do with the mores of a particular ethnicity. It is simply a fact that male domination was better at demographic replacement. Women who are baby-making machines outbreed and thus replace women who have just one or two kids.
First Divisions
The Aryan distancing from existing social norms is clear from the initial division between Aryan and non-Aryan.
Every linguistic group makes such a division.
A carefully formulated theory of dividing society into castes followed.
But this type of division was found all over the world.
The Aryans were included among the twice-born castes
unless they weren't.
and the non-Aryans were the Shudras and, later, some were the untouchables.
Again, this pattern can be found all over the world. The fact is, there is an 'Aryan' untouchable caste in Tamil Nadu just as there is an Indian origin ethnicity of the lowest possible status in Eastern Europe at the present day.
Such a total refusal to allow for assimilation, albeit theoretical, prevented the possibility of the earlier kinship system modifying Aryan patriarchal society.
Unless that is precisely what happened. Look at the 'sambandham' system in Kerala.
In the working out of the social and legal framework, Aryan orthodoxy supported the privileged position of the male.
Unless it didn't- as in Kerala. Still, wherever women were shit at fighting either their status was lower or else there was demographic replacement of the community which awarded higher status to females.
Aryan orthodoxy did not however dominate every level of society. It had its effective following amongst those who were grouped in the three upper castes. The Shudras and the outcastes were outside the social pale and evolved their own norms of social behaviour, in spite of the fact that they formed a larger percentage of the total population than any of the other castes.
Those 'outside the social pale' are the guys who are shit at fighting. If, like the Nairs in Kerala, they are good at fighting, they impose their own norms on Society.
In addition, they also formed, from an early period, the majority of the pastoralists and peasants. Shudra society would have retained far more of the pre-Aryan tradition than upper-caste society. This accounts in part for the fact that women in peasant society have a better status within their own society than the women of upper-caste society, both in the rural areas and in towns.
Poor Romila! Because she was Aryan- that too Hindu, not Buddhist- she had very low status. That's why she had to become a Professor of stupid shite. Dalit ladies- like Mayawati- are laughing at her. This is very sad. Khattri girls should convert to Islam and emigrate. Otherwise they too may be forced to teach worthless shite.
No comments:
Post a Comment