Status of Muslim Women in North India

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The work presented in this book had originally been written for the doctoral thesis. The work mainly centers around the two cities of Delhi and Lucknow believed to having Islamic background. The chief aim of the work is to bring into light the extent and quality of changes which have occurred in the Muslim. families within three generations and its effect on the status of the women. The placement of women in the society shifts along with the shift in the basic attitudes of the people and in the Indian context even the Muslim in spite of their rigorous and effective pattern of conduct have felt the wave of change in their home front. How far these outside factors have penetrated and affected the family life and role of the women are some of the questions posed by the author. The entire work being strictly substantiated by empirical data collected over the period of three years by the author herself adds to the richness of the book and enable the author to critically evaluate the status of contemporary Muslim women in context to their mother and grandmothers status. Hence, the work not only covers a wide area within which the women are shown to interact but it also has depth being substantiated by the datas on the life style of the women above 50 years of age Finally, the author attempts to picturize how the Muslim women placed within a framework chiefly controlled by religious dictions make multi directional effort to establish herself not only in her family but also outside it.

Dr. Shibani Roy, Ph. D. (Delhi University) is actively engaged in field base empirical research among the Muslims of Northern and Western India besides doing field work oriented research on tribes of Western and North-eastern India.

Status is the most elusive phenomenon in man's social being. It is defined in current literature as the position that a person holds in the performance of his or her role. But, what is position? It has two connotations,-one is purely locational; the other is gradational. It is linguistic cannibalism that the first meaning is gobbled up by the second. But, this may not be just a pathological development of the language. It may also reflect the cognitive process of the speakers of the European languages, who could impose super-ordination and sub-ordination as the all pervasive way of life during their colonial domination of the world. Much of the ambiguities in anthropo- sociological understanding of the phenomenon seems to have been derived from this historical context. Shibani Roy has examined the question of Status of Muslim Women in North India in an empiricological framework. She has focussed attention on several areas of status ambiguity; and also she hints at several areas of status incongruity. Both of these seem to be manifestations of an adaptive process that is going on in Muslim society to the changing intellectual and moral climate as well as to the stimuli of educational and economic develop ments. Shibani Roy has done well not to provide an aggregate status, particularly in terms of quantitative indicators. Frequently such attempts lend one into sterile pseudo-science. This need not mean that aggregation is impossible in all circums tances; but then one is to strike a balance between the deeper humanistic ethos of a culture and the perception of the status markers as instruments of satisfaction of some immediate historical goals of the society. Shibani Roy's move is in this direction.

The significance and importance of the study of the position of women in society never diminishes because with the time and shift in the basic attitudes of people, change also occurs in the placement of the women in society. At this particular time India is undergoing change particularly in the sphere of economy and education. This is bringing about changes in the position of Indian women. The Muslims form a minority community in India and due to their rigid religious orientation change is generally resisted. Inspite of this, lately, certain changes have occurred in the Muslim community specially regarding the role and position of women. The main theme of this book is to demonstrate how and why changes have occurred in the activity pattern and position of women. To assess this change in the position of women some core areas of involvement of women in society have been highlighted along with some areas in which their participation is peripheral. In this context the elements emphasized are education, employment, economic pattern, purdah, nature and type of marriage, freedom of movement, male and female relationship in the family and outside. Religious factors have been seen in their effect on the pattern of activity of the Muslim wo men. The degree of authority and participation of the women in the above-men tioned areas will be a pointer to their status in the family. Such an approach will also help to assess the degree to which women decide about what concerns them importantly. Secondly, the study aims at assessing the changes that have occurred in the traditional Muslim family system. This is attempted by comparing the extent type of family system and relating it to the kind that pertained at a particular time in the past. Generational depth is taken into account by comparing and contrasting women of three different age categories. This helps in bringing out the emergent identity consciousness among Muslim women due to the factors of education, wealth and intellectual climate. Moreover, an attempt is made to correlate social change with other factors contributory to it. An assessment has also been made of the role played by the father, brother and husband in the modernisation process, in the Muslim family. Hence, change in the position of women is viewed not only as resulting from the struggle of the women themselves against male domination but as due also, in some measure, to the Muslim men who encouraged the women in their struggle for emancipation.

The data were gathered from Lucknow and Delhi. Only Sayyad, Shaikh, Mughul and Pathans were investigated, belonging to the middle income group, earn ing 400/ to 1000/ rupees per month. In U.P. Shias and Sunnis form the two most dominant religious groups and hence for this particular study both the groups were investigated. In total 300 families were investigated between the years 1970-72, For collection of data the generally accepted techniques were adopted. Being a woman I was able to enter the jenana to observe to study the Muslim women from the closest range possible. An interview guide was used, while observation and participant observation techniques were also employed. The main body of the book deals with the treatment of the above mentioned variables from the prespective of the women's role therein. The first chapter deals with the theoretical frame work used, methodology, a brief survey of the literature and also describes certain socio-historical movements responsible for the change in the community. The second chapter is on 'purdah' where typology, function and effect of Purdah have been described. In the next chapter effect of education on the chang ing status of women has been shown. The fourth chapter critically evaluates marriage as an institution and its significance for the women. In the fifth chapter role of women in the economic sphere has been discussed. Lastly, the impact of religion on the status of women has been described. Finally an attempt has been made to show how the women placed as they are in the social set up make multi directional efforts to better their status. In the theoretical frame work religion is shown as the pivotal area of the Muslim society regulating the sacred and secular domains, with the man-woman relationship and authority pattern in the family continuing to be rooted in tradition. An attempt has been made to see the effect of factors and forces operating on the traditional set up of the family. 'Purdah' has been seen as an institution, which at the same time protects the interest of women and limits their movements. This institution not only debars the women from the world outside their home but it also deprives the Muslim males of the company of the women. It has been shown that the exogenous factors and surrounding climate of opinion coupled with the personal initiative of women. The contribution of Muslim males in this regard is noteworthy, since the changed attitude of Muslim men influences the behaviour of women to a great extent. Education as an variable has been treated under two heads, traditional education and formal education. Education has been found to be one of the important factors responsible for the various changes taking place in the behaviour pattern of women. Much of the change can be attributed to the influence of formal education. The problem of 'mehar' has been discussed as it affects the interest of women bringing out the fact that women are actually not benefited and very few women have the security of the 'mehar' money. It has been shown that only in recent times have the educated women begun to understand and realise the importance of 'mehar'. Marriage and its significance for woman has been discussed as affecting the role playing of a woman. It has been observed that the quality of married life has altered amongst the present generation young couples and the husband and wife have more interests shared in common. Domesticity has always been the forte of women and irrespective of economic and educational status women dominate the home. But even in this sphere highly educated women seem to be better placed than their uneducated sisters. The position women in the sphere of religion has been found to be ambiguous and they lack uniformity in this regard. The women are debarred from performing the day to day activity, like going to mosque for prayers, in this they are stigmatized for being women.

**Contents and Sample Pages**