Women have always been a source of intense and enduring fascination in all eras and climates. However, her social status changed dramatically between 800 and 1200 AD, particularly in Northern India. Women's positions had also deteriorated. Women were respected as wives and sisters, and upper-class women received education and the right to choose their husbands, but women in general faced many challenges. In this article, we will discuss the Condition of Women (800-1200) which will be helpful for UPSC exam preparation.

Condition of Women in Medieval Period

Condition of Women - Background

• Women were thought to be mentally inferior, as they had been in the past. Their job was to blindly obey their husbands.
• A writer illustrates the wife's duty of personal service to her husband by stating that she shall shampoo his feet and render him such other services as befits a servant.
• However, he adds the condition that the husband follow the righteous path and be free of hatred and jealousy towards a wife.
• Women were still denied access to the Vedas. Furthermore, the marriageable age for girls was lowered, destroying their opportunities for higher education.
• The omission of all references to female teachers in dictionaries written during the period demonstrates the poor state of higher education among women.
• However, we can see from some of the period's dramatic works that the court ladies, and even the queen's maids-in-waiting, were capable of writing excellent Sanskrit and Prakrit verses.
• Various stories point to princesses' abilities in the fine arts, particularly painting and music.
• Daughters of high officials, courtesans, and concubines were also expected to be skilled in a variety of arts, including poetry.

Women in Early Medieval India

• Caste and women's social status are inextricably linked. Endogamy and other social techniques are used to sexually subjugate the bodies of its women in order to reproduce 'caste.'
• As a result, evidence indicating a growing rigidity of the caste system from early medieval times also suggests a gradual lowering of women's position in society.
• By the eleventh century, widow burning, or sati, had become fairly common throughout India among the widows of rulers, nobles, and warriors.
• Some evidence, such as the Lekhapaddhati — a collection of documents from Gujarat — also show that women could be bought and sold as slaves and forced to do all kinds of work, including the dirtiest and most difficult.
• They were also subjected to physical and sexual abuse. Women employed as professional dancers in royal courts, as well as deva-dasi or temple courtesans, appear to have been another large class of women.
• Sati became more common in northern India between 700 and 1100 AD. With the deaths of royal men in Kashmir's royal families, mothers, sisters, and sister-in-laws ascended funeral pyres. Sati, on the other hand, would not become a widespread custom among north Indian royal families until much later.
• In comparison to the numbers found later, recorded cases of Satis in northern India outside Kashmir were still very few during the period 700 — 1200 AD.

Condition of Women During 800-1200

• In terms of Marriage
  • In terms of marriage, the smriti writers state that girls were to be married between the ages of six and eight, or between their eighth year and reaching puberty.
  • Remarriage was permitted under certain conditions such as if the husband had deserted (i.e. disappeared), died, become a recluse, became impotent, or became an outcast.
  • Women were generally distrusted. They were to be kept apart and their lives were to be governed by male relations such as father, brother, husband, or son.
  • They were, however, respected within the home. Even if a husband abandoned a wife who had engaged in offensive behaviour, she was entitled to maintenance.
• Right to Inherit Property
  • Women's property rights have grown in tandem with the expansion of land property rights.
  • Women were given the right to inherit the property of their male relatives in order to preserve the property of a family.
  • With some exceptions, a widow was entitled to her husband's entire estate if he died without children. Daughters were also entitled to inherit a widow's property.
  • As a result, the development of feudal society strengthened the concept of private property.
• Practice of Sati
  • Some writers made the practise of sati mandatory, while others condemned it.
  • According to an Arab writer, Sulaiman, wives of kings sometimes burned themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres, but it was up to them to do so.
  • The rite of sati appears to have spread with the growth of the practise of large numbers of women being maintained by the leading chiefs, and the resulting property disputes.
• Life of Upper Class Women
  • Upper-class women lived in seclusion and were generally shielded from public scrutiny. There was, however, no system of purdah or female veiling.
  • Abu Zaid, an Arab traveller from the tenth century, observed that most Indian princes, while holding court, allowed their women to be seen unveiled by all the men present, including foreigners.
  • Many women ruled as queens in their own right in Orissa and Kashmir.
    • Among these are Prabhavati Gupta of the Vakataka dynasty, who ruled as the mother of the yuvaraja for at least thirteen years; Queen Didda ruled Kashmir for fifty years and withstood all intrigues against her.

Conclusion

Patriarchy, like caste arrangements, was deeply entrenched in medieval times. Women's bodies, movements, and legal and economic rights were severely restricted. However, we can see that there were some recorded exceptions, as well as differences across religions, castes, and regions. The Hindu society became rigid, incapable of improvement, and developed serious flaws that became obvious as early as the tenth century.