Women and Work in Precolonial India by Vijaya Ramaswamy

Author:Vijaya Ramaswamy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sage Publications India Pvt, Ltd -- eBooks

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* Previously published in ‘State of the Field: Perspectives on Women and Work in Pre-Colonial South India’, International Journal of Asian Studies. Vol 7, No. 1, Cambridge University Press (2010), pp. 51–79.

1 Dhiraj Knite, Eugenia Vanina, Chitra Joshi and Rohan de Souza made sharp critical comments on the draft which helped me to re-form my arguments. Divya Narayanan provided me with valuable references on Mughal society. To all of them much thanks.

All translations from Tamil texts and folk songs are mine unless otherwise stated.

See my article on economic transition in this collection for a critical definition of the Sangam Age and Sangam literature.

2 See my article in Nathan ed. 1997, pp. 223–228 on classifying Sangam texts on the basis of historical blocks and locating women within these blocks.

3 Perunkadai, stanza I; 413, p.234, stanza I.163–4 vide Hanumanthan 1979, p. 100.

4 Perumppanatruppadai in Pattupattu lines 90–7.

5 Perumpanatruppadai, 90–97 vide Ramaswamy 1989, pp. 81–99.

6 Natrinai stanza 60: 1–8.

7 Malaippadukadam from the Pattupattu, 342.

8 Kuronthogai verse 89:1.

9 Boserup 2007 pp. 12–14 of the section ‘The Plough, The Veil and the Labourer’.

10 Ibid. pp. 13–15.

11 Ramaswamy 1997, pp. 223–246.

12 Puramnanuru: 299 vide Hanumanthan 1979, p. 32.

13 It is interesting that the term ‘muttal’ (pronounced as in the English word ‘tall’) today means ‘a stupid person’ in Tamil, in the same manner in which the medieval English term ‘villein’ or serf, becomes transformed in modern parlance into ‘villain’, the obvious inference being that poverty breeds both ignorance and crime.

14 Periyapuranam, vide Sastri 1975, pp. 568–69. The passage contains a brief description of Adananur village’s low-caste settlement where Nandanar lived.

15 Periyapuranam 5:22–4 and 6:206–7 vide Sastri 1975 pp. 568–69.

16 One does occasionally come across songs by upper class rural women engaged in domestic chores in what is now described as ‘unpaid’ or ‘unwaged’ labour.

17 Mies 1998 (originally 1886). intro. p. ix.

18 Ramaswamy 1993, pp. 113–129.

19 Tamizhannal 1956, p. 99. The translation of the song is mine.

20 Vanamamalai 1964, p. 417. For more such examples from Tamil work songs see Ramaswamy 1994, pp. 23–24.

21 Perumpanatruppadai ed. Swaminathayyar 1931, lines 156–60.

22 Purananuru ed. Swaminathayyar 1935, stanza 33, lines 1–6.

23 Purananur in ibid., 276, lines 5.

24 Ibid., lines 166–68.

25 Perumpanatruppadai edited by Svaminathayyar 1931, 164–65.

26 Andal’s Tiruppavai, songs 7, 8, 12 etc. I have translated from the Tamil text in Nachchiyar Tirumozhi and Tiruppavai, 1985.

27 Mukherji 1982, pp. 325–331.

28 Hufton 1993 on p. 18 cites Daniel Defoe’s ‘The Behavior of Servants in England’, London 1724, pp. 1–9.

29 Perumpanatruppadai ed. by Svaminatha Iyer 1931, lines 61–65.

30 ibid. lines 50–60.

31 Ahananuru: 390: 8–10; 140; Kurunthogai:269: 5.

32 Ahananuru, 9, 20.

33 Ahananuru, 126.

34 Aingurunuru ed. Swaminathaiyyar and Sundaranar, 1957, 47: 1–3 and stanza 48. See also Purananuru, 343:1.

35 ‘gnas tva krantann apaso tanvata vayitriyo vayan’ says the Panchavimsha Brahmana—vide Rau 1970, p. 16, n.13.

36 tat vai etat strinam karma yad urnasutram’ 12.7.2.11, vide Rau 1970, p. 16.

37 In this connection, the English word ‘spinster’ for a single woman provides an interesting parallel since the word originates precisely in the same context, as a woman who had to spin for her survival.

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