Sriyanshi Bhatt, Week 3

Controlled Carriers (Gendering Caste Through a Feminist Lens)

The manifestation of power and control is expressed in varied forms and there application in a woman’s life becomes foundational to the paradigm that makes the woman’s subordination, a self-accepted way of being. What becomes undeniably powerful in this context, is the control of the female sexuality through the bedrock of caste, class and gendered relations that are deeply imbedded in the social construction of the Indian subcontinent. The institution of marriage, or as described in the piece, Gendering Caste Through a Feminist Lens by Uma Chakraborty, “an exchange of women” and the rules it relies and enforces becomes the leading contender of the intersection of power and control that manifests itself in the stratification based on economic positioning and “jati” relations. Visualising marriage by the interaction of these three forces hence, becomes integral to view its impact on women and womanhood. 

Addressing the gendered dynamic of marriage, Chakraborty perceives women as “vehicles for the perpetuation of an existing male line.” The sheer importance played on the part of marriage being a tool of reproduction and the man’s title to the product of such a reproduction, severs women from any other position other than that of the bearer of the male’s child. This position of the woman is further controlled by deeming who she is fit to bear a child from and is expressed in the process of endogamy. Any sort of agency in this regard, is hence, curtailed by employing the intersections of her social positioning vis-à-vis the male candidate. The intersection of caste and class positions then become profound to maintain the sanctity of the male’s child and his lineage. This is ensured by segregation, manipulation and in plentiful numbers, death. The agency of women in the process of reproduction is, therefore, diminished as that of just controlled carriers.