Arshan Bakshi, Week 10

Tambe, the author of this piece describes the intricacies and aspects of several Marathi works of literature to gain an insight into the plight of 'Devadasis' of the lower castes. She attempts to differentiate them from sex workers in various ways. She is critical of the patriarchal system that was followed by the Brahmins and their society in which women were largely sexually oppressed by men. Their system was one in which women were hierarchized, but not into wives and prostitutes. She talks about how women from the upper caste were confined to reproductive duties within the four walls, restricting them access to the erotic and productive labour outside. They, however, still had respect for women in the form of idealising them as Godesses and granting them inheritance privileges. The lower caste wives on the other hand, were confined to prostitution and erotic labour in non conjugal spaces and were mostly denied the same respect that was given to the upper cast wives and were also denied sexual autonomy even though their trade was prostitution and as a result their sexual availability for upper caste men was almost commodified as if they were objects fulfilling a need. Tambe refers to the Devadasi culture as not just prostitution but a systemic and archaic abuse of women and the lower caste.