Sarita is the victim of gender bias. The social construction of sex and gender can be reflected in case of sarita in the novel. She is treated differently than her brother Dhurva and has a lower rank comparatively.
She has been made to feel and realize that she is a girl and need to possess feminine virtue. Her mother is often concerned and worried about the fact that she might loss the charm and her complexion might get darker. She insists her not to go out in the sun because she might lose her complexion and it becomes difficult to find her a suitable groom in the days to come. Her words said by her mother reflect how a girl has to be socialized in a patriarchy society:Don’t go out in the sun you’ll get even darker.Who cares? We have to care if you don’t. We have to get you married.I don’t want to get married.
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Will you live with us all your life?Why not?You can’t.And Dhruva?He’s different. He’s a boy. (TDHNT 45) yes type these few lines if possibleSocial Acceptance is mandatorily required for women in Patriarchal Society where women have to accept or tolerate differences and diversities. Due to the male dominance in the society, women are compelled to accept the existing social norms and values but in contrast many of the men do not accept the success of women. Women are facing the problems because their successful result is not digested in male dominated society. (Example sarita doctor is not diegested by her husband) yesEven though a woman is subjected to many kinds of violence and discrimination, it is unfortunate truth that she accepts them to regulate the family and society.
She keeps herself in a subordinate role and position. Her concerns remain in catering and pacifying the comforts of the family as a responsible daughter and wife. ( sarita example) yesEngels writes, The man took command in the home also; the woman was degraded and reduced to servitude; she became the slave of his lust and a mere instrument for the production of children. In order to make certain of the wife’s fidelity and therefore the paternity of his children, she is delivered over unconditionally into the power of the husband; if he kills her, he is only exercising his rights. Gimenez reaches a similar conclusion that under capitalist conditions the relation of reproduction implies the power of men and the oppression of women.
He mentions as longs as the capitalism prevails women strive to achieve equality in their personal relations, sexual equality (qtd. in smith). The hegemonic masculinity makes women a medium of sexual satisfaction and the mechanism for continuation of his generation. They are not the free creatures but the slave and property. yesToerien and Williams argue, “Marriage remains thoroughly tainted by being a long-standing buttress for the patriarchal domination of women. (qtd in Clare Chambers)!!Marriage casts women as inferior in the society and harms their social status limiting them within specific spheres of their life.
Pierre Bourdieu describes marriage as the form of symbolic effect as “symbolic violence”. He mentions that symbolic violence effect thoughts of people through established social pressure and make an individual feels subordinate or miserable. Everything in the world is changing rapidly. But there is no change in the attitude towards women. Man for the field and woman for the hearth; Man for the sword and for the needle she: Man with the head and woman with the heart: Man to command and woman to obey; All else is confusion. (Tennyson 167)(this poem is titled as “The Princess by Alferd Lord Tennyson)There are many voices against practical and moral values of marriage. Some feminists oppose this social institution and argue it affects the liberty equality and relationship between the sexes resulting to subjugation to women.
Virginia Braun posits thatMy current position on marriage is that I am against it. … Politically, I am against it because it has been oppressive for women, and through privileging heterosexuality, oppressive for lesbians and gay men.John Stuart Mill in his book, “The subjection of Women” mentions marriage as the destination appointed by the society to the women. In the past, women were forcefully taken or sold by their father to their husband.
They were taken as the object intended to be provided to someone else and this activity lasted till the late period in European history where the father had the sole right to choose the destination of her daughter against her will. (36-37)
