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Social Stratification

Notes and critical capabilities are often held back to open doors for those who meet the empowerment
criteria. Those who use empowerment as a selfish advantage tend to become difficult, demeaning
and even hostile colleagues.

10.1 Status of Women : Continuity and Change

Inequality between men and women is one of the most crucial disparities in many societies, and
this is particularly so in India. Any assessment of the status of women has to start from social
framework. Social structures, cultural norms, and the value systems influence social expectations
regarding the behaviour of both men and women, and determine women’s role and her status in
the society.
The status of women in India is culture, region and age specific. The social status of women in our
country is a typical example of the gap between the status and role accorded to them by the
constitution and the laws, and those imposed on them by social traditions. Based on the patriarchal
institutions and values, women are socialised to be good, obedient and sacrificing daughters,
wives and daughters-in-law. They are culturally trained, through the process of socialization, not
to challenge discrimination, subordination, exploitation and subjugation within the social structure.
The extreme sense of security, protectiveness and patrionising attitude of the males often inhibit
the development of their personality and individuality. “The status of women in the family and
society is largely determined by the socio-economic cultural, political, religious and geographical
factors in different regions of the country”National Profile on Women, Health and Development, 2000.
The most common family organization, the joint family, is composed of a group of patrilineally
related males who have equal rights to property, sharing a common budget, residence and hearth.
Though considerable changes have come in this pattern of living through the imapct of
industrialization, urbanization and modernization, joint family norms still prevail to a great extent.
A woman is placed under severe restrictions under this type of family structure and has little or
no say in decision making and is directly subordinate to her mother-in-law. Her status in the
family largely depends on her husband’s contribution to the family economy and on the amount
of dowry brought by her.
The cultural autonomy and status of women have always been controlled by the caste system.
This ideology of ritual purity-impurity have been maintained through rules of commensality and
marriage, commitment to caste, occupation and life style. Vegetarianism, abstinance from alcoholism
and constraints on women have been important determinants of the degree of purity. The National
Profile on Women (ibid) says that the ideological and material basis for maintaining the caste
system is closely regulated by religious scriptures and the patriarchal patrilineal and patrilocal
family ideology. The control on women is exercised through :
(i) Disinheritance from property and resources;
(ii) Practicing seclusion or purdah whereby women are removed from the public sphere and
limited to the domestic sphere;
(iii) Socialization into the customs and values;
(iv) Marriage, ensuring security of the matrimonial home and property; and
(v) Menstrual rituals; attitude to the body that inculcate a sense of shame; early arranged marriage;
monogamy strictly for woman (polygamy in rare communities) and women’s self-worth
limited to marriage and family, specially as mother of several sons.
These structures have been enforced most strictly by the upper castes where women enjoy lesser
cultural autonomy than their counterparts in lower castes. Largely because of their greater role in
family economy, women, among the lower castes and most of the tribal societies, enjoy better
rights to visibility and mobility, freedom to choose life partners and to dissolve marriage if it does

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