Growth of Middle Class Consciousness and Womens Question in Colonial Orissa 1866 to 1950

Abstract

The issue what has pointedly been engaged as Women s Question newlinehas evoked an enormous degree of debate and critical reflections among newlinehistorians, feminists and scholars working on the domain of history of ideas newlinein the specific context of late colonial Bengal having its orientation and newlineimplications relevant for the other regions of India in the last four decades. newlineThe debate on the issue and the way it has evolved broadly to seek to newlinereconceptualise the question from varied perspectives with shifting focus newlineand tension in the discourse. Based on a brief historiographic survey of the newlinetheme, the following subsection of the present chapter seeks to identify the newlinedominant constructs of womanhood and conjugality while seeking to eliminate newlinethe alternative discourse to those constructs that shaped up the highly newlineconflicted nature of the issue in late colonial Bengal. newline