Women, Land and Moral Justice in Late Colonial India
Peasant Voices from the Himalayas
Women, Land and Moral Justice in Late Colonial India
Peasant Voices from the Himalayas
Description
This book, set in Kumaon and Garhwal in late colonial India, reconstructs the moral world of peasant women who transmitted ancestral property in defiance of a legal regime that only recognised patrilineal inheritance. Appealing to the concept of parvarish ('providing for') in Hindu law, these women invoked a moral economy and norms of obligation, reciprocity and loyalty to reconfigure their household structure and ensure care and labour in exchange for property from the late 19th century onwards.
Arguing that this historical practice clearly demonstrates non-elite women's agency during this period, the book taps into hitherto untapped regional archival material such as gift deeds, community-brokered agreements and litigant depositions to highlight the importance of familial obligations in peasant culture. In doing so, Women, Land and Moral Justice in Late Colonial India brings together colonial, gender and legal histories to provide a story of women creating a third way, one that allowed them to reject patriarchal norms in practice, defy colonial law and reclaim control of their households.
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Table of Contents
1. Women-Headed Households: The Impact of Colonial Governance
2. Sons and Others: Affective Relations in the Making of Women-centered Households
3. Women's Bargains: The Discourse of “Parvarish” in Non-state Spaces of Law
4. Obligation: Its Narratives and Metaphors in the Reproduction of the Peasant Household
5. Obligation Eclipsed: The Colonial Jurisprudence of Hindu Family Law
6. Colonial Custom: Making Excluded Traditions “Local”
7. Women as Legal Subjects: The Strategic Pursuit of “Parvarish” in the Criminal Courts
Conclusion: The Limits of Parvarish
Product details
| Published | 21 Jan 2027 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 224 |
| ISBN | 9781350637979 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 10 bw illus |
| Series | Critical Perspectives in South Asian History |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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