Women and Labour in Late Colonial India: The Bengal Jute Industry (Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society, Series Number 3)

Samita Sen's history of laboring women in Bengal in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries considers how social constructions of gender shaped their lives. The author demonstrates how the long-term trends in the Indian economy devalued women's labor, establishing patterns of urban migration and changing gender equations within the family. She relates these trends to the spread of dowry, enforced widowhood and child marriage. The study will make a significant contribution to the understanding of the social and economic history of colonial India and to notions of gender construction. Samita Sen's history of labouring women in Calcutta in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries considers how social constructions of gender shaped their lives. Dr Sen demonstrates how - in contrast to the experience of their male counterparts - the long-term trends in the Indian economy devalued women's labour, establishing patterns of urban migration and changing gender equations within the family. She relates these trends to the spread of dowry, enforced widowhood and child marriage. The book provides insight into the lives of poor urban women who were often perceived as prostitutes or social pariahs. Even trade unions refused to address their problems and they remained on the margins of organized political protest. The study will make a signficant contribution to the understanding of the social and economic history of colonial India and to notions of gender construction. Frontmatter List of tables (page viii) Acknowledgements (page ix) List of acronyms and abbreviations (page xii) Glossary (page xiv) Map: Location of jute mills along river Hooghly (page xix) Introduction (page 1) 1 Migration, recruitment and labour control (page 21) 2 'Will the land not be tilled?': women's work in the rural economy (page 54) 3 'Away from homes': women's work in the mills (page 89) 4 Motherhood, mothercraft and the Maternity Benefit Act (page 142) 5 In temporary marriages: wives, widows and prostitutes (page 177) 6 Working-class politics and women's militancy (page 213) Select bibliography (page 248) Index (page 264) "Samita Sen's history of labouring women in Calcutta in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries considers how social constructions of gender shaped their lives. She demonstrates how - in contrast to the experience of their male counterparts - the long-term trends in the Indian economy devalued women's labour, establishing patterns of urban migration and changing gender equations within the family. She relates these trends to the spread of dowry giving, enforced widowhood and child marriage."--Jacket In a history of labouring women in Calcutta, the author demonstrates how social constructions of gender shaped their lives and how the long-term trends in the Indian economy devalued their labour. The study makes a significant contribution to the social and economic history of colonial India The exclusion of women from modern factory industries is no doubt related to their low proportion in the population of the cities and towns in which the factories and mills were situated.