Abstract
The narratives illustrate women’s agency both silently through manipulation and directly through the legal system. Women in a joint family are subject to their mothers-in-law, in contrast to those in a nuclear family. Married women express no opinions in public. The Brahmin men’s establishment of a nursery school with an unmarried woman as the teacher suggests male initiative in education and female empowerment. Women in 1964 are subservient to their fathers, then their husbands, and, as widows, to their sons. A difference of opinion, a husband’s dissatisfaction, and visits out of town without his permission have all led to beatings. Silence, the most adaptive approach for women in this period, may mean respect, but it also may signify capitulation and recognition of one’s powerlessness.
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Ullrich, H.E. (2017). The Silent Generation: 1964. In: The Women of Totagadde. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59969-8_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59969-8_2
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