Kenneth David ** whose article in a book edited by Susan Wadley in 1980 (see end) is entitled “Hidden Powers: Cultural and Socio-economic Accounts of Jaffna Women”
The general concern of this volume is the social position of Tamil women and cultural representations about them. This paper deals with both of these issues. The first part is a symbolic account of the life stages and associated ceremonies of Tamil women from the Jaffna region of Sri Lanka. In the course of showing the varying degrees of subordination or of influence that women have during their lives, I focus on two specific strands of symbolism in these life cycle rites: binding and shaving. These are interpreted as a dual image of the woman as slave and renouncer, bound on the exterior but internally powerful. The second part is a socio-materialistic account. It contrasts the public images of female subordination with the practical reality in which women control property and covertly effect productive and other crucial decisions. The third part situates the first two in the context of a general theoretical question. What are the pitfalls in studying a disadvantaged sector of society? My critique is directed towards the theoretical practice of linking pairs of descriptive terms and asserting that such linkage constitutes explanation. This practice is especially problematic when one is trying to understand a disadvantaged sector. Finally, the symbolic account is linked to the socio-materialistic account.
Part I
Symbolism of Jaffna Female Life Stages
This section presents ethnographic data on the symbolism of personal appearance that marks off life stages of Jaffna women. Analysis of gender roles usually treat the woman’s position as static and unchanging. The tendency is to take the social identity of a full-grown, married woman as the basis for comparison with the comparable male social identity. When this one life stage is made to stand for the whole of a woman’s life, feminine submission to, and domination by, males is easily over-emphasized. In contrast, this section shows the varying degrees of submission and the varying degrees of influence occurring at different life stages of Jaffna Tamil women.
All life stage changes symbolically represent the end (the death of) one stage and the beginning (the birth of) the next stage. Death of a life stages requires pouring of liquid; pouring of liquid happens for both women and men. Birth of a stage requires binding, whether tying of hair, clothing, or jewelry. Binding occurs for women.
In addition, I address the paradox between overt, public recognition of male dominance and covert, private recognition of female power. I am particularly concerned with two symbols–binding and shaving–that, respectively, emphasize the dual image of the woman as the slave and as the renouncer. When these two images are set in the context of Tamil symbolism of the outer puɽam) and the inner (akam) aspects of reality, they do not appear as contradictory. Exterior enslavement does not contradict interior, immanent power.
Let us now review the life stages of a woman for changes along the parameters of (1) the presence or absence of shaving and binding symbolism in personal appearance items; (2) visible changes in appearance are marked in hairstyle, clothing, cosmetics, and jewelry (3) expected behavior codes of greater or lesser restriction of social interaction.
The newborn creature.
A newborn child is not a social person. Until the haircutting ceremony (on day 16 or 31, depending on the child’s caste), the creature is not socially recognized as existing; there is no specific Tamil lexeme applied to this preperson. Should the creature die before the haircutting ceremony, there will be no normal funeral burning: it is simply buried. During this period, clothing and hairstyle are not fixed. The only cosmetic is a purposely ugly, large, black forehead mark to ward off expressions of approval by others which incite the calamity of evil speech or evil looks. The onset of social personhood is marked by the removal of hair from the head.
Restriction behavior is, of course, not expected of a newborn creature. Jaffna Tamils simply ignore actions otherwise considered wrong, abnormal, or polluting. An adults holding the child simply laughs when the creature’s excretions stain the adult’s clothing.
The Child
After the haircutting ceremony, the creature is either called child (kuɭantai), girl child (peʈʈai), or, even just male child (piɭɭai). Gender difference is neutralized. Hairstyle and clothing, similarly, do not strongly mark genders. Loose, sturdy, brief clothing and fairly close-cropped hair are appropriate for both genders. Between the ages of five and seven, girls begin to wear long skirts and grow a pair of long braids, often reaching the waist. Still, she wears no cosmetics and little jewelry. Inconspicuous thin necklaces or small earrings may be worn. There is a watershed between the ages of five and seven after which the young child is accounted responsible for violations of societal norms.
The onset of puberty, when the girl child ritually dies and the virgin (kaɳɳi) is ritually born. is marked with extensive ceremony. The period between the beginning of menses and the ceremony is considered highly dangerous to the girl’s and her family’s fate. Demons are attracted to the blood. Being viewed by a non-familial male is believed to incite prostitution; Restricting ourselves to several strands of symbolism, we note first that the onset of this life stage is marked by another haircutting. The barber’s wife shaves the girl’s pubic hair before the puberty ceremony. During the ceremony, striking changes in appearance occur.
After being thoroughly doused with coconut water and holy water from the secluded village temple well, the pubescent girl retreats to the house where she is tied (kaʈʈu) in her first silk sari, her hair is tied up, and she is adorned with the red forehead spot and jewelry.
Behavior restrictions from puberty until marriage are severe—more so in higher castes. A landowning caste informant put it succinctly: forty years ago, before girls attended schools, they simply disappeared from social life; they were tutored in vina and voice and domestic arts at home and extreme care was taken that family honor not be spoiled (kuʈumpa kauravan keʈʈu pōkutal). Informants affirmed the connection between the symbolism of pubic haircutting as marking the person as a sexual being and the symbolism of tying or binding as noting increased behavioral restrictions. Binding implies bondage in many Jaffna ritual acts.
The married state, called cumankali (Skt. sumangali), certainly implies honor and power (cakti, Skt. sakti) and auspiciousness. Once again restricting the richness of symbolic changes, the stage begins with another pubic haircutting by the barber’s wife. The bride arrives at the wedding ceremony resplendent in jewelry and a silk sari.
The groom and best man (in this case, best cousin) arrive. They receive rites of purification, concentration (an armband is tied to incite attention to the ceremony), and protection from impure spirits.
The bride enters and receives the same series of rites.
Three generations of the genealogies of bride and groom are recited. Bride’s parents pour sacred water over the bride’s hands. This action is believed to sever the relationship between the bride and her family; that is, she no longer shares bodily substance with her family. This action is essential in understanding the logic of their kinship system concerning marriageable and non-marriageable persons.
The groom’s gifts (wedding sari and wedding necklace tali are shown to and blessed by the audience.
The bride departs.
She returns tied with the wedding sari (note that this sari was formerly distinguished from the initial sari by a wide brocaded hem, another sign of boundaries).
The crux of the ceremony is the tying of the wedding necklace (tāli) by the groom.
She becomes one (campantam, Skt. sambandha (bound as one in body, mind, and soul) with the groom by this act.[1] The centrality of the binding symbolism is attested by old accounts: in the Jaffna Tamil tradition, the tāli-tying and not the circling of the homa fire (a rite from the Aryan tradition) is the minimal rite of marriage. Re-marriage of women–especially among lower castes–may be just a tāli -tying.
The priests leads the couple around the fire and a food grinding board
Although we shall shortly see that the formulation is incomplete, for the moment it can be noted that the shaving, the pouring, and thebinding symbolism asserts that women in the married life stages are encompassed, bound to, and dominated by their husbands.
Certainly, the married state includes double-standards for males and females. To preserve family honor, married women must maintain sexual and commensal exclusivity. A high caste woman sleeps only with her husband. She dines only with close kin (kiʈʈiya contakkārar), that is, with blood relatives and those affinal families with whom continuing marriage alliances are taking place.[2] By contrast, a high caste male does not damage family honor even though he supports concubines and dines with a wider circle of kin (tūra contakkārar) whose political and economic connections might be useful. Both means of maintaining family honor are relevant to the continuance of advantageous marital alliances that are very useful both politically and economically.
During the married life stage, the woman attains both greater influence within the family and a degree of greater social liberty at menopause. This physiological event, unlike puberty, is not ritually marked. A researcher soon learns that post-menopause females are informants with whom one may converse without social jeopardy . The lessening of restrictions–greater outspoken liberty, for example–is the reverse of ritually unmarked change as a girl approaches puberty and becomes more modest. liberty at menopause. This physiological event, unlike puberty, is not ritually marked. A researcher soon learns that post-menopause females are informants with whom one may converse without social jeopardy . The lessening of restrictions–greater outspoken liberty, for example–is the reverse of ritually unmarked change as a girl approaches puberty and becomes more modest.
The last stage, widowhood, is called amankali, (Skt. amangali). This term decidedly implies inauspiciousness, the reverse of cumankali, the married state. A widow is called vitavai and refers to a person who keeps to the house (vittu). All the outward signs of attractiveness are systematically removed. Traditionally, though now not as frequently practiced, the widow’s head was shaven. All cosmetics and jewelry are removed, especially the wedding necklace (tāli) while clothing becomes an unfashionable white.
The outward symbolism ignores the biological event of menopause and assumes all widows are fecund and thus pose a threat to family honor. These changes in appearance certainly decrease the outward attractiveness of any woman. Jaffna Tamils are quite blunt on the point that the widowed woman–particularly when family finances are not superb–is a candidate for prostitution and that these changes in appearance are a process of enforced renunciation (compare voluntary male renunciation in the sannyasin stage). Hence behavioral restrictions are exceedingly severe.
We are now in a position to state the symmetry of feminine life stages in terms of the specific symbolism of outward appearance and the associated codes for behavior. Explicit changes in appearance (hairstyle, jewelry, cosmetics, and clothing) occur to mark the life stages.
The stage of newborn creature mirrors the stage of widowhood. Both stages are marked off with the shaving of hair from the head. The newborn stage ends with the haircutting ceremony. The widow stage begins with the husband’s funeral which includes her head being shaved. The two hair cuttings bracket the period of social personhood in a woman’s life. This similarity of formal ritual masks a cultural fiction concerning behavior.
Life Stages and required behavior
The newborn’s behavior is of no concern, for nothing is defined as unacceptable. The widow’s behavior is of great concern, for she poses a threat to family honor. It is not too much to say that a woman’s husband’s funeral is her social funeral, for the arcane institution of sati, immolation of a woman on her husband’s pyre, accomplished just that. In native common sense a woman’s body is the same as her husband’s; in common sense, his death is hers. Immolation is now only rarely practiced, but social death is very real for upper caste women– more so if they are young and attractive, less so if they are highly educated.
Within the period of social personhood, the stage of early childhood mirrors the post-menopause (and nonwidowed) stage. These physiological stages are not ritually marked off during the formal stages of childhood and marriage. They are comparable in that the young girl and the post-menopause woman are physiologically incapable of affecting family honor by improper behavior with males. Neither can produce an illegitimate baby, an undeniable evidence of social misbehavior. This physiological status is accompanied by the expected code for conduct: in early childhood, behavioral restrictions are easy going compared with later childhood; similarly, the later (post-menopause) married woman has more behavioral freedom compared with that of the fertile married woman. A further contrast is seen between these stages. While the young child has little influence except over an adoring father, the middle-aged woman can wield great influence over her family. She retains the auspiciousness of the married state and is less fettered by the social reticence expected of a young bride. She is in the optimal position to influence decisions of significance in her family, especially in the crucial matters of marital alliances for her sons and daughters. This stage has not been extensively researched and deserves the greatest consideration for an adequate understanding of the role of women in South Asian society.
The virgin stage (post-puberty but pre-marriage) and the married stage (post-married but pre-menopause) are the innermost bracket in the life of a woman. Each stage begins with a ritual act, the shaving of pubic hair. This is appropriate because during these two stages the woman is not only defined as a person but is further specified as a sexual person. The female child is not a virgin (kanni) until she becomes a virgin at the puberty ritual. These stages have received the most extensive treatment in the literature concerning the purity of women, the vulnerability to pollution and dishonor, the extensive behavioral restrictions on women. Various binding symbolisms (tied-up hair, tied sari, necklaces) clearly recognize the restrictive codes for her behavior concerning (sexual and commensal) activities in which natural substance is exchanged.
What is important to note is the contrast between inner and outer restrictions and powers. This contrast is not my invention but a central contrast in Tamil culture between what is inner and immanent (akam) and what is outer and evident (puram), a contrast forming the major division in Tamil poetry (Ramanujan 1970). As applied to women during these life stages, the contrast is expressed by terms denoting inner chastity and outer modesty and shyness. Inner chastity is an immanent, unobservable force related to sakti. Informants say that a young girl feels the stirrings of this inner power when she first sees her future husband (or when a person first sees a future guru, preceptor). Outer modesty, in its positive aspect, is rendered by kūccam, appropriate shyness. These are, then, a series of life stages in which changes of outer appearance and expectations of behavior are mutually coded. These changes are summarized in Figure 1.
| Figure 1 | ||||||||
| Symbolism of Jaffna Female Life Stages | ||||||||
| Woman as social non-person | ||||||||
| Woman as social person | ||||||||
| Woman as social and sexual person | ||||||||
| Life Stages | Newborn creature | young girl | older girl | virgin | married | married post-menopause | widow | post life spirit |
| Renouncer Features | ||||||||
| Head Spot | Large black spot | None or small red | Small red | Large red | Large Red | Large Red | White | Nil |
| Head Hair | Shorn | Unshorn | Unshorn | Unshorn | Unshorn | Unshorn | Shorn | Nil |
| Pubic Hair | Unshorn | Unshorn | Unshorn | Shorn | Shorn | Shorn | Unshorn | Nil |
| Clothing Color | Colored | Colored | Colored | Colored | Colored | Colored | White | White |
| Power / Enslavement Features | ||||||||
| Clothing Style | Various | Various | Various | Tied Sari | Tied Sari | Tied Sari | Tied Sari | Tied Sari |
| Jewelry | None | Assorted | Assorted | Assorted | Wedding Tali | None | ||
| Head Hair Style | ||||||||
| Associated Code for Conduct | Nil | Slight restriction | Moderate restriction | Highly restrictive | Restrictive | Moderate restriction | Highly restrictive | Nil |
| Red spot implies both sexuality and internal power (sakti) | ||||||||
| A woman’s bangles are removed at her husband’s funeral | ||||||||
While omitting great richness of symbolic detail attached to the life stages of women, the figure also notes a symmetry of expectations of the woman during her life. It is clear that the symbolism of outer appearances (head hair, clothing, cosmetics, jewelry) and a hidden but outer feature (pubic hair) distinguishes the life stages and their associated codes for behavior.
The reader will probably have anticipated that the distinction just made between outer features of appearance and an outer but hidden feature of appearance deserves further elaboration. The second section of this paper will take up the question of the differences between public and private images of Jaffna women and the question of overt, public submissive behavior versus covert, private influential behavior of Jaffna women. As a prelude to that presentation, it can now be asked how this Jaffna Tamil culture ideologically recognizes both images and both kinds of behavior.
The connections I am proposing are that–during rituals marking off feminine life stages–major shifts in outer, public appearance occur in which head hair, jewelry, and clothing are tied or bound up. Binding symbolism, it will be seen, is easily connected with bondage and slavery. Other shifts concern the shaving of bodily hair. There are two variations here. Shaving of head hair is an outer shift in appearance. Shaving of pubic hair is a hidden, or private shift in appearance. This shaving symbolism, it will be argued, is connected with South Asian symbolism of self-denial, that is, with the renouncer’s ascetic mode of living which is held to create inner powers„
These symbolic features become clearer when we contrast those life stages when a woman is socially defined as a sexual person. Nonpersonhood of the newborn creature and the widow is signaled by the absence of binding symbolism (the widow’s wedding necklace is removed; her bangles [valaiyal] are broken) and the presence of the ascetic head shaving symbolism. The sexual personhood of the virgin and married woman is signaled by the presence of binding symbolism regarding head hair, clothing and jewelry. And, during these same stages, ascetic power is signaled by the shaving of hair from the genital area. During childhood, when she is defined as a person but not a sexual person, features of outer appearance shift as the girl approaches puberty; incipient restriction is signaled in later childhood by the braiding of head hair without tying it up onto the head.
In short, my argument is that the binding symbolism in these rituals denotes an image of the renouncer, and that these images are not contradictory when viewed from the perspective of one of the most profound contrasts in Tamil culture, the outer (puram) and the inner (akam).
Ritual symbolism denoting slavery and bondage is frequent, easily recognized, and not restricted to Jaffna women. The devotional way of the slave (dâsya marga) is appropriate for common folk. It is as if culture allows for human inadequacies and provides reinforcement for individuals. Bondage to god (katavulukku kattuppatutal) provides an unambiguous, familiar mode of relating to divinity in a society where servants are bound (kattuppatutal) in service to their masters. Bondage to god is the idiom for any individual to impose upon himself or herself an extraordinary discipline of devotion during an annual festival (tiruviljâ.) to a god. One becomes a slave (atimai) voluntarily, for the duration, by tying on an armband (kâppu kattutal) and performing menial tasks connected with the ceremony.
This binding symbolism particular to women (tying of hair, tying of sari, tying of the tali) clearly fits within this wider pattern of signification. Because the bride (and not the groom) has her hair tied up, because the bride must be tied in the wedding sari given by the groom, because the bride has the wedding necklace tied around her neck by the groom, the woman is imaged as slave to the man.
This outer, public symbolism emphasizes one side of social reality, outer public male dominance and female submission. It is the private symbolism of pubic hairshaving that emphasizes another side of social reality, covert feminine power.
To the Tamil, actions of suffering are not derogated as actions of the weak, but are perceived within a religious framework wherein suffering leads to powers (sakti) (see Egnor, Reynolds, Daniel, this volume). Disciplined self-denial (tapas) yields inner power (also called tapas) for both male and female ascetics. Mythically, this power is sufficient to threaten the gods; many myths recount the gods’ dilemmas in subduing power misused by an ascetic who has been granted a boon (varam) from the force of lengthy self-denial.
Beneficent or terrible powers are available from the self-denying action of chastity. This is the central theme of the Tamil epic Cillappatikaram, in which the chaste heroine wreaks vengeance for her (unchaste) husband. With her sakti, she destroys the city of Madurai whose king has allowed injustice to take place by wrongly executing her husband.
Jaffna Tamil culture views women as outwardly enslaved and inwardly powerful. As noted before, the distinction between inner (akam) and outer (puram) is a fundamental aspect of the Tamil cultural complex. That women are viewed similarly is not surprising. Moreover, as I have shown, the ritual symbolism of the female life stages confirms both the woman’s outer enslavement and her inner renunciation. These ideological representations call attention to a contrast between expected public behavior and expected private behavior. Viewed from the perspective of males, who are defined as dominant in the culture, the main stress is on the public dominance of males and the submission of females. Private covert power wielded by women is undercommunicated. It is to these issues that we turn in Part II.
Part II Public Images and Practical Realities of Jaffna Women
While the first part of this paper dealt with ritual symbolism and ideological representations of women, this part is concerned with the position of women in human practical activity. By this I mean both the social relationships and control of material resources in ongoing relations of production and also the replication of control (from generation to generation) over these human and material means of production. This part will specifically deal with public and private images and realities of women in Jaffna and northern Sri Lanka. This roughly oval peninsula, about ten miles long and fourteen miles wide, is inhabited by over 700,000 Tamil-speaking Hindus, Protestants, and Roman Catholics. They are engaged in cash-crop and paddy agriculture, deep- sea fishing, and artisan crafts. Within the coastal belt of fishing villages, the central agricultural area is cross-cut by a grid of roads connecting artisan- market-temple towns. Despite radical changes in this century including the loss of international trade and job opportunities that subsidized the region, the consequent decline of the upper-caste agricultural socio-economic base, the release of low-caste agricultural servants, the emergence of an upper-caste nationalist movement in response to national political deprivations in the new nation, and a low caste mobility movement, there have been no publicly organized feminist movements. Women have told me they would lose rather than gain influence if they engaged in such public confrontations with men. This state of affairs certainly justifies an inquiry into patterns of covert power wielded by women,
I shall proceed with this inquiry in three stages. The first stage establishes a public image of feminine ignorance, subordination, modesty, and deference to males by considering public conduct, both secular and ritual, stereotypes and proverbs about women. This public image is further reflected in certain indigenous common sense propositions such as the Jaffna notion that a woman’s body becomes physically identical to that of her husband at the time of their wedding. The second stage casts doubt on these public images. The possibility of covert feminine power is raised by socio-economic analysis of the control and transmission of material and productive resources, of patterns of post-marital residence that accord with the possession of material resources. These evidences are supported by two kinds of indigenous codifications of reality: the country law, local terms codifying material resources and assets, and still other proverbs. The third stage contradicts the public images noted in the first stage. The covert role of women in influencing productive decisions and replicative decisions (as defined above) will be shown by data on feminine interventions which obviate social dilemmas concerning relationships with kinsfolk and with non-kin.
The public image of Jaffna women, putting it bleakly, is that women are selectively ignorant and incapable of learning crucial kinds of social knowledge, that they are dominated and subordinate to men, and that these states of affairs are ideologically represented as the state of nature.
One index of social differentiation and social ranking is the public display of kinds of knowledge about society supposedly controlled by different units in that society. Either a unit is willing to display its knowledge on a particular topic or it can stonewall (that is, refuse to display) such knowledge. Which kinds of knowledge do Jaffna women display, and which do they stonewall? They would certainly display knowledge of genealogical connections, including marital alliances. They felt free to converse about childcare, cooking, and religious practices. They would discuss the transmission of land at marriage and death. Many were willing to discuss such gross details of the family economy as the ownership of productive property (nets, tools, or agricultural land) and the composition of their husband’s work group: his servants, business partners, or masters. Politics and village factionalism was a definite stonewall as was the topic of the role of women in influencing all the sorts of decisions that (as both male and female informants told me) men alone were supposed to make: telling laborers where to go and which work to do, balancing the family budget, selecting brides or grooms, attempting distant pilgrimages. In short, women were willing to give me gross survey data, information about women’s work, and about religion. They stonewalled politics and female influence in decision making.
This image of selective feminine ignorance is not rejected but rather reaffirmed by male informants. The latter stoutly maintained that women decline to talk about feminine influence and decision making precisely because women know nothing whatsoever about these matters. Males carry the point further by indicating that women are incapable of even learning about or understanding these matters.
This direction of assertion has a familiar ring to South Asianists who have been concerned with indigenous notions of immanent capabilities of jati-s. The notion is that inherent in physical composition are causative natural elements predisposing the person to kinds of action or inaction, kinds of knowledge or ignorance. Certain proverbs restate the impossibility of women being educated in more than the domestic sciences. This is no different, for example, from the persons of the Goldsmith caste asserting that non-Goldsmiths can never attain the divine inspiration or the knowledge to practice the craft. Therefore, informants and proverbs accord on the public image of immanent feminine ignorance concerning crucial productive and political matters.
Other proverbs stress female submissiveness, female compliance to male decisions, the double-standard about sexuality in which infidelity is always the woman’s fault.
It should be stressed that this public image of women concerns both inner and outer features. Inwardly, immanently, women are capable of learning and understanding the domestic side of life, that is, affairs of the home, (akam, the inner sphere). They are not capable of learning or understanding affairs beyond the home (puram, the wider community). Inwardly, they have power (£akti) and are responsible for proper or improper sexual relations with men. Outwardly, women must be submissive and dominated by males.
The subordinate public image of women is affirmed by symbolism in life cycle rites, symbolism which confirms asymmetry in male-female relations. Two points emerge regarding male dominance and female subordination in these ceremonies. First, the prime participants in these rituals (besides the subject of the ritual) are structurally relevant kin, i.e„, at the puberty ceremony, mother’s brother, father’s sister, and mother’s brother’s wife (these persons are all potential parents-in-law). Second, during the crucial liminal phase of these rituals, the woman is stripped of all the previous lifestage appearance attributes and is redressed in raiment given by those who will have authority over her during the stage to come. For example, she arrives at her wedding in one sari. In the middle of the ceremony, she goes offstage where she puts on the wedding sari given by the bridegroom. Symbolically, she is encompassed by those who will have authority over her. In short, these public ceremonies (which include much binding symbolism) image the woman as encompassed and dominated by men.
Indigenous common sense notions reinforce the subordinate public image of women. Of current relevance is the notion of the transubstantiation of women at their marriage. During the marriage, the woman is ritually separated from the physical substance of her natal family (by the act of water being poured over her hands). Later, by the act of tâli-tying, she is bound as one (saffibandha) physically with her husband. After this act, she is identical in natural physical substance with him. (Variations on this proposition have been noted by Nicholas and Inden [1977].)
This change clarifies various patterns of kin practices: consider sets of persons for whom one has (as opposed to those for whom one observes) death pollution, i.e., a man has pollution at the death of his wife but not his married sister, for his father’s brother and his wife, but not mother’s brother and his wife. Consider the definition of the marriageable and proscribed woman. Because one’s father’s sister has married and changed substance, her daughter is different in substance from her brother. Thus, a woman’s child may marry her brother’s child. Two brothers do not change substance at their marriages; their children are considered the same in physical substance and it would be incestuous for them to marry.
The point is that the notion of transubstantiation of woman, and not of men, is also an ideological assertion comparable to the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib. Both assertions stress the public image of the encompassed woman. As with all ideological assertions, one can ask further whether the assertion reflects (or overcommunicates) the public image of male dominance and masks (or, undercommunicates) the private image of female influence and control and sovereignty.
The next section opens the possibility of private female influence and power. Three kinds of indigenous representations–the codified country law (Tëcavalamai), proverbs, and definitions of productive resources–show the Tamil woman potentially controlling a large share of domestic and extra-domestic productive resources and further defy any precise distinction between a domestic sphere and a wider productive sphere. In Fortes’ original definition, these domains were not exclusively assigned to males and females (Fortes 1969) . Recent definitions tend to segregate the domains to males and females (Rosaldo and Lamphere 1974). I shall return to this point.
These representations are then supported by hard material facts of control of resources, intergenerational transmission of resources, and patterns of domestic migration (usually called post-marital residence patterns). In short, this section provides evidence to support the proposition of private female influence and power. Facts of land ownership and transmission and patterns of post-marital residence throw doubt on total male dominance.
Let us start with rules. S.J. Tambiah’s (1973) discussion of bridewealth and dowry in South Asia clarifies that the Jaffna region varies from the majority of the subcontinent (the general South Asian pattern is for women to receive just jewels and household tools as dowry) in the following particulars. In Jaffna, there are two forms of transmission of property. First, women get land as well as jewels and household tools from their parents at the time of their marriage. Second, both women and men get land from their parents at the time of the parents’ demise. These two forms of transmission imply that a married couple has two separate blocks of property, separately owned; a man cannot alienate his wife’s property without her consent. These rules are then asymmetrical (in favor of the woman) who can obtain land in two ways while a man has only one. On the other hand, land acquired by purchase usually belongs to the male. Third, recognition of the rights of both males and females is further seen in rules of devolution and reversion. Daughters receive their mother’s dowry land as their dowry; sons receive their father’s inherited land. When a woman dies without female heirs, her land reverts to her maternal kin; when a man dies without heirs, his land reverts to his paternal kin. Fourth, there are rules for widow remarriage. Though not done as frequently by the orthodox, there is provision for retention of a widowed woman’s estate in the context of a formal marriage.
Let us now examine the effects of the rules. Michael Banks (1957) noted two kinds of transmission, dowry land (cîtayam, Skt. strîdâna) given at marriage from mother to daughter and land inherited at the death of either parent by children of either gender. The implication of the rules is that a couple should live on the wife’s land immediately after marriage. Later in their lives, they should relocate from her land, for at the time the couple is giving away her dowry land (to their daughter) and since the man’s parents may die, inherited land becomes available to them. Hence a minority of the population–older couples–should be living on the husband’s land. Banks’ data from one agricultural village contradicts these implications. He finds that as many couples are living on the husband’s as on the wife’s land. He finds that extended families are extended as frequently by relatives of the husband as by relatives of the wife. He concludes that the system is effectively bi-local.
My own data confirm the implications of the rules. A survey of 344 houses in three villages (Mylitty North, an agricultural village; Mylitty Coast, a fishing village; and Chankani, an artisan town with a large farming community) shows that 71 percent of the households are owned by women and were transmitted via dowry; 21 percent are owned by men and were acquired by inheritance; and 6 percent were purchased. There are significant differences if the data are broken down into castes of the agricultural, fishing, and artisan productive sectors, but this is the subject of a longer study. This study would also show that relatives present in the post-marital residence would strongly tend to follow the gender of the houseowner. In general, I would amend Banks’ statement. While some large landowner families have family traditions (vittumurai – house rules) of passing down a substantial amount of land in the male line, for the majority of the population who owns small parcels of land, land is transmitted mainly through dowry. A number of circumstances may dictate that the couple never relocates and remains on a portion of the wife’s dowry land throughout their life.
Table 1
Male and Female Landownership
in three villages of Jaffna
| Location | Productive sector | Caste name | Acquisition of land by: | |||||||
| Dowry | Inheritance | Purchase | Totals | |||||||
| # | % | # | % | II | % | # | % | |||
| Cankani | Artisan | Goldsmith | 8 | 57 | 5 | 35 | 1 | 7 | 14 | 100 |
| Carpenter | 4 | 50 | 1 | 12 | 3 | 38 | 8 | 100 | ||
| Potter | 4 | 31 | 7 | 54 | 2 | 15 | 13 | 100 | ||
| Oilpresser | 4 | 50 | 2 | 25 | 2 | 25 | 8 | 100 | ||
| 20 | 46 | 15 | 35 | 8 | 19 | 43 | 100 | |||
| Fishing | Fisherman | 4 | 57 | 3 | 43 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 100 | |
| Agriculture | Landowner | 12 | 67 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 28 | 18 | 100 | |
| Domestic | 10 | 53 | 2 | 11 | 7 | 37 | 19 | 100 | ||
| Barber | 6 | 55 | 2 | 18 | 3 | 27 | 11 | 100 | ||
| Musician | 3 | 25 | 4 | 33 | 5 | 42 | 12 | 100 | ||
| Laborer | 7 | 58 | 2 | 17 | 3 | 25 | 12 | 100 | ||
| 38 | 53 | 11 | 15 | 23 | 32 | 72 | 100 | |||
| Mylitty | ||||||||||
| North | Artisan | Carpenter | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 100 | 2 | 100 |
| Agriculture | High grade Landowner
|
8 | 67 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 25 | 12 | 100 | |
| Low grade Landowner | 9 | 56 | 3 | 19 | 4 | 25 | 16 | 100 | ||
| Domestic | 4 | 50 | 4 | 50 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 100 | ||
| Barber | 1 | 100 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 100 | ||
| Laborer | 4 | 80 | 1 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 100 | ||
| 26 | 62 | 9 | 21 | 7 | 17 | 42 | 100 | |||
| Mylitty | ||||||||||
| Coast | Fishing | Fisherman | 155 | 79 | 35 | 18 | 6 | 3 | 196 | 100 |
| Figures combined by productive sectors | Dowry | Inheritance | Purchase | Totals | ||||
| II | % | II | 7» | II | % | II | % | |
| Agricultural sector | 64 | 67 | 20 | 21 | 12 | 12 | 96 | 100 |
| Fishing sector | 159 | 78 | 38 | 19 | 6 | 3 | 203 | 100 |
| Artisan sector | 20 | 44 | 15 | 33 | 10 | 22 | 45 | 100 |
| Totals | 243 | 71 | 73 | 21 | 28 | 8 | 344 | 100 |
Ownership of land is of greatest import, of course, in the agricultural sector. However in artisan and fishing sectors, land ownership is not insignificant due to the high cost of house and garden land (as opposed to productive fields, nilam and toytam). A large parcel in either area aids family finances, whether for locating an artisan’s shop or a processing, storage, and packing area for fish. Women are more openly seen to be involved in business in these sectors. The clearest example is that of wives of boatowners or fish merchants who handle the actual sales of those fish not to be sent by truck for extra-regional sales. These women are evident in the crowded fishing village market place, better dressed than the small fishtraders, ferociously bargaining with them, and running credit arrangements with selected small traders. A woman in this situation may act only as an agent for her husband’s crew, or she may be a regional level fish merchant in her own right. As a merchant, she gives loans to traders, and then sells them fish at inflated prices. Similarly, she gives loans to poorer fishermen and then buys fish from them at depressed prices. Abnormal prices are, of course, interest on the loan. Wives of artisans are not as visibly involved, but nevertheless are known to keep accounts and discern creditworthy customers and trustworthy suppliers.
Then in all three productive sectors–agricultural, artisan, and fishing–women have some control over both nonmonetary and monetary productive assets used, contrary to the public images, in extra-domestic production.
Furthermore, a clear distinction between extradomestic and domestic productive assets is quite problematic. The following definitions of nonmonetary and monetary assets confounds any strict dichotomy of domestic and extra-domestic domains linked to a strict dichotomy of females and males.
- Whether given by the bride’s family, or, in the case of agricultural servant castes, by the landowner to whom the family is attached, the bride is traditionally given the kitchen tools necessary for the domestic unit and, if possible, jewelry. Certain Jaffna Tamil terms reflect the import of these practices. The term aniyam is used for the amount of productive nonmonetary assets necessary for a family to attain a level of output sufficient to meet biological and social demands. A woman’s cooking utensils are aniyam. (Before inflation) one quarter of an acre of agricultural land was an aniyam; a set of five gill nets was an aniyam.
- The term mūtal is used for the amount of productive monetary assets necessary to start a business, open trade for an artisan or continue productive operations at the beginning of a new productive season. A farmer’s mutai is for seed, plowing expenses, and fertilizer. A fisherman’s mutai is for operating shipping expenses. Mutai is also the woman’s bridal jewelry which can be pawned at the beginning of a productive season. Lack of mutai requires the family to take a ruinous loan (mutal panam = first money) from a mutalali (businessman, loan-giver) and take quite a cut in profits. Further acquisition of jewelry usually indicates the household is in a position to expand its operations. In general, possession of nonmonetary (aniyam) and monetary (mutai) assets index the household’s state of socio-economic sufficiency, excess, or deficiency. Note also that the terms do not distinguish but rather imply the interconnection between domestic and extra-domestic productive operations for a family.
- Actual practices that are observable in Jaffna contradict that males are exclusively connected to extra-domestic production while females are exclusively connected to domestic production.
We have seen in this section an accord between productive asset ownership and the codification of country law known as the Tesavamalai. This codification was an historical accident; Dutch colonials wanted it done. Then this codification of indigenous representations should have an analytic status no different from the codification of indigenous representations known as proverbs. Indeed, various proverbs from the Jaffna area reflect aspects of feminine control of productive resources. The most oft-quoted proverb in the region stresses that a man living on his wife’s property should always have travelling items (a walking stick and a water pot) next to the door. The implication of such quick eviction does not support the public image of overall male dominance. Denham, a long-term resident and observer of Jaffna, wrote that
The purchase of jewelry is always regarded in the East as a means of banking one’s capital in a convenient form for disposal if necessary. Besides its use for ornament, it serves to indicate the wealth its possessor has at command. “A jewel worn as an ornament may aid in adversity7” The lowest state of poverty for a woman is described as “Not having a bone to pick or an ear ornament to polish” (Denham 1912:171; underlining indicates proverbs).
Let these proverbs suffice; others could be quoted. The point is to show that two kinds of indigenous representations (law and proverbs) mutually confirm the possibility that women might have control and influence greater than the public images would attest.
In summary, one on hand, several kinds of ethnographic knowledge (female and male informants’ statements about women’s roles, ritual performances at life stage transitions, and common sense ideological propositions) point to the public image of male domination and female modesty and submissiveness. On the other hand,, several kinds of ethnographic knowledge, including survey data on the structure of land transmission and post-marital place of residence, contributions to productive resources and productive operating expenses, and indigenous proverbial data point circumstantially to female influence and the lack of a strict dichotomy between male and female domains regarding productive activities.
Moreover, some data on female fish agents provided direct evidence of female influence and control. Further instances of female control and power concern ongoing relations of production and the replication of crucial productive relations with kin and non-kinsfolk.
These data are sketchier than those previously presented because they concern backstage, covert activities not easily observable by a male researcher. What is clear is that the little available information clearly contradicts the public images of women presented earlier.
One such image was that women knew nothing whatever about production in the normal sense of gaining a livelihood. They were imaged as incapable of understanding or of making productive decisions. The institution of the back verandah of the Landowner’s wife denies this assertion. Landowners were somewhat vague in accounting for their method of telling their agricultural laborers which field to work on and what job to do: “I just meet them in the fields or send a house servant to tell them»” This arrangement sounded unworkable because landowners were frequently, away from both house and fields, dealing in cattle, settling factional feuds, arranging marriages, or, in line with the old ethic of maintaining lordly honor, visiting concubines. How then were the productive decisions regularly communicated? In addition to the public verandah, the front verandah of the traditional Landowner residence, which is occupied by the landowner, the kamakkârar, there is also a back verandah which is occupied by his wife, the kâmacci. These verandahs are microversions of royal courts. The kamakkârar1s court functioned largely in the sphere of political affairs of the region while the the kâmacci’s court handled domestic and productive relations . The arrangement was simple. Whether or not the kamakkârar was home, the wives of the agricultural laborers (servants) would come daily to the kâmacci back verandah to discuss problems, ask for loans, and get some food. At that time, the kâmacci would tell them where to send their husbands for work. This back-verandah institution then contradicts the stereotype that “women know nothing about these matters,” for it was the women who were communicating productive decisions .
Finding out how some productive decisions are communicated still does not address the questions of who makes the decisions. As should be expected in Jaffna, as anywhere else, any given married couple has its particular dynamic: differentials in intelligence, force of personality, and diplomatic skill in managing the partner. To ask who really makes the decisions should yield a spectrum of answers in a population of married couples. What can be researched is the means of managing the situation available to a woman.
The usual stereotype of master-servant relations is that the masters treat their servants as children. In Jaffna, servants are indeed called “children of the house,” kudimakkal. The masters do treat them like children, or, at least, minors, by providing many kinds of payments in kind at the time of the harvest and on such holidays as New Year’s Day and Tai Pónkal. He would intervene, with persuasion, command, or force if required, in settling their problems. But, as it further appeared from the back-verandah arrangement that the mistress of the house was the daily giver of food, of small amounts of money for illnesses or rituals etc., then it became reasonable to wonder whether her intervention was also significant.
The degree of significance depended, as I said, on her relative force in her relations with her husband as well as on the magnitude of the decision. Some women would restrict themselves to the initial hearing of a problem and refer the matter with some advice to their husbands. Both male and female servants often felt they would receive a more sympathetic hearing from the master if the matter were first referred to the mistress (just as real sons often approach their mothers to mediate with a strict father). More adept women would often omit the referral and settle the matter directly. And, as in the following episode, some women would effectively countermand the master’s decision.
A barber approached his master about some wedding expenses just as the master was returning home for the midday meal. Unfortunately for the barber, the sale of some buffaloes had not gone in the master’s favor. The barber was chased out of the compound with the threat of a whipping. The mistress of the house overheard the fray and sent her domestic servant to fetch the barber to her back verandah. She told him that she would settle the matter. She then went to her husband and had him bathe, fed him and got him to take a nap. After the nap and afternoon tea, she slowly approached the barber’s problem, telling him the barber was a faithful servant though sometimes impetuous, recalling the various marital alliance scouting missions the barber had ably performed and so on until he was sufficiently mollified to grant the barber’s request. The master saw through her approaches but was candid enough to admit that he knew she was preserving his and his family’s honor since meanness and frugality to servants are quickly broadcast around Jaffna.
It should be noted that both the male and the female master’s ability to smooth over (camaXittal) social disturbances (piraccinai) are attributes of family honor. The wife’s talents in this direction are recognized. A former school principal told me that at the time of his retirement, his going-away present was trivial compared with that given by the students to his wife. The students knew who cooled his famous anger and his penchant for whipping students. These examples not only speak to the research technique of establishing the variability of actual decision making between husbands and wives; they also modify the usual public image of women as frail and passive creatures whose honor is protected by males. The reverse is also true.
I am making two points here. The first concerns the management of productive relations. By communicating or making productive decisions about the timing of productive processes and the personnel to work them, women are seen as participating in the system of production, albeit in a covert way. The second point concerns the replication of social relations of production. In a longer range sense, management of productive relations between persons requires much attention to anticipate and correct problems in human relations before they become insolvable crises. On a Jaffna estate as in a multinational boardroom, the formal organizational chart is not always the best indicator of the persons who actually perform these crucial operations. The Jaffna kamacci operates in this way by settling feuds among her servant families, by arranging their marriages so as to provide a continuity of personnel to work the estate, and by settling, quite diplomatically, potential disputes between the master, the kâmakkârar, and the servants. It seems necessary to point out this distinction because the label of “behind the scenes female influence” tends to denote only the first operation of daily management and not the longer range operation.
These two kinds of management are also relevant concerning relationships with kin. The bilateral kindreds of Jaffna are fictionally closed circles of intermarrying lineages. Although the tendency has lessened markedly in this century, in the past each circle effectively formed a micro-grade of the caste, ranked in family honor, degree of aristocracy, and wealth. The importance of maintaining the boundaries of these microgrades is greatest, of course, for the aristocratic Landowner caste. Their estates and dowries are sizeable. Positions of local, district, and regional authority are at stake. And, because the British colonials and the American missionaries both heeded these distinctions when recruiting persons to their bureaucratic and educational systems, these grades of caste were regularly parleyed to advantage in the non-traditional order.
Each family, then, was part of a lineage known to have a circle of close kin (kippiya contakkârar) and a wider fringe of distant kin (türa contakkârar). The affines of one’s affines, for example, might not be recognized as close kin. How were these distinctions sorted out?
On-going management of these crucial kin-political- economic alliances was effectively done by women. Feminine interdining denoted equivalence of families and hence inclusion in the same grade of the caste. Women were allowed to dine only at the houses of close kin. Violating these rules was serious, a stain on family honor almost as serious as sexual transgression. Its importance was seen in the fact that a high-grade Landowner caste lady was always accompanied on her visits by her domestic (kovicci) servant. The kovicci was the eyewitness to the fact that only proper houses were visited.
Longer range management of these alliance networks is also influenced by women in various ways. Given that family fortunes change, the closed circle of kin was always subject to revision. Any change of importance was always masked in predictable fashion, such as invention of auspicious, founding ancestors and production of linked genealogies. One tactic for either attempting such a change, or, more typically, blocking one, is by regulating specific marriages. Because I could not directly observe such negotiations, I asked four matchmakers (two female, two male) to write accounts of matches they had arranged. Several forms of female influence appear in all the accounts. First, a woman tends to eliminate unsuitable contenders rather than to press for the suitable one. Second, the prime means of achieving this end is what is called the talaiyanai mantiram, the holy phrase repeated on the pillow. Third, if this fails, a more forceful means is to conceal the child’s astrological chart. No marriage can be arranged until astrological charts are agreed to match. One account of a difficult marriage negotiation spent seven pages in relating the attempts to obtain an astrological chart hidden by a stolid Jaffna matron. This stage of negotiation appears to be the turning point. Bargaining over the amount of dowry and the list of families to be invited might be heated and protracted, but obtaining and matching astrological charts marked the decision time. We can note from this procedure how a publicly defined subordinate can control the process of making a decision and leave to the publicly defined superior the right to announce the decision.
Another tactic for attempting a change in the classification of close or distant kin is for a woman to go to a funeral of a lineage currently classified as distant kin and attempt to participate in making the necessary arrangements: organizing the funeral feast, ordering the servants of the house to set up the ritual area and so forth. The mistress of the house could then accept these overtures and allow the outsider to help or order her out of the house. If permitted, the woman would then report her success back to her husband. Then the entire family would attend the funeral feast. Note that such intervention would hardly ever succeed at a wedding; it would probably cause a great fight.
Rather, the updated list of close and distant kin would be accomplished by the institution of the two marriage feasts. There is a marriage feast at the house of the bride and another feast at the house of the groom. If a family is designated close kin, then both males and females are invited to that feast. If a family is designated distant kin, then only males are invited to that feast. If a family is designated non-kin (pirattiyâr), then no feast invitation is made. Then for every potential invitation, there are six possibilities :
- the invited family is close kin to both bride’s family and groom’s family,
- the invited family is distant kin to both bride’s family and groom’s family,
- the invited family is close kin to bride’s family but distant kin to groom’s family,
- the invited family is distant kin to bride’s family but close kin to the groom’s family,
- the invited family is distant kin to the bride’s family and non-kin to the groom’s family,
- the reverse.
In practice, transmitting the message about kin connection by means of a wedding feast invitation was accomplished by the system of the four inviters. Each family would receive a formal wedding invitation visit. The nonverbal code for transmitting the message was the number of persons who appeared for the visit. There were four persons who might appear: father and mother of the groom, father and mother of the bride. The family being invited knows it has been designated close kin, distant kin,’ or non-kin to each inviting family if (a) the mother and the father of that family, (b) the father only, or (c) neither parent appears at the formal marriage invitation visit. The nonverbal code of this visit is unambiguous. Should your family be visited by both parents of the bride but only the father of the groom, then your family is designated close kin to the bride’s family.
With the reaffirmation or denial of whatever degree of kin connection at stake, it is no surprise that wedding feasts are not totally placid. Violations y guests are dealt with summarily, for the family barber is asked whether any improper persons are present before the feast begins. Anyone foolish enough to crash the party would be ejected at that time. Conversely, the host would be chagrined if only the males appeared at the feast when he and his wife had invited the entire family to attend.
Women are then fully involved in the serious business of maintaining the current list of families designated as close, distant, or non-kin; they participate in the longer-range management of family status in this process of maintaining the boundaries of their family’s grade within the caste. Women do indeed influence events in a variety of ways.
Ill ……….. Conclusion
Over the last decade, there has occurred a steady stream of criticism (particularly from neo-Marxist and feminist writers) against alleged distortions wrought by structural or functional universalistic dichotomies. In the paradigm below, it is clear that some of these dichotomies apply to all systems of rank while others apply more particularly to gender systems of rank.
| Source | Domain of Men | Domain of Women |
| Definition of domains or contexts | ||
| Fortes (1969) | public domain:
jural-political territorial unit:
community social unit: wider kin groupings: lineage, clan, tribe |
private domain: moral-domestic
territorial unit : household
social unit: minimal kin grouping family |
| Definition of forms of activity | ||
| Gonzales (1973)
Rosaldo & Lamphere (1974) |
work:
extra-domestic production |
household work:
domestic production |
| Terray (1972) | control of means of production and of reproduction | production and reproduction |
125
| Source | Domain of Men | Domain of Women | ||
| Terray
(con) |
societal reproduction | species reproduction | ||
| Definition of types of leadership and decisioning | ||||
| Bales | instrumental leader- | expressive leadership | ||
| (1953) | ship (deals with | (deals with well | ||
| relations between units | being of unit) | |||
| Swartz et al | ideologically legitimated power | ideologically non-legitimated or | ||
| (1966) | i.e. authority | Ideologically denigrated power i.e. influenceinfluence | ||
| influence | ||||
| Parsons | value-orientations | values (priorities held by those | ||
| (1964) | (priorities) held | without such power | ||
| by those with power | Priorities thus cannot be | |||
| to implement them | implemented | |||
| into action | in social action | |||
| Definition of | symbolic and communication structure | |||
| Lévi-Strauss | men as senders and | women as messages sent | ||
| (1964) | receivers of messages in marriage alliances | in marriage alliances | ||
| speech events as | speech events as gossip | |||
| social communication | ||||
| Ideological representations | ||||
| Turner | divinely legitimated authority | powers of the weak | ||
| (1969)
Douglas |
magico-religious powers | |||
| (1966) | supra-human legitimation | infra-human efficacy | ||
| Ortner | men’s bodies and | women’s bodies and | ||
| (1974) | activities as culture | activities as nearer | ||
| (which dominates and transforms nature) | to unmodified nature | |||
The creation and longevity of these universalistic dichotomies in the literature can be attributed to various conditions of field research, analytic method, and theory.
Both male (Berreman 1962) and female (Beck 1973) fieldworkers admit the problem of being identified with units as superior in the observed society (whether men, dominant castes, dominant ethnic units): these units may receive thicker description. Units defined as inferior within the observed society (women, lower castes) , alienated from the fieldworker or simply fearing reprisal from dominant units if their iconoclastic information becomes known, may receive thinner description. Compare C.W.H. Hart and Goodale on power differentials among Tiwi men and women.
To the extent that subdominant units are not directly known through participant observation and direct questioning, fieldworkers tend to fill in their ethnographic report (which must meet professional standards of presenting a synoptic overview from all sectors of the society) with descriptions derived from the dominant units to which the fieldworker has access. There is then the possibility of an imbalance. Such descriptive statements may be termed superordinate-centric; that is, descriptive categories elicited from those dominant in the society under study become the observer’s analytic categories. A second charge leveled against these universalistic dichotomies is that they are sociocentric. That is, descriptive categories of the observer’s culture are restated as analytic categories and then applied to the study of other cultures. Regarding the connection between gender roles, social contexts, and power, proponents of these dichotomies have suggested that women’s largely maternal and domestic role in the home restricts them from public roles endowed with authority, prestige, and cultural value (Rosaldo and Lamphere 1974:7-8), or, similarly, that women’s work is private and opposed to men’s roles in the public sphere (Hammond and Jablow in Leacock 1975:606). Critics of these dichotomies reply that such interpretations are accurate when applied to certain state level societies; applying them elsewhere is a “state bias” (Sacks 1976), a reflection “of our own experience in class-stratified society” (Reiter 1975:15), a view that denies the historical variation in nonwestern societies (Leacock 1975:605). My colleague Birgitte Jordan questions where the evaluative load of the analytic categories we are using is itself reflective of our own internalized sexist cultural values: although there is general agreement that the state of the world is describable as having greater public authority for males as compared to females, although recent work has set the record straight about power exercised by women, still we must ask why the public sphere is more highly evaluated than the private one. We must also ask why authority is necessarily evaluated more highly than power (Jordan : personal communication). Circumspection seems indicated when descriptive dichotomies such as authority and power are used, for one term may be valued and the other devalued in the analysts’ culture.
Further questions can be asked about the utility of linking pairs of these universal dichotomies and asserting that such linkage constitutes explanation. The current tendency to state unambiguous constellations of pairs of terms.is seen in the connections previously cited between gender roles, social contexts, and power differentials. We must be careful here, for the original intent of some of these dichotomies was not such strict segregation. Fortes’ distinction of public and private domains, jural-political and domestic domains does indeed “tacitly imply a socio-spatial reference” (Fortes 1969:95)» Each domain “comprises a range of social relations, customs, norms, statuses, and other analytically discriminable elements linked up in nexuses and unified by the stamp of distinctive functional features that are common to all” (Fortes 1969:97). They are different frames of reference in which individuals situate their social interactions on different occasions. This line of argument does not go so far as to say that an empirical unit such as the home is the distinct locus of the domestic domain versus an empirical unit such as the wider community being the distinct locus of the jural-political domain. An empirical unit can take on both aspects. The traditional Irish farmhouse had its public “best” room and private inner rooms; the traditional Jaffna Landowner’s house had its public male verandah and public female verandah and its inner private courtyard.
This case study does not support a number of fixed constellations linking universalistic dichotomies. Let me examine the home domain. Undoubtedly the locus of domestic production and reproduction (household work and the bearing of children), the home is also a locus of extra-domestic productive activities. From the male front verandah and from the female back verandah of the Landowner caste home flow daily productive decisions linking persons from various homes. A formula of instrumental leader : expressive leader = concern with relations between units : concern with well-being of the unit is difficult to apply to the Jaffna situation where the mistress of the house adjudicates quarrels among servants. Either she is acting as an instrumental leader, or, if labeled an expressive leader, the unit within which well-being is maintained must be defined amoebalike as a set of servant households in addition to the house of the master. Such a unit becomes absurd if it is necessary to include such village servants as Barbers and Washermen who serve all the masters. Segregation of domestic production from extra-domestic is impossible to maintain given the elements of dowry: land is clearly an extra-domestic material resource; dowried jewelry is frequently the means of maintaining control of factors of production such as next year’s seed paddy; dowried slaves worked both in the fields and around the home; dowried domestic utensils are solely a domestic material resource. The utility of constellations of segregated domains, rules for behavior, and control of material resources concerning on-going relations of production is limited. Such theoretical practice distorts our picture of the Jaffna mode of production.
It also distorts our picture of the dynamics of socio-economic replication, that is, the Jaffna mode of reproduction. Those most concerned with replicating the socio-economic order–particularly in a highly ranked society–are materially advantaged units publicly defined as superiors; in other words, the agents of socio-economic replication are those units structurally dominant in society. For rural South Asia, it would be commonplace to assume that upper-caste (particularly dominant agricultural caste) elderly males are the agents of socio-economic replication for temporal (the real means of production) matters and the priestly caste males are the agents for spiritual matters. Further, it is normally accepted that these agents of socioeconomic replication are ideologically demarcated as having the right to do what is necessary to maintain the social order. Call it traditional legitimation of authority, call it mystification of reality, these are endowed with some form of sovereign right. The question is whether or not this constellation tells the whole story. My conclusion is that the processes of socioeconomic replication are more completely known when such publicly defined inferiors as women and low servant caste persons are considered. Even though they are not ideologically demarcated agents but are, rather, ideologically negatively demarcated, public inferiors such as women and low castes act to obviate the recognition of discrepancies or contradictions that would, if recognized, undermine the situation.
As has been indicated in this paper, Jaffna high caste women publicly maintain family honor, or more precisely, avoid spoiling family honor by visiting and dining within narrow limits: with close kin recognized as equivalent in purity and honor. High caste women avoid dilemmas and settle disputes between servants or between masters and servants either indirectly (relaying information about cases in a fashion that directs the verdict by the public authority, the male master) or directly (either settling the case or contravening the master’s faux pas). High caste women privately control productive decisions (directing low caste laborers to their daily tasks). Women of various castes privately control marriage alliance decisions, an essential operation for maintaining social relations of production, to the extent that they weed out wrong candidates and let the males choose the remaining right candidate and communicate the decision publicly.
Low caste persons, both male and female, do this. Low caste women are the offical evidence that the high caste mistress has not transgressed visiting and dining regulations and thus has not spoiled the honor of both the mistress and the servant. Barbers and Washermen are notorious keepers of the boundaries. Marriage brokers traditionally consult them in dubious situations. Before feasts, the family barber is asked whether any alien persons are present and whether any problems exist with the seating arrangements of those present. I have recorded a case where a barber forestalled the marriage of his master’s daughter. Negotiations were nearly complete for an alliance between a high grade but impecunious family and a lower grade affluent family. Relatives of the former family disapproved but were afraid to approach the father, a truculent, fierce man. The barber stalled the marriage by asking the man, “How can I sit down and eat with the barbers of this other family? I would never be able to marry off my four daughters.”
Note that the material and prestige interests of the publicly defined inferiors are clearly on the line in most of these cases., In hierarchical societies, the practical interests of the mistress and those of the servants are defined by the state of the master of the house. Indirectly, and privately, they defend their interests. These defenses help maintain the systems of rules in society. Then the notion of structural dominance becomes more flexible and covers more of the situation if we recognize contributions by publicly defined inferiors to processes of structural dominance. It is not enough to call attention to the private influence of women. This is commonplace. The systemic effects of their contribution to the dynamics of replicating an existing socio-cultural structure by avoiding social dilemmas, discrepancies, and contradictions must also be noted.
One final note is required to link the two parts of this paper. Does this Dravidian Jaffna culture recognize ideologically the controls exercised by public inferiors, in counterpoint to the exaggerated ideological recognition of controls exercised by public dominants? From my research, there are two main ideologically demarcated agents of socio-economic replication. The first is a leader called celvâkku. This is a figure of inner virtues, of immanent powers. The head of the leading family of a village is sometimes called celvâkku. This denotes a descendant of the original village settler, the temple builder. He is the intercessor between villagers and the local divinity, between the villagers and extra-village affairs. Opposed to this figure who is totally involved in worldly affairs is the world renouncer, sannyâsin, the one who has renounced family, caste, and other worldly duties. Both figures are ideologically demarcated. They are endowed with more than human legitimacy to dispel, though not necessarily dismiss, social dilemmas. They innovate and implement “solutions” (camalippu) to “insolvable social dilemmas” (piraccinai). They not only settle particular quarrels but also avoid the recognition of discrepancies between normative codes for human conduct and actual human behavior. Thus they avoid the recognition of contradictions between the cultural order and reality.
But I have been describing the action of women in these terms as well. Is there no ideological recognition for them? Recall from the first part of this paper that the binding and shaving symbolism of life cycle rites for women was interpreted as a double image of women as slaves and as renouncers. Recall that the nullification of a widow as a social non-person was interpreted as an action of involuntary renunciation. Recall the implication of more than human powers stemming from feminine chastity. I would suggest that we are in the presence of a latent ideological recognition of women as agents of socio-economic replication.
There is a theoretical point here. Neo-Marxist scholars label as mystifications those systems of symbols and meanings that undercommunicate the inequities done to inferiors in a ranked and undercommunicate the advantages accruing to their superiors„ What I have done here is to note that advantages enjoyed and control wielded by inferiors in a society may also be undercommunicated. This may be done by latent ideological recognition, by covert mystification that saves face for the public dominants yet winks at the powers of the inferior.
Notes
- Initial research on this topic occurred during my doctoral field research trip to the Jaffna Peninsula in 1966-1970; more specific research took place in 1974 when I studied several social movements. The National Institute of Mental Health provided financial aid for both trips; The American Institute of Ceylonese Studies assisted me during the first trip; the College of Social Science of Michigan State University, the second. Thanks are due to Professors McKim Marriott, Birgitte Jordan, and Soheir Amin Morsy for their critical readings of this paper.
- Even with the omissions, these stages should be gotten on the record because little has been done in the literature on feminine life stages. There exists in Indian Civilization, extensive scriptural definition of life-duty stages for men (varnasramadharma) but none for women. Even when anthropologists attempt to remedy the gap between classic statements and village level representations, there is the tendency to omit the nondominants. Marvin Davis’ study of local representations of male life stages is a worthy corrective to the gap between scriptural statement and indigenous practical representations but does not address female life stages (1976). There exist, of course, many accounts of life cycle rites for women (Yalman 1963, Gough 1955, Obeyesekere 1963, for example), but few that take up the life stages directly (Roy 1973) . We can expect this hiatus to be filled in the next few years in line with increased feminist awareness. When it is, I expect there will be increasing support for the plain point I am making here: that attention to all life stages of South Asian women yields a more complete representation of their varying degrees of subordination and of power throughout life.
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| Figure 1 | ||||||||
| Symbolism of Jaffna Female Life Stages | ||||||||
| Woman as social non-person | ||||||||
| Woman as social person | ||||||||
| Woman as social and sexual person | ||||||||
| Life Stages | newborn | young girl | older girl | virgin | married | married post-menopause | widow | post life spirit |
| Renouncer Features | ||||||||
| Head Spot | Large black spot | None or small red | Small red | Large red | Large Red | Large Red | White | Nil |
| Head Hair | Shorn | Unshorn | Unshorn | Unshorn | Unshorn | Unshorn | Shorn | Nil |
| Pubic Hair | Unshorn | Unshorn | Unshorn | Shorn | Shorn | Shorn | Unshorn | Nil |
| Clothing Color | Colored | Colored | Colored | Colored | Colored | Colored | White | White |
| Power / Enslavement Features | ||||||||
| Clothing Style | Various | Various | Various | Tied Sari | Tied Sari | Tied Sari | Tied Sari | Tied Sari |
| Jewelry | None | Assorted | Assorted | Assorted | Wedding Tali | None | ||
| Head Hair Style | ||||||||
| Associated Code for Conduct | Nil | Slight restriction | Moderate restriction | Highly restrictive | Restrictive | Moderate restriction | Highly restrictive | Nil |
| Red spot implies both sexuality and internal power (sakti) | ||||||||
| A woman’s bangles are removed at her husband’s funeral | ||||||||
[1] This point is critical for understanding kinship in Jaffna. A brother and a sister are one in bodily substance before her marriage. When she marries, she becomes one in bodily substance with her husband. By this change, it is not incest if the children of a brother and of a sister marry. They differ in bodily substance.
[2] When two lineages give and receive brides from one another over generations, you have an alliance between the lineages. Picture two separate chains bound together by chain links.
THIS ARTICLE appeared in Susan S.Wadley, editor. The Powers of Tamil Women. Foreign and Comparative Studies, South Asian Series, No. 6 Syracuse: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 1980
