It is not otherwise. Besides it is because of male- domination that we do not find in our languages no separate term to refer to chastity among men. On this issue it cannot be said that apart from Russia, no religion, country or society has been behaving honestly. For example, in Europe, though it appears that women enjoy several freedoms, within the very conceptual categories used to refer to the male and female, a sense of high and low has been introduced and that the legal framework is also such as to promote women’s obedience to men.
In other societies there are several forms of control still in place: women are to stay behind the purdah, curtain, that is within the four walls and when they venture out, they ought to cover their face; man can marry several women, while the woman simultaneously cannot live with more than one man; once a man-woman relationship is established in our country, as far as the woman is concerned, she is not free till death, while the man, right in front of her can live with any number of women; if a man keeps a woman at home and does not live with her, that woman can expect from him only sustenance and not happiness or fulfillment of her physical desires. Such a situation is sustained and strengthened not merely because religion and law support it but also because it is accepted by the society of women themselves. Just as, because of centuries of practice the so-called depressed classes have accepted that they are indeed depressed and tend to be silent and are ever ready to obey, in the same way the community of women also, considering themselves as property of men, and hence ought to be within their control and avoid becoming target of their anger, are least concerned about their freedom. If women are to be truly liberated, this gender-biased gender- neutral, egalitarian and voluntary practice of chastity is to be established. Forms of marriage, which in the name of chastity force the partners to continue and endure a loveless life should be abolished.
Religion and law which prescribe patience to women in the face of husband’s brutalities should go. The social dictatorship which forces women to suppress their true love and affection, and for the sake of chastity compels them to continue living with some one, should be abolished. It is only where such intolerances do not exist, true, natural and voluntary chastity could flourish among people. On the other hand force, gender- biased moral prescriptions and rules of the strong for the weak, can only bring forth enforced and slavish forms of chastity. And I cannot say that there can be a more detestable situation in human society than this. (Kudiarasu, 8-11-1928).
II-Tiruvalluvar & the concept of chastity
A comrade has responded in a long counter to our essay on chastity with quotations from Tirukkural. Though somewhat agreeing to our suggestion, whether Tiruvalluvar would have written what he has, had he been a woman, he has counter- questioned: would justice become injustice merely because a selfish group does not accept it. In this context it is necessary to demand, whether it is justice to describe women as a whole as a selfish group; and is it not men’s selfishness which makes them write on women’s morality in this way?
The comrade has written that the female ideals of Tamil Nadu, those of the past as well as present, have accepted these ideas. It is another matter, that what these ideas are, has not been explained (by the correspondent). The fact is, that if any one of those female ideals, whoever she might be, had considered herself as slave to the male. That she was in any way lower to him or that femaleness was even an iota inferior to maleness, we would never agree to look upon her as an ideal at all.
Our comrade accuses me that I have spoken contemptuously of our mothers when I said that women accept those ideas because of several generations of practice and that I compared their situation with what obtains among the depressed groups. (To be continued)
