Contractarianism and the Ethic of Care in Indian Fiction

Abstract

Through close readings of recent fiction from English, Hindi and Kannada sources, this paper analyses the feminist ethic of care with reference to adult daughters caring for their critically-ill or dying mothers. The discussion focuses on problems associated with the care ethic and examines some of its assumptions, particularly its inability to account for the emotional complexity of adult caregiving relationships, which can make the invocation of relationality difficult; its focus on responsiveness to needs, such as those of helpless infants, which prevents adequate engagement with ideas of reciprocity; and, finally, its extraction of the caregiving relationship from the network of social and familial relationships in which it is embedded. Alongside my critique of the ethic of care, I will also examine the extent to which mainstream moral concepts, such as rights and contracts, may continue to be relevant to the dynamics of intergenerational relations in old age.

Keywords:

• Intergenerational contract
• maternalism
• reciprocity
• matricide
• India
• ageing
• literature
• women
• mothers and daughters

Notes

  ¹ Rajib Lochan Dhar, ‘Caregiving for Elderly Parents: A Study from the Indian Perspective’, in Home Health Care Management and Practice, Vol.XX, no.X (October 2012), p.1. Also see Leena Mary Emmatty, Ranabir S. Bhatti and Mathew T. Mukalel, ‘The Experience of Burden in India: A Study of Dementia Caregivers’, in Dementia, Vol.5, no.2 (2006), pp.223–32.

  ² E.J. Croll, ‘The Intergenerational Contract in the Changing Asian Family’, in Oxford Development Studies, Vol.34, no.4 (2006), p.478. Although perceptions are changing, it is generally true that even when such services exist, children who allow parents to avail themselves of them are viewed critically. See also M. Larsen, N. Hatti and P. Gooch, ‘Intergenerational Interests, Uncertainty and Discrimination: Conceptualizing the Process of Declining Child Sex Ratios in India’, in Lund Papers in Economic History (Lund, Sweden: Media-Tryck, 2006), p.6.

  ³  Ibid., p.23; and A. Collins and P. Desai, ‘Selfhood in the Indian Context: A Psychoanalytic Perspective’, in T.G. Vaidyanathan and J.J. Kripal (eds), Vishnu on Freud's Desk: A Reader in Psychoanalysis and Hinduism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), p.382.

  ⁴ Sylvia Vatuk, ‘“To Be a Burden on Others”: Dependency Anxiety among the Elderly in India’, in O.M. Lynch (ed.), Divine Passions: The Social Construction of Emotion in India (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990), p.77.

  ⁵ See Dhar, ‘Caregiving for Elderly Parents’, p.6. This prohibition is less applicable to the matrilineal traditions of the South and the Northeast. Also, in the North, the prohibition on a married daughter supporting parents is not uniform everywhere. It is much stronger in Haryana, for instance, than it is in Maharashtra. Also, when a married daughter is an only child, there is a tradition of ghar jamai even in the North: since the daughter stands to inherit everything, she is expected to support her parents and her husband is expected to join her in her parents' house.

  ⁶ Croll, ‘The Intergenerational Contract in the Changing Asian Family’, pp.480–1.

  ⁷ Sudhir Kakar, The Inner World: A Psycho-Analytic Study of Childhood and Society in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), p.57.

  ⁸ Radhika Mohanram, ‘The Problems of Reading: Mother–Daughter Relationships and Indian Postcoloniality’, in Elizabeth Brown-Guillory (ed.), Women of Color: Mother–Daughter Relationships in 20th-Century Literature (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1996), pp.21–2.

  ⁹  Ibid., pp.20–1.

¹⁰  Ibid.

¹¹  Ibid., p.20.

¹² See Ira Raja and Kay Souter (eds), An Endless Winter's Night: Mother–Daughter Stories from India (New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2010).

¹³ Selma Sevenhuijsen, ‘The Place of Care: The Relevance of the Feminist Ethic of Care for Social Policy’, in Feminist Theory, Vol.4, no.2 (2003), p.183.

¹⁴ Tom Cockburn, ‘Children and the Feminist Ethic of Care’ in Childhood, Vol.12, no.1 (2005), p.77.

¹⁵ Sara Ruddick, Towards a Politics of Peace (New York: Ballantine Books, 1990).

¹⁶ ‘Feminist Ethics’, Part 3, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1996) [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-ethics/, accessed 18 Mar. 2007]; and L. Huey-li, ‘Environmental Education: Rethinking Intergenerational Relationship’, in Philosophy of Education (1994) [http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/eps/PES-Yearbook/94_docs/LI.HTM, accessed 8 April 2007].

¹⁷ Eva Feder Kittay, ‘A Feminist Public Ethic of Care Meets the New Communitarian Family Policy’, in Ethics, Vol.111, no.3 (2001), p.528; Samantha Brennan, ‘Recent Work in Feminist Ethics’, in Ethics, Vol.109, no.7 (1999), p.866; Huey-li, ‘Environmental Education’; and C. Whitbeck, ‘A Different Reality: Feminist Ontology’, in Carol Gould (ed.), Beyond Domination (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1983), p.79.

¹⁸ Krishna Sobti, ‘Ai Ladki’ (‘Listen, Girl’), trans. from Hindi by Shivanath, in The Little Magazine (May 2000), p.76.

¹⁹ See ‘Feminist Ethics’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

²⁰ Brennan, ‘Recent Work in Feminist Ethics’, p.866.

²¹ J. Wall, T. Needham, D.S. Browning and S. James, ‘The Ethics of Relationality: The Moral Views of Therapists Engaged in Marital and Family Therapy’, in Family Relations, Vol.48, no.2 (1999), p.139.

²² Virginia Held, ‘Feminist Transformations of Moral Theory’, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol.L, Suppl. (1990), p.342.

²³ See Marcia Westkott, ‘Female Relationality and the Idealized Self’, in The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol.49, no.3 (1989), pp.239–50.

²⁴ K.R. Allen and A.J. Walker, ‘Attentive Love: A Feminist Perspective on the Caregiving of Adult Daughters’, in Family Relations, Vol.41, no.3 (1992), p.284.

²⁵ ‘Feminist Ethics’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

²⁶ Brennan, ‘Recent Work in Feminist Ethics’, pp.861, 865. Also see Cockburn, ‘Children and the Feminist Ethic of Care’, pp.84–5.

²⁷ Githa Hariharan, ‘The Art of Dying’, in Ira Raja and Kay Souter (eds), An Endless Winter's Night: An Anthology of Mother–Daughter Stories (New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2010), pp.186–202.

²⁸ Quoted in Brennan, ‘Recent Work in Feminist Ethics’, p.871.

²⁹ Shashi Deshpande, ‘Lucid Moments’, in Ira Raja and Kay Souter (eds), An Endless Winter's Night: An Anthology of Mother–Daughter Stories (New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2010), pp.175–85.

³⁰ Ruth E. Ray, ‘The Uninvited Guest: Mother–Daughter Conflict in Feminist Gerontology’, in Journal of Ageing Studies, Vol.17, no.1 (2004), p.126.

³¹ Kathleen Woodward, ‘Inventing Generational Models: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Literature’, in Kathleen Woodward (ed.) Figuring Age: Women, Bodies, Generations (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999), p.151.

³² See Suzanne Juhasz, ‘Towards Recognition: Writing and the Daughter–Mother Relationship’, in American Imago, Vol.57, no.2 (2000), p.168.

³³ See A.J. Walker, C. Pratt and N.C. Oppy, ‘Perceived Reciprocity in Family Caregiving’, in Family Relations, Vol.41, no.1 (1992), p.82.

³⁴ Cockburn, ‘Children and the Feminist Ethic of Care’, p.73.

³⁵ Vaidehi, ‘The Confession’, trans. from Kannada by Vanamala Vishwanatha, in Ira Raja and Kay Souter (eds), An Endless Winter's Night: An Anthology of Mother–Daughter Stories (New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2010), pp.250–5.

³⁶ Lori A. McGraw and Alexis J. Walker, ‘Negotiating Care: Ties between Aging Mothers and Their Caregiving Daughters’, in The Journals of Gerontology, Vol.59B, no.6 (2004), p.S325.

³⁷ See Lynn Bennett, Dangerous Wives and Sacred Sisters: Social and Symbolic Roles of High-Caste Women in Nepal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983); and Irawati Karve, Kinship Organization in India (Poona: Deccan College Monograph Series, 1953).

³⁸ Emmatty et al., ‘The Experience of Burden in India’, p.224.

³⁹ Patricia Uberoi, ‘The Family in India: Beyond the Nuclear versus Joint Debate’, in Veena Das (ed.) The Oxford India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), p.1088.

⁴⁰ Westkott, ‘Female Relationality and the Idealized Self’, pp.239–50.

⁴¹ Held, ‘Feminist Transformations’, pp.341–2.

⁴² Brennan, ‘Recent Work in Feminist Ethics’, p.866.

⁴³ Bernadette Bawin-Legros and Jean François Stassen, ‘Intergenerational Solidarity: Between the Family and the State’, in Current Sociology, Vol.50, no.2 (2002), pp.251–2.

⁴⁴ Veronique Munoz-Darde, ‘Rawls, Justice in the Family and Justice of the Family’, in The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol.48, no.192 (1998), p.344.

⁴⁵ Sobti, ‘Ai Ladki’, pp.65–85.

⁴⁶ Westkott, ‘Female Relationality and the Idealized Self’, p.244.

⁴⁷ See Virginia Held, ‘Non-Contractual Society’, in Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol.13, Suppl. (1987), pp.111–38; and Virginia Held, Feminist Morality: Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993).

⁴⁸ Brennan, ‘Recent Work in Feminist Ethics’, p.875.

⁴⁹ Catherine Ward-Griffin, Abram Oudshoorn, Kristie Clark and Nancy Bol, ‘Mother–Adult Daughter Relationships within Dementia Care: A Critical Analysis’, in Journal of Family Nursing, Vol.13, no.1 (2007), pp.13–4.

⁵⁰ Vatuk, ‘To Be a Burden on Others’, p.68.

⁵¹ Sarah Lamb, White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: Aging, Gender and Body in North India (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000), p.46.

⁵² Vatuk, ‘To Be a Burden on Others’, pp.65–6.

⁵³ Bawin-Legros and Stassen, ‘Intergenerational Solidarity’, pp.257–8.

⁵⁴ C.H. Stein, V.A. Wemmerus, M. Ward, M.E. Gaines, A.L. Freeberd and T.C. Jewell, ‘Because They're My Parents: An Intergenerational Study of Felt Obligation and Parental Caregiving’, in Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol.60, no.3 (1998), p.613.

⁵⁵ Bawin-Legros and Stassen, ‘Intergenerational Solidarity’, pp.257–8.

⁵⁶  Ibid., p.258.

⁵⁷  Ibid.

⁵⁸  Ibid., p.257.

⁵⁹  Ibid.

⁶⁰ Vatuk, ‘To Be a Burden on Others’, p.66.

⁶¹ See L.J. Beckman, ‘Effects of Social Interaction and Children's Relative Inputs on Older Women's Psychological Well-Being’, in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol.41, no.6 (1981), pp.1075–86; Joanne M. Pohl, Carol Boyd and B.A. Given, ‘Mother–Daughter Relationships during the First Year of Caregiving: A Qualitative Study’, in Journal of Women and Aging, Vol.9, nos.1–2 (1997), pp.133–49; Stein et al., ‘Because They're My Parents’; McGraw and Walker, ‘Negotiating Care’, pp.S324–32; and Laura K.M. Donorfio and Kathy Kellett, ‘Filial Responsibility and Transitions Involved: A Qualitative Exploration of Caregiving Daughters and Frail Mothers’, in Journal of Adult Development, Vol.13, nos.3–4 (2006), pp.158–67.