No longer good girls: sexual transgressions in Indian women's writings

Abstract

Indian women's writing in English has long depicted Indian women as victims of society, whose rights are routinely exploited and whose welfare and happiness are commonly sacrificed for the good of their families and communities. The literature has often depicted the women as complicit, accepting and upholding the definition of a good woman as one who is faithful, virtuous, self-effacing and obedient. This definition is also one the women instil in their daughters, thus reinforcing this code of ethics. This article observes that there is a tide running contrary to this and that there is a new breed of women in twenty-first century Indian literary fiction in English: women who are single and married, working and non-working, middle and upper-middle class and wives and mothers, who are no longer prepared to be ‘good girls’. These women knowingly, thoughtfully and successfully defy societal conventions to have pre and extramarital affairs, divorces and even custody battles for children, without shame, guilt, dire consequences or even societal condemnation. This article argues that these writings represent a quietly radical departure from the conventional depictions of the roles, expectations and morals of middle-class urban twenty-first century Indian women.

Ya no más niñas buenas: transgresión sexual en la escritura de las mujeres indias

La escritura de las mujeres indias en inglés las ha descripto por mucho tiempo como víctimas de la sociedad, cuyos derechos son explotados rutinariamente y cuyo bienestar y felicidad son comúnmente sacrificados por el bien de sus familias y comunidades. La literatura a menudo ha descripto a las mujeres como cómplices, aceptando y sosteniendo la definición de una buena mujer como aquella que es fiel, virtuosa, modesta y obediente. Esta definición es también la que las mujeres les inculcan a sus hijas, reforzando así este código ético. Este artículo observa que hay una corriente contraria a esto, y que hay una nueva generación de mujeres en la ficción de la literatura india en inglés del siglo veintiuno; mujeres que son solteras y casadas, con trabajo y sin trabajo, clase media y clase media-alta, mujeres y madres, que ya no están preparadas para ser “niñas buenas”. Estas mujeres, a sabiendas, concienzuda y exitosamente desafían las convenciones sociales para tener aventuras pre y extra maritales, divorcios, e incluso batallas por la custodia de sus hijos, sin vergüenza, culpa, consecuencias terribles o incluso condena social. Este artículo sostiene que estos escritos representan una partida silenciosamente radical de las descripciones convencionales de los roles, las expectativas, y las morales de las mujeres indias de clase media urbana del siglo veintiuno.

不再当好女孩：印度女性书写中的性逾越

印度女性的英语写作，经常将印度女性描绘成社会中的牺牲者，她们的权利总是受到剥夺，而她们的福祉与幸福则通常为了家庭与社群而牺牲。这些文献经常将女性描绘成共谋者，接受并拥护忠诚、贞洁、谦逊、顺从的好女人之定义。女性亦将这些定义加诸在她们的女儿身上，因而强化了这些道德符码。本文则观察到一个与上述现象相反的趋势，此即在二十一世纪印度的英文文学小说中产生了新的女性类型；此类女性无论是单身或已婚、工作或无业、中产或中上阶级、身为妻子或母亲，皆不再准备成为“好女孩”。这些女性刻意、深思熟虑且成功地反抗了社会传统价值，拥有婚前或婚外情、离婚，甚至争取子女的监护权而不必感到羞耻、内疚、承担悲惨的后果甚至是社会谴责。本文主张，这些作品暗中激进地背离了二十一世纪印度中产阶级都会女性的传统女性角色、期待与道德叙述。

Keywords::

• Indian women writers
• modernity
• new Indian women
• sexual autonomy

Palabras claves::

• mujeres escritoras indias
• modernidad
• Nuevas Mujeres Indias
• autonomía sexual

关键词::

• 印度女性作家
• 现代性
• 新印度女性
• 性自主

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank the GPC editorial team, especially Robyn Longhurst and Gemma Parsons for their careful editing of this article.

Notes

^1. For an extended analysis and discussion on the autonomy of the unmarried New Indian Woman, see Lau (2010).

^2. Srilata (1998) outlines Good Tradition and Bad Tradition, Good Modernity and Bad Modernity: ‘The middle-class woman, constructed through the discourses of the social reform movement, followed a set of practices deemed as Good Tradition to attain a Good Modernity. Her modernity (of which her education was an important marker) was coded as good because it was pressed into the service of tradition. Much of what went under the name of Bad Modernity (such as romantic love and the wearing of western clothes) was out-of-bounds for her. What was tabooed as Bad Modernity for the woman of the social reform movement is recast as Good Modernity in the present context. The New Woman has an easier relationship with modernity’ (Srilata 1998, 307).

^3. With homes both inside and outside India.

^4. The narrative is developed by Virmati's daughter who herself having left her husband is tracking the story of her mother's life.

^5. The period just prior to India's independence, India in the 1930s and 1940s.

^6. Discounting Astha's two crushes and some kissing experience.

^7. Kapur's third novel, Home (2006), is not extensively discussed here because although it did feature a discontented middle-class woman, its theme was not sexual transgression as a move towards greater autonomy. Home illustrates the intricacies for an unwed young woman of living in a joint family. The protagonist longs for a meaningful career, but is forced into waiting for marriage. Her family provides identity and direction, but few freedoms (sexual or otherwise), trapping the woman in the ‘good girl’ model.

^8. The novel also features Marikolanthu who loves her mistress so much that she becomes first her mistress' lesbian lover, then prostitutes herself to her mistress' husband to keep him from straying. It must be noted that Marikolanthu is not a middle-class woman, but a servant and of the poorer/lower classes. From the novel's context, her sexual experiments/transgressions are not regarded in the same light, seeming somehow less transgressive. This may well be a comment on the class system, on the part of the author.

^9. With Rishi Soman, a wannabe actor.

^10. That said, Smriti in LF is a cautionary case in point that if convention is flouted unthinkingly and naively, there can still be danger and dire consequences for the women, who despite middle-class status, are still exceptionally vulnerable, particularly to the less law-abiding, as well as non-middle class sections, of their community.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Lau

Lisa Lau is the Human Geography Program Director at the School of Geography, Geology and the Environment at Keele University, UK. Her research areas include postcolonialism, literary studies, gender studies and South Asia, encompassing the issues of power, narrative, identity construction, class chasms, social and cultural change. Lisa is the co-editor of Re-Orientalism and South Asian Identity Politics: The Oriental Other Within (Routledge, 2011) and Power and Narrative (Narrative Inquiry, John Benjamin's Publishing Company, 2008).