GENDER, CASTE AND MARRIAGE:

KULINISM IN NINETEENTH CENTURY BENGAL

Aishika Chakraborty

Brahmani: Don’t go outside today. We have anauspicious celebration at home.Kishori: An auspicious celebration? What is this, ma?Won’t you tell me?B: Of course, I’ll tell you. Today is your marriage.K: (bewildered) Marriage? What is that ma?B: My child, don’t you know what is marriage? It isthe most important samaskara (sacrament). K: Oh God! Will I have to eat it then?B: Is marriage an eatable thing, my child? A handsomegroom will arrive to marry you all. There will becelebrations. Don’t you realize (the significanceof) such an event? 1

This opening conversation is an extract from a popular

prize-winning play, Kulin Kula Sarvasva authored by Ramnaryan

Tarkaratna. Published in 1854 and running into three

editions within six months, the play was staged for the

first time in March 1857. This dramatic travesty on kulinism

preceded the first legislative petition against polygamy and

was a major pointer towards the nineteenth century male

obsession with Hindu marriage. In this dialogue, Brahmani,

harangued her 8-year-old daughter, Kishori, on the

sacramental gravity of marriage, keeping her guessing about

the ‘taste’ of the momentous ritual. Spelling out its

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magnitude, Brahmani could have added further that marriage

was only one among ten shastric rites (dasakarma), which a

woman was allowed to perform with complete Vedic rites as it

would remove ‘the taint of seed and womb’ for the

regeneration of man. The symbolic rites of marriage, more

complex than the other sacraments in life, was regarded as a

transformative action that purified the living body,

especially the female body, initiating it into new status

and relationship by giving it a new birth. The cycle of a

woman’s life hence began with marriage, leading directly to

the ‘impregnation rite’ (garbadhan), ‘causing birth to a

male child’ (pum-savana), with the penultimate goal of

‘attaining heaven’ (moksha).2

Kishori’s was not a solitary case in Bengal. Norms of

marriage emerged increasingly unyielding for many such women

belonging to the kulin society, where constraints of ritual

purity, ranked status and caste norms, embedded in the

texture of Brahminic marriage, enjoined the father of the

daughter to marry her into a higher or equal rank. A kulin

husband, on the other hand, ‘neither cohabited nor abandoned

their wives, neither superseded nor neglected them’ while

the sanctity of marriage remained irrevocable for the woman,

with the onus of caste, religion and genealogical norms

squarely placed on her, forever. By nineteenth century

either as an unmarriageable spinster or as an unclaimed wife

or as one of a countless number of widows of a polygamous

2

man, the kulin woman emerged from the margins of the Bengali

Hindu society as an awkward social category.

The first bit of this paper explores the construction of

marriage as an inviolable samaskara as scripted in Hindu

dharmashastras. It brings together some of the scriptural,

ethnographic and historical discussions, hinged on the twin

(often dichotomous) axes of scripture (shastra) and custom

(achar), which overlapped, at times, with that of scriptural

mandate (vyavastha) vis a vis actual practice (vyavahara). The

focus is on kulinism, which emerged as a local issue

restricted among a section of Bengali upper castes, spawning

myriad intricacies relating to norms and patterns of

marriage, caste and gender. Stepping back for a while the

next part maps out the ‘mythical’ trajectory of kulinism—how

it emerged, what it was, what it was believed to be, and

what evils followed from the system.

Inextricably braided with child marriage, polygamy, early

and enforced widowhood and prostitution—kulin polygamy was

feeding into major tropes of the social reform movement in

India. The last segments focus on how the discussions on

kulinism echoed the wider concerns on conjugality, family,

women’s lives and sexualities, much of which were being

constituted through prolix debates among the colonial state,

reformists and traditionalists. From legal debate to popular

reflections, kulin wives, the paper concludes, like other

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categories of women, remained a ‘site’ for the contestation

between modernity and tradition.

Marriage in Ancient Texts: The Rise of a Samaskara ‘Are marriages made in heaven?’ As far as Hindu marriages

were concerned, the answer was an emphatic ‘yes’. The

distinctive feature of Hindu marriage, agreed most

commentators, was that it was neither a contract (as in

Islam), nor did it have any civil ramifications (as in Roman

law3/British law). It was a spiritual union between two

souls, a samaskara or sacrament for woman, deriving its

irrevocable character from scriptural sanctions whose

effects were indelible. Hence, in deciding disputes over

marriage, the dharmashastras prevailed over juridical

preferences.

But even dharmashastras were not in accord with each other in

scripting norms and patterns of marriage. It seems that the

institution was influenced by varying environments of

various communities and even the same community had

different standards of sexual morality at different times.4

While there was no indications in Vedic works about a

society in which relations of the sexes were promiscuous and

unregulated5, nineteenth century reformist tracts upheld

that in the early Vedic era, there was ‘freedom in marriage’

and even women enjoyed a plurality of husbands6. This

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probably accounted for a range of marital forms—polyandry,

polygyny and female descendance. Pressures of narrowing

definitions of ‘legitimacy’, which might have emerged as a

strategy of exclusion, in the context of rival political

claims or of property inheritance, dictated stricter control

over women. An increasing insistence on wifely fidelity led

to the erosion of freedom of women. Male polygamy was

sanctioned, even encouraged, to beget sons, while for a

woman marriage was a rite that she could undergo only once.

‘The gift of the daughter’ assumed key significance to this

end. Hindu Dharmashastras carried these imperatives to their

logical, if not, extreme, consequence. Texts of Manu, Vyas,

Vishnu together with Kamasutra and Grihasutras described ad

nauseum the guidelines of ‘choosing a bride’. Apart from

detailing a number of physical and behavioral properties,

Purvamimansha disallowed a man to marry his sagotra, sapravara

and sapinda woman, thus delegitimizing exogamous, incest

marriage.

In an attempt to organize and classify the entire gamut of

heterosexual arrangements—from celibacy to the grossest

polygamy, Manusmriti and Kautilya’s Arthashastra elicited as

many as eight forms of marriage from the existing plethora

of sexual arrangements.7 They declared Brahma, Daiva, Arsha and

Prajapatya as the four approved forms while Asura, Gandharva,

Rakshasa and Paisacha were dubbed as the disapproved four.8

Kautilya christened the first four as dharma and the rest as

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sulka (or adharma) marriages, while they were also identified

as ‘spiritual’ and ‘secular’ respectively. In sulka

marriages, the girl was not ‘given away’ as a ‘gift’ to the

bridegroom; rather, the payment of sulka probably compensated

the loss of the services rendered by the daughter,

indicative of her economic value in society. The post-

marital payment of sulka played a role in the social sanction

of the otherwise illegitimate, Gandharva, Rakshasa and Paisacha

norms. The girl was probably mature at the time of marriage

and her consent to the union (especially in Gandharva)

played a direct role. These marriages were contractual in

nature and their dissolutions were allowed on the ground of

dvesa (aversion). In these disapproved forms, rights of women

with regard to property were somewhat emphasized, as opposed

to the approved (dharma) marriages, which were unequivocal

about male interests.9

The notion of ‘transaction’ (neither sacrament nor

unilateral gift) was embedded in all marriage patterns, many

of which involved an exchange price (pana). In the dharma

marriages, daughters should always be ‘gifted’, and the

‘gift’ was never to be offered empty-handed. A man must

adorn and gift his daughters at least with a libation of

water. Inextricably linked with property rights of women and

female inheritance, pana came to receive greater importance

in Hindu marriages. Over time, the property of the bride

6

(stridhana), offered by her father, turned into a prerogative

and demand of her husband.10

Reinventing Hind Marriage: A Nineteenth Century

Agenda Even though much of marriage maxims are supposed to hark

back to the ancient dharmashastras, and its ritual and

ceremonial modalities can be traced back to pre-colonial

vernacular literatures11, the reinvention of a ‘universal’

Hindu marriage as a sacrosanct tradition was largely a

nineteenth century phenomenon. Three factors were at work in

1 Ashutosh Bhattacharyya, ed. (1959) Tarkaratna, Ramnarayan, Kulin Kula Sarvasva, Calcutta: Modern Book Agency, 29-30. All translations from Bengali sources are mine.2 The sacramental nature of marriage as central to caste and rank formations and kinship of Bengali society and culture was brilliantly elaborated by Ronald Inden whose work exerts considerable influence on the social-anthropological research on marriage till date. Inden, RolandB. and Ias, Ralph W. (1977) Kinship in Bengali Culture, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 36-37.3 Marriage was also considered the seventh sacrament of the Roman Catholics. See Thomas, Paul. (1939) Women and Marriage in India, London : George, Allen and Unwin Limited, 9. 4 Thomas, ibid, 10.5 Kane, Pandurang Vaman (1941, reprint 1990) History of Dharmashastra, Ancient and Medieval, Religion and Civil Law in India, Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. 6 Sharma, Ishwarchandra, (first published October 1855) (1972) ‘Bidhaba Bibaha Houya Uchit Kina Etadvisayak Prastab, Dwitiya Pustak’, Gopal Halder ed., Vidyasagar Rachana Sangraha, 2, Calcutta: Vidyasagar Smarak Jatiya Samiti, 95-96.7 Kane, Dharmashastra, Vol II part I, (reprint 1997), 516-525.8 Gopalkrishnan, T.P. (1957) Hindu Marriage Law, Allahabad, 42; Mukherjee, Prabhati (1978) Hindu Women, Normative Models, Calcutta: Orient Longman, 52-54. 9 Mukherjee, ibid, 54-57.10 Ibid, 110.

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fashioning its reconstitution, which went hand in hand,

almost in a parallel fashion.

The foremost was the colonial drive to set down the First

Census of India. The purpose was to classify the people of

India, with reference to their castes, creeds, ethnicity and

religion. To enable their entry into the blanket form of

Hindu marriage and into the colonial jural status

‘irregularities’ in marriages were now flattened as the

British sought to erase the diverse practices in favour of

‘regular/irregular’ and ‘high/low’ divisions. In opening the

chapter on marriage and caste in India, Herbert Risley, the

Director of Ethnographic Survey of India, remarked, ‘among

the various causes which contribute to the growth of a race

or the making of a nation by far the most effective and

persistent is the jus connubii—the body of rules and

conventions governing marriage.’ Fascinated by the

diversities of Indian marriages he said, ‘…the more

eccentric the system, the more marked are the consequences11 The customary rituals (achara), performed in a Bengali ‘Hindu’ marriage, including adhibas, nandimukh sraddha, sampradan, kusandika etc. foundelaborate mention in medieval mangalkavyas like Mansamangal, Dharmamangal, Annadamangal, Padmapurana etc. which showed an yarn of continuity in social and cultural practices embedded in Hindu marriage from the pre-colonial to the colonial period. For its pre-colonial evidences see Chakraborty, Smritikana (2004) Bangla Mangalkavya: Pucchagrahita O Moulikata, Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Calcutta University. Theceremonials of Hindu marriage emerged as a major issue of debate among Brahmo reformers of nineteenth century Bengal, leading to the Act III orthe Special Marriage Act of 1872, which sought to spurn off, among many other things, unnecessary ritual exhibitions of Hindu marriage. Chakraborty, Aishika (2008-2009) ‘Contract, Consent and Ceremony: The Brahmo Marriage Reform (1868-1920)’, Journal of History, 26, Jadavpur University.

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it tends to produce.’12 These eccentricities were written

into taxonomic exercises towards the close of the nineteenth

century. While registering the civil condition British

surveyors of the Census directed a simple question to each

person—‘Are you married?’13 In recreating caste patterns,

marriage, as a major determinant, came to receive overriding

importance. It was further observed that among Hindus,

marriage ‘is as universal as it can be: the only classes

that remains generally unwed are those who do not want to

marry, such as faqirs, prostitutes and so on’.14 Hindus,

however, ‘cannot marry outside their endogamous groups or

within their exogamous groups’ observed the officers. A

woman was debarred to marry down her caste-rank and high

caste widows were forbidden to re-marry. In compensation, a

man had the privilege of marrying more wives than one at a

time, if he wanted.

The India Report of 1901 made an attempt to decode the complex

rules of marriage. One set of rules, it observed, ‘contracts

the circle within which a man must marry’—dependent on the

law of endogamy, forbidding inter-caste marriage; another

set ‘artificially expands the circle within which he may not

marry’—law of exogamy, which was determined by the Gotra or

the ‘group of agnates’ and ‘the third imposes special

12 Risley, Herbert (1915) Crooke W. (ed.) reprint 1969, The People of India, Delhi: Orient Books Reprint Corporation, 154. 13 Turner, A.C. Census of India (1931), United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, Part1, Report, Allahabad, 1933, 289. 14 Blunt, E.A. Census of India, 1911, Part 1, Report, Allahabad, 1912, 207.

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disabilities on the marriage of a woman’, called hypergamy.15

Hypergamy (marrying up), forbade a woman to marry a man of a

lower social/caste standing was found fully developed among

the Bengali Kulins, Rajputs and Nayyars in varied forms.16

In 1921, Rivers argued that Hypergamy arose in a situation,

where the invading superior community did not object to take

daughters from the indigenous clans, but refused to give

daughters to lower ranks and used their politico-military

strength to prevent deviance. The Hindu’s cultural concept

of blood purity and its preservation through their women

reinforced the idea of hypergamy that was entwined with

ritual purity and religious status.17

How did the nineteenth century indigenous thinkers react to

these colonial exercises? The material suggests that there

was a dynamic interplay between colonial ethnology and

Indian, and especially Bengali, intellectual endeavours.

British and Bengali writers had taken up, almost

simultaneously, the task of uncovering the history of castes

and tribes, both agreeing to rotate around the central pivot

of marriage. To the colonized literati, the search for a

past became the search for a ‘self and identity’, where the

‘history’ of Hindu marriage was perceived as the beginning

of a ‘history of the nation’.18 15 India Report, 1901, 421, cited in Blunt, E. A. H. (1911) Census of India,1911, XV, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, II, Allahabad, 1912.16 Risley, H.H. (1891) Tribes and Castes in Bengal, Ethnographic Glossary, Calcutta:Bengal Secretariat Press, 1, 144-48, 440-42.17 Rivers, W.H.R. (1921) ‘The Origins of Hypergamy’, Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Society, 7, 9-24, cited in Inden, 6.

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From the 1870s, a vast corpus of vernacular tracts sought to

trace the beginning of Hindu (Bengali) ‘nation’ drawing new

contours around marriage and family. The leading works were

Banger Jatiya Itihaas (National History of Bengal) and Viswakosh

(World Encyclopedia) by Nagendrantah Vasu, Bangalar Samajik

Itihaas (Social History of Bengal) by Durgachandra Sanyal and

the landmark publication of Sambandha Nirnay, Banger Jatisamuher

Samjaik Britanta (Settling Relations: Social and Cultural

history of Castes of Bengal) by Lalmohan Bhattacharyya

(alias Vidyanidhi) and Fakir Chand Dutt.19 In writing the

history of the ‘nation’, they assiduously dug into the

‘local peculiarities’ and ‘caste-idiosyncrasies’ of Bengali

Hindus as Brahminic caste-network was hinged on a proper

reciprocity in marriage. In determining caste ranks they

vied with Risley and Gait to produce an overwhelming concern

with kin-formation, caste ranking and ritual status –all

collapsed into the unique marriage norms of kulinism.

These enterprises found support in one intellectual voice of

contemporary Bengal—Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who once

lamented, ‘Bengal has no history; what it has, is…only

18 For a more detailed discussion on the emergence on modern history-writing in Bengal, see Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments, Colonial and Post-Colonial Histories, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1994, 76-115.19 Vidyanidhi, Lalmohan (first published in 1874-75, Fourth Edition, 1916) Sambandha Nirnay, Banga Desiya Jatisamuher Samajik Britanta, Calcutta: Manik Chandra Bhattacharya; Vasu, Nagendranath (first published 1998, 2nd ed. 1911) Banger Jatiya Itihaas, 1, Calcutta, the Author; Vasu, Nagendranath (1886-1911) Viswakosh, reprint 1988, New Delhi: B.R. Publishing Cooperation, Sanyal, Durga Chandra and Dutt, Fakir Chand (1911)Bangalar Samajik Itihaas, Calcutta: Fakir Chand Dutta.

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fictions, biographies of foreign, heretic extortionists.’20

He deplored, ‘When Europeans go for hunting birds that

becomes history. But a country that produced Udayanacharya,

Raghunath and Chaitanya, has no history!’21 A very different

stand was taken by another leading intelligentsia,

Rabindranath Tagore, who was not so happy about the

contemporary trend towards genealogical elaborations through

divisive lines of caste and clan (sreni-gain-gotra-prabar) which

went down as national ‘history’ imagining India as an

monolithic whole. Tagore rather asked to explore alternative

sources of history to reveal the diversities of the

nation.22

Tagore’s proposal had not many takers. As caste and

genealogical records, of the period, marked by cultural

nationalism, afforded the entry-point into the social and

cultural history of the ‘nation’, the caste community (jati)

was now extended to the race (jati) in which ethnic, regional

and caste identities were fused with the identity of the

nation (jati).

The nineteenth century historians had another agendum. The

sudden upsurge of caste histories by kulin Brahmins/ Kayasthas

could also be seen as a direct response to a third factor,

20 Chattopadhyay, Bankim Chandra (First Published in 1880 in Bangadarshan, reprint 1972) ‘Bangalar Itihas Sambandhe Kaekti Katha’, Bankim Rachanabali, 2, Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, 336-340.21 Chattopadhyay, Bankim Chandra (First published in 1872 in Bangadarshan) ‘Bangalar Itihas’, Bankim Rachanabali, ibid, 330-333.22 Tagore, Rabindranath (1899) ‘Aitihasik Chitra’, Rabindra Rachanabali, (1961), 13, Calcutta: Government of West Bengal, 479.

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triggered by the predominance of the emergent merchant class

or baniks in the commercial activities of the colonial

metropolis. In nineteenth century, Brahmins, seated in the

apex of the caste-hierarchy, were increasingly losing their

grounds to the economically flourishing lower-caste merchant

community, headed by Subarnabaniks, Kangsabaniks or Gandhbaniks—

the traditional Sudras. Most of the mythical anecdotes about

kulinism thus carried ‘classical’ evidences of social infamy

and caste degradation of Subaranabaniks, doomed under

Vallal’s chastisement.23 By the twentieth century, however,

counter-evidences of caste claims were forwarded by the

banik community in their emergent caste organs like

Subarnabanik Samachar, Gandhabanik Patrika and Tambuli Patrika.

Drawing from Vedic and Puranic texts and especially from

medieval texts like Chaitanya-Charitamrita and Manashamangal

they put together a unique set of rank-formations to counter

and commensurate the brahminic version of kulinism.24

The Origin of Kulinism—Myth and History

23 For a detailed account of the caste degradation and social marginalization of Subarnabaniks see Sanyal, Bangalar Samajik Irihaas. 24 The chief aim of the banik community was to counter the ‘stories’ of their caste-degradation documented by 19th century brahminic sources and to reclaim status among the upper castes of Bengal. They drew on historical evidence to demonstrate the existence of Chaturashram (four stages of life)–Desh, Sankha, Abat and Satrish compared with the Vedic Varnashram. See Nrisinghapada Dutta ed., (1916) Subarnabanik Samachar; Abinash Chandra Das ed., (1905) Gandhabanik Patrika; Jogendranath Singha and Rajendranath Som ed., (1914) Tambuli Patrika etc.

13

Sources on Kulinism are rather sparse. A particular body of

genealogical records, variedly termed as kulaji, kula-panjika and

kulashastras, collated by ghataks or matchmakers, who codified

rules regarding ‘exchange of daughters’ in marriage were

used liberally by contemporary chroniclers as the primary

source on kulinism.25 In the course of the next century,

the use of kulashastras may have fallen into relative disuse;

they continued to be influential within social, especially

caste, movements. In 1885, Mahimchandra Majumdar who first

enumerated the genealogical texts in the bibliographical

outline of his book, Gaude Brahman, listed two types of

kulagranthas compiled by the Rahri and Varendra ghataks.26 Among

the Rahris, Dhrubananda Mishra, Mishracharya, Phulia

Kulabarnan, Vachaspati Mishra Ghatak and Ramhari Tarkalankar

composed the leading texts while Varendras had Kulapanjika,

Gainmala, Bhaduri Kulabyakhya, Dhakur Ba Karanadir Byakhya and Nigura

Grantha.

Twentieth century historians, committed to empirical history

writing, contested the veracity of kulashastras as a historical

document. Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay27 and Ramaprasad Chanda28

ruled them out in constructing any serious history while few

like Haraprasad Sastri29 and Dinesh Chandra Sen30, endorsed

their validity. Though ambiguous about the genealogy-based

history, Ramesh Chandra Majumdar named only two kulashastras—

25 Vidyanidhi, Sambandha Nirnay, 2.26 Majumdar, Mahimchandra (1885) Gaude Brahman, cited in Majumdar, Bangiya Kulashastra.

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Edumishra Karika and Harimishra Karika as the most ancient and

authentic, of which the first found mention in Nulo

Panchanan’s early sixteenth century chronicle, Gosthi Katha.31

Sources were many and varied, with none offering an

unilinear story. The term ‘kulin’ first occurred in

Chandogyoponishada, denoting a high-born man and Medhatithi

described Kulin as a high-class, educated man.32 The more

recent accounts on kulinism, though obscured in mystery,

were similar in its chief elements. After the ‘evil’ king,

Vena, came Adisura, the ‘good’ king, who restored order in

marriage re-instituting the muddled-up caste ranks. The

‘auspicious’ order remained, with its new name, kulinism.

Vallala Sena, coming after the Pala interregnum, was

credited with the systematic regulation of kulin ranks, by

restoring brahminism in Bengal. A final codification came at

the close of Laksmana Sena’s rule, which could be seen as a

response to the arrival of the Muslims.33 But the process of

codification was never quite complete; it continued in fits

27 Bandyopadhyay, Rakhaldas (1917) Vangalar Itihaas, Calcutta: Gurudas Chattopadhyay and Sons. 28 Chanda, Ramaprasad (1912) Gaudarajamala, V1, Rajshahi, Varendra Anusandhan Samiti.29 Shastri, Haraprasad (1895) Bharatbarsher Itihaas, np: Calcutta. 30 Sen, Dinesh Chandra (1934) Brihat Banga, Calcutta: University of Calcutta. 31 Majumdar, Bangiya Kulashastra.32 Vasu, Viswakosh, IV, 306.33 Roy, Niharanjan (1949), Bangalir Itihaas, Adi Parba, Calcutta: The Book Emporium, 211-216; Murshid, Ghulam (1984) Samaj Samaskar Andolan O Bangla Natak, 1854-1876, Dacca: Bangla Academy, 89-90.

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and starts throughout the next few centuries and up to the

nineteenth century.

The real breakthrough took place when Adisura, desiring to

perform a putresthi jajna, for be-getting sons, decided to fetch

five qualified (sagnik) Brahmins from Kanauj since brahminic

rituals had long fallen into disuse under the Buddhist Palas

and indigenous Brahmins had forgotten proper modes of Vedic

sacrifice.34 This momentous event, however, cannot be

historically validated. Neither Kalhan’s Rajtarangini nor Abul

Fazal’s Ain-i-Akbari or a more contemporary account by

Rajendralal Mitra—could ascertain the historicity of

Adisura.35 Confusion also marred the actual date of the

arrival of immigrant Brahmins as Dutta Vangsamala and

Rajendralal Mitra dated their advent around ninth or tenth

century while Kshitish Vangsabali, Vachaspati Mishra and

Bhattagrantha placed it at least after a century.36 Albeit its

uncertainty, Vidyasagar offered an interesting description

of the arrival of Brahmins; the five came on horseback,

wearing long, stitched robes and leather shoes, chewing

betel leaves in the most ‘uncouth’ fashion—much to the

consternation of the god-fearing king. Adisura was soon to

be convinced, however, of their magic power as they brought

alive a dead wooden plank.37 The magic worked in keeping up

the royal line as well.

Adisura soon settled immigrant Brahmins with their wives and

servants, conferring both the highest ranks among their own

16

castes.38 The five were allotted in five separate villages

called Panchakoti, Kamakoti, Harikoti, Kankogram and Vatagram,

subsequently they spread over the territory with their

fifty-six sons. Their successors were defined as kulins of

fifty-six gains or headships of villages, an exclusive

privilege, which could not be encroached upon by the seven

orders of indigenous Brahmins, now specified as Saptasati

Brahmins.39

While Harimishra Karika said that immigrant Brahmins came with

their Kanaujia wives and servants, Rahri and Varendra Kulakarikas

maintained that they came alone and later married indigenous

Saptasati women before settling down in Bengal. Once they

died, the former wives and sons rushed from Kanauj to stake

claims on status and resources of their co-wives and

stepbrothers. Following an internecine feud, sons born to

Saptasati mothers settled in the Rahr (West and Central) Bengal

and the Kanaujia descendents opted to dwell in the Varendra

34 Mishra, Dhrubananda, Kayastha Karika, cited in Vasu, Viswakosh, 3, 595. 35 Vasu, Viswakosh, IV, 307 and III, 595.36 Cited in Vasu, Viswakosh, III, 590.37Sharma, Ishwarchandra (hereafter Vidyasagar) (first published, 1871-2,1972), ‘Bahubibaha’ , Vidyasagar Rachana Sangraha, 180. 38 According to the Rahri kulacharyas, five Brahmins were named as Bhattanarayan (Sandilya), Daksha (Kashyapa), Chandara (Vatsya), Shriharsha (Bharadwaja) and Vedagarbha (Savarna), Vidyasagar, ibid, 179-180. To the Varendras they were Narayan, Sushen, Dharadhar, Goutama and Parasar, belonging to the same Gotras. Edumishra, Harimishra, Devivara and Mahesh,however, dubbed them as Kshitish, Beetaraag, Sudhanidhi, Medhatithi and Souvari bearing similar set of Gotras. Vasu, Banger Jatiya Itihaas, 103; Majumdar, Ramesh Chandra (first published serially in Bharatbarsha, Kartic-Phalgun, 1939, reprint 1973), Bangiya Kulashastra, Calcutta: BharatiBook Stall, 44.39 Vasu, Viswakosh, XVIII, 402; Vidyasagar, ‘Bahubibaha’, 182.

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region (Eastern Bengal).40 According to Hunter’s Statistical

Account, Brahmins first settled in Bikrampur near Dacca and

then immigrated to other areas.41

How do these stories fit in with more recent historical

research? The saga of settlement had its overlaps with the

history of migration depicted by Ronald Inden42 and Richard

Eaton43. Both have suggested that patterns of Hindu

migration moved from west to east over time since the east,

because of higher rainfall, was more heavily forested. Kulin

immigration to and within Bengal might have followed the

same trajectory. The first kulin endowments were given in

the fertile western Rahr, the new claimants had to move east

and northern Varendra. The Saptasati Brahmins were probably

pushed eastwards to new settlements. This suggests an

eastward-sloping gradient of ritual status with higher mark

associated with north and west and lower ranks with the less

settled east.44

Setting sights on rank revision Vallala Sena (1158 A.D.-1179

A.D.) introduced the ‘wholesale reform’ of kulinism.45 He

was credited not only for dividing Brahmins into two

40 Vasu, ibid.41 Hunter, W.W. (1876, reprint 1973) A Statistical Account of Bengal, V, Delhi, 53.42 Inden, Ronald B. (1976) Marriage and Rank in Bengali Culture, A History of Caste and Class in Middle Period Bengal, California: University of California Press; Inden, and Ias, Kinship in Bengali Culture. 43Eaton, Richard M. (1994) The Rise of Islam and The Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 44 Ibid, 19. 45 Hunter, Statistical Account, 54.

18

geographic factions but also Sudras into four sub-castes:

Uttara, Dakshina-Rahri, Banga and Varendra. The compulsion may

have been demographic, a result of the expansion of the

communities. Since Brahmin and Kayastha, sitting at the top of

the caste hierarchy, could extend professional and symbolic

supports to the new Hindu dynasty their allegiance was of

some significance to the Senas trying to establish order

after the long Buddhist interregnum.

The increasing importance of Brahmins, as priests, office-

holders, administrative personnel and landholders, prompted

a new focus on reordering their ranking, and regulating

purity. Vallala with his famous inquiry into personal

endowments of Rahri Brahmins first brought into existence the

system of ranking within the kulin caste hierarchy.46 The

Dakshina–Rahri Kayastha text catalogued nine in-born qualities

(Acaravinayavidya Pratisthatirthadarshanam nishthavritti tapadana nabadha

kulalakshanam) as the touchstones of the kulin sacerdotal

purity. Apart from good conduct (achar), humility (vinaya)

and knowledge (vidya), a kulin should have unending

achievements (pratistha), pilgrimages (tirthadarshana), devotion

(nishtha) and understanding of his occupation (vritti),

generosity (dana), and austerities (tapa).47

Over time, a tenth attribute – avritti (proper reciprocity in

marriage) supplanted vritti, surpassing the other nine. Avritti

46 H.H. Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, 1, Ethnographic Glossary, Calcutta, 1981, 145; Peterson, J.C.K. (1910) Bengal District Gazetteers: Burdwan, Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, 60.47 Vacaspati, ‘Kula Sarvaswa’, cited in Vasu, Banger Jatiya Itihas, 115.

19

emerged the central axis of kulinism as kula or the ‘coded

bodily substance’ (to use Inden’s expression) was to be

preserved primarily by proper marriage transactions and

reproduction.48 It signified four separate actions

pertaining to marriage—adan (proper acceptance of daughter),

pradan (proper gift of daughter), kushatyag (to gift a grass

effigy in the absence of a daughter) and ghatakagre pratigya

(to make a verbal gift of daughters before the match-

maker).49 While the ‘exchange of daughter’ on both sides

remained crucial to maintain the caste-standing it was the

‘gift of the daughter’ (pradan) to a proper and higher kulin

that acquired unprecedented importance over time.

Based on these nine (more accurately ten) ritual perfections

Brahmins were classified into three orders – kulins (real or

proper), srotriyas and gauna (inferior) kulins.50 To trim down

further the elite order, Laksmana Sena (1179 A.D.-1206 A.D.)

selected only nineteen families as true-blue kulins, with

two ranked orders: kulins and srotriyas.51 Once the kulin

hierarchy was created, internal competition for ritual and

social status resulted in periodic reordering of ranks, a

process of elite-formation that became endemic in the

history of kulinism.

48 Inden, Marriage and Rank, 60-61.49 Vidyasagar, ‘Bahubibaha’, 182-183; Vidyanidhi, Sambandha Nirnay, 8-9.50 Vidyasagar, ibid, 184.51 Karlekar, Malavika (1996) ‘Reflections on Kulin polygamy: Nistarini Debi’s Sekeley katha’, Patricia Uberoi ed., Social Reform, Sexuality and the State, New Delhi: Sage Publishers, 137.

20

The advent of Turkish rule signalled an abrupt end to the

political patronage of kulins. The ‘tragic’ interregnum,

which arguably ruined the ‘coded bodily substance’ of Hindus

by improper mixing,52 led to an elaborate reshuffling of

kulinism. By the thirteenth century, the Bengali kulins

became divided into five classes (srenis): Kulin, Srotriya, Bangsaja,

Gauna and Saptasati. Srotriyas were again subdivided into Siddha

(pure), Sadhya (those capable of attaining purity) and Kasta

(those who could attain purity with difficulty).53

Contrary to the popular belief, (which was even publicized

by Vidyasagar in his treatise on polygamy) kulinism was not

confined to Brahmins alone. Three families of Vaidyas,

belonging to Dhanwantari, Madhukulya and Kashyap Gotras, were

also made kulins and the kulin system was even stronger

among Kayasthas. Under Vallala, Rahri Kayasthas were endowed

with the kulin status while his son elevated the rest two,

Varendra and Bangsajas, ranking them at a par with the Rahris.

Divided into two factions—Dakshina (southern sect) and Uttara

(Northern sect), thirteen hundred Dakshina Rahri Kayasthas had

undergone a profound and multi-layered rank reformation in

fifteenth century Bengal. Gopinath Vasu, alias Purandar

Khan, the finance minister of Hossain Shah, systematized

rank rules (kulabidhi) by introducing the navaranga kula or nine

ranked grades. According to Nagendranath Vasu, the nine

orders were mukhya, kanistha, chha-bhaya, madhyangsa, teoja, kanistha

52 Inden, Marriage and Rank, 73.53 Vidyanidhi, Sambandha Nirnay, 10.

21

dwitiya putra, chha-bhaya dwitiya putra, madhyangsa dwitiya putra and teoja

dwitiya putra.54 Lalmohan Vidyanidhi, with a slight variation,

enumerated them as mukhya, janmamukhya, barimukhya, kanistha chha

bhaya, madhyangsa, teoja-kanistha, dwitiya putra chha bhaya, dwitiya putra

madhyangsa and dwitiya putra teoja.55 The eldest son of mukhya kulin

was called janma-mukhya and occupied the highest rank by

dint of his birth. The mukhya rank was further sub-divided

into three sections—prakrita, sahaja and komal.

There has been little historical research into actual rules

of kulin Kayastha marriage. It appears that the hierarchy

could be best maintained by proper and marriage reciprocity

among the nine ranks. A steadfast adherence to the norms

elevated a family to the status of Navaranga kul and a lapse

cast him off from his clan (utkhat).56

The nine-ranked caste hierarchy (navaranga kula)

of Dakshina Rahri Kayasthas

1. Mukhya

Mukhya

Janma-Mukhya

2. Kanistha

Kanistha

54 Vasu, Viswakosh, IV, 334.55 Vidyanidhi, ibid,122-125. 56 Ibid.

22

3. Chha-Bhaya

Chha-bhaya

4. Madhyangsa

Madhyangsa

5. Teoja

Teoja

6. Kanistha dwitiya putra

Kanistha dwitiya putra

7. Chha-bhaya dwitiya putra

Chha-bhaya dwitiya putra

8. Madhyangsa dwitiya putra

Madhyangsa dwitiya putra

9. Teoja dwitiya putra

Teoja dwitiya putra

In nineteenth century Bengal, the practice that led to

hypergamy among Kayasthas was called Adyaras, which allowed a

kulin Kayastha to take wives from a Maulik (lower Kayasthas)

caste in case of second or subsequent marriages.57

Kailasbasini Devi lamented over predicaments of Maulik

families ‘who wilfully drain this bitter cup of bigamy and

forever endure the extreme agony that results’.58 Dinabandhu

23

Mitra, the most prolific playwright of nineteenth century

Bengal, penned a number of dramatic farces on the excesses

of kulinism. Mitra’s Jamai Barik played up the awful effect of

Adyaras on a bigamous kulin Kayashtha, Padmalochan, caught in

a tight spot in his in-law’s house.59

The significant finishing touch on rank classification came

from Devivara, a ghatak or genealogist of fifteenth century

Jessore. Devivara re-grouped kulins not on the basis of

their merits (guna), but on their shared demerits (dosa),

dubbed as Mels. His rule—‘Dosanmelayateti Melah’ went to

embrace kulin groups with matching defects (‘Doso jatra kulang

tatra’). He divided kulins into thirty-six separate Mels,

corresponding to their ‘loss of marks’. In his tract,

Vidyasagar held Devivara responsible for rampant polygamy,

since the Mel restrictions on marriage replaced the

relatively liberal sarvadwari vivaha (open marriage).60 In a

similar fashion, Udayanacharya Bhaduri divided the Varendra

Brahmins into eight Patees and Kaap based on transgressions

in marriage relations.61

57 Vasu, ibid, 347-348. 58 Devi, Kailashbasini (first published 1863) ‘Hindu Mahilaganer Heenabashtha’, Calcutta :Gupta Press, in Malini Bhattacharya and Abhijit Sen ed. (2003) Talking of Power, Early Writings of Bengali Women from Mid Nineteenth Century to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century, Calcutta: Stree, 28.59 Mitra, Dinabandhu. (1872) Jamai Barik, in Brajendranath Bandyopadhyaya and Sajanikanta Das ed. (1946-1947), Bangiya Sahitya Parishat: Calcutta.60 Vidyasagar, ‘Bahubibaha’, 188.61 Vidyanidhi, Lalmohan (1909) Visheskanda, Calcutta: Manik Chandra Bhattacharyya, 355, 357-359.

24

According to Louis Dumont, hypergamous marriage within

kulinism operated at three levels. First, kulin men could

marry within the thirty-six Mels as well as from different

srotriya families; second, kulin women had to marry kulin men;

and third, non-kulin women could only marry non-kulin men.62

These hypergamous rules enjoined a kulin woman to marry

within her own rank, while her srotriya and bangsaja sisters

had a wider option to marry either into their own ranks or

into the upper orders. A kulin man, on the contrary, could

take wives from any of these ranks in lieu of money.

Pattern of Hypergamous Marriage among Kulin Brahmins

A. Kulin man

Kulin woman

B. Srotriya man Srotriya woman

C. Bangsaja man Bangsaja woman

This diagram (produced by Risley) shows how hypergamous

marriages worked in Bengal. Supposing women of each caste

group to be evenly distributed among the castes they were

62 Dumont, Louis (1970) Homo Hierarchichus; the Caste System and its Publications, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 15.

25

entitled to marry into, Risely argued, the result would

leave two-thirds of women in the A group without husbands

and two-thirds of men in the C without wives. But in

practice, he explained, the system did not work in such a

mechanical fashion. There were several ways of redressing

this unequal proportion of the sexes to make it artificially

straight. One approved way was female infanticide, as

practiced among Rajputs in Western India and another was

‘wholesale polygamy’, practiced by Bengali kulins.63

As marriage provided a means of upward mobility for low

ranked families the more successful srotriya and bangsaja

families could move upwards by ‘purchasing’, in one form or

another, higher caste sons-in-law. Within this constrained

economy, kulin women, forbidden to ‘marry down’, failed to

marry at all if they could not meet the demands while kulin

men found it more rewarding (economically) to marry down the

ladder. Contemporary accounts talked about one such category

of kulin woman, called the tri-kulin woman, who were doomed to

lead a life of ‘enforced spinsterhood’. Equally doomed were

the bangsaja men, at the lowest rank of hierarchy, who were

destined to lead lives of enforced bachelorhood.

The unwieldy predicaments faced by the bansgaja kulins incited

much popular raillery in contemporary writings. Kaliprasanna

Singha’s Hutom Pyachar Naksha described the charitable gesture

of a Calcutta baboo, who sponsored marriages of 50 bangsaja

63 Risley and Crooke, People of India, 165.

26

kulins before celebrating his own son’s marriage. Since such

philanthropic gestures were of rare occurrence, bangsajas

were forced to purchase brides, even outside their caste-

ranks. Kailasbasini Devi offered numerous varieties of

bangsaja marriages. ‘Some sell off their assets, fixed and

mobile’ to get a wife, she said. ‘Some purchase three-or-

four year old girls at a few hundred rupees and kick the

bucket before the girls reach twelve or thirteen.’ Some

married little girls and brought home their mothers as well.

Kailashbasini even hinted at some kind of a polyandrous

arrangement among bangsajas, ‘sometimes four or five brothers

may have a Pandava-like marriage and the girl may have

several unmarried elder brothers-in-law’.64

The purchase of bride acquired central importance in

nineteenth century chronicles, hinting at ‘shocking’

evidences of caste miscegenation due to the dubious lineage

of the brides. The phenomenon of Bharar Meye (boatload of

girls, to be purchased for the purpose of marriage) in the

late eighteenth century offers multiple readings. As the

individual genealogy of the drifting girls could not be

established, a popular story related how a bangsaja man

inadvertently married a Muslim girl from one of these boats

and hushed it up for fear of social ostracism. This

indicates a much more dynamic interaction of castes and

64 Devi, Kailashbasini, ‘The Woeful Plight’, 36

27

communities through marriage than was suggested by

nineteenth century writers or colonial ethnographers.

Colonial and indigenous sources unanimously held that

polygamy was the monopoly achievement of a unique category

of kulins, called Bhanga kulins. Literally the break-away

kulins, they emerged from voluntary or accidental rank

degradation and relinquished status by marrying outside

their clan ranks in lieu of huge monetary gains. To the

bhangas went the credit of turning marriage into an

occupation as they were the most sought after grooms by all

three ranks of kulin women.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, Hunter

described the practice of kulin marriage as a ‘sanctified

revelry’65. There was no limit to the number of wives a

kulin man could have. The Deputy Collector of Dacca reported

to Hunter that there was in Bikrampur a kulin with more than

a hundred wives, while his three sons had 50, 35 and 30

respectively.66 In 1838, Jnananeswan, the journal of the Young

Bengal, published a list of the number of wives married to

kulins living in different parts of Bengal.67 Samachar Darpan

recorded the death of Gobinda Chandra of Bali, who died

leaving ‘no fewer than one hundred weeping widows’.68 The

65 Hunter, Statistical Account.66 Hunter, ibid 55. 67 Jnananeswan, 23 April 1838, in Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay ed. (1941) Sambad Patre Sekaler Katha, 2, Calcutta, Bangiya Sahitya Parishat, 252-253.68 Friend of India, (5.12. 1839) cited in Basu, Swapan (2003) Sangbad- Samayikpatre Unish Sataker Bangali Samaj, 2, Calcutta: Pashchimbanga Bangla Academy, 171.

28

highest number, however, was of 180 wives, as mentioned by

Krishna Mohan Banerji in Calcutta Review.69 In his tract on

polygamy produced in 1871, Vidyasagar produced a long list

of kulin Brahmins with their ages, addresses and number of

marriages, which showed that in the Hooghly district alone,

197 kulins had performed 2,288 marriages.70 Bholanath

Bandyopadhyay topped the list with a total of 80 wives,

trailed closely by Bhagaban Chattopadhyay with an

outstanding 72.71

Though it was not known when kulin polygamy assumed its

exaggerated form, ‘by the early years of nineteenth

century’, Tapan Raychaudhuri argued, ‘it was a fact of

Bengal’s social life’.72 Polygamy was said to be restored as

the sole capital to many kulins who used to go around the

country, seeking out bangsaja or bhanga fathers with

marriageable daughters, who were willing to pay for their

pedigree. According to a contemporary report by Abhay

Chandra Das, kulin men used to keep a ‘register’ in which he

entered names of villages where he married. Risley noted

that ‘at the commencement of cold weather, each would start

on his connubial tour, with his memo-book, and after

collecting money…return home at the beginning of summer to

spend the year in his village’. Risley’s assumption that the69 Banerji, K.M. (1844) ‘The Kulin Brahmins of Bengal’, Calcutta Review, II,3, 14.70 Vidyasagar, ‘Bahubibaha’, 201-208.71 Ibid, 206.72 Raychaudhuri, Tapan (2000) ‘Love in a Colonial Climate: Marriage, Sexand Romance in Nineteenth -Century Bengal’, Modern Asian Stuides, 34, 2, 354.

29

practice of ‘connubial tour’ had died out by the twentieth

century, was countered by a contemporary observer,

Girindranath Dutt, who claimed to find it in full swing in

East Bengal.73

The economy of kulin marriages not only involved the ‘gift

of a maiden’ but also offerings of wealth. The honorarium

paid to kulins was called maryada and a special payment

charged by the husband if he kindly agreed to sleep with his

wife was called sajjya grahani or bed price. A popular Bengali

film, Amodini, directed by Chidananda Dasgupta, in

recreating the nineteenth century play, Kulin Kula Sarvasva,

showed a kulin wife lamenting over her husband’s refusal to

spend the night as she failed to meet the bed-price. Since

the profit from marriages kept escalating, polygamy became

widespread in rural Bengal. In 1870, Hunter claimed that the

normal rate extracted by the kulin for his first marriage

was two thousand rupees. The amount gradually decreased with

subsequent marriages.74 An advance payment (bayna) was

demanded by a kulin on his verbal commitment to marry. In

her autobiography, Nistarini Devi remembered her betrothal

to a pedigreed kulin with a lump some bayna75. Vidyasagar,

with a more detailed account of transactions, argued that

kulin men agreed to ‘visit’ their wives on promise of

73 Cited in Risley and Crooke, People of India, 167.74 Hunter, ibid.75 Devi, Nistarini, (1982) ‘Sekele Katha’ in Naresh Chandra Jana, Manu Janaand Kamal Kumar Sanyal, ed., Atmakatha, 2, Calcutta: Ananya Prakashan.

30

payment, and usually acceded to the highest bidders. Indeed,

kulins lived on the ‘salary’ or ‘fees’ for marital

‘visits’.76

The onset of the twentieth century witnessed one interesting

development within the hypergamous marriage where graduate

grooms slowly replaced high-born kulins. The trend was not

towards polygamy, but towards an enhancement of dowry. The

university standard became a more powerful engine of

oppression than the so-called ‘Ballali’ kulinism. ‘A

bachelor of Arts, if he is also a bachelor in life …be he a

kulin or a Maulik or Achal’, Risley informed, had the

capacity to get the most beautiful bride with a cash demand

of Rs. 4000.77 The obsession with ‘caste’ purity might not

have disappeared altogether, but this time vritti (occupation)

of the bridegroom became an additional accessory to

compliment his demands in marriage. These ‘neo kulins of the kali

era’ were on high demand from all classes of Bengali

bhadraloks as Sulabh Samachar provided the market price of the

educated ‘kulins’. A groom with a M.A. degree, the paper

reported, could go and get a possible catalogue of demands,

including diamond ring, gold chain, gold watch, silver

utensils, and 700-800 grams of gold jewelleries along with a

cash demand of RS. 2000-3000.78 Risley’s investigation into

the twentieth century traces of kulinism also unfolded a

76 Vidyasagar, ‘Bahubibaha’, 197.77 Risley and Crooke, People of India, 167.78 Cited in Basu, Sangbad-Samayikpatre, 49-50.

31

scathing report of marital torture and atrocities, faced by

the bride and her family, failing to meet the dowry

demands.79

Towards ‘Sanctified Revelry’: Legislating Kulin

PolygamyThe legal battle against kulin polygamy was one of the most

half-hearted ventures of nineteenth century, sporadically

waged by a handful of reformers. In 1836, Friend of India noted

the elusiveness of reformers to pressgang the government

against polygamy. The following year saw Beharilal Dey

beseeching a legal measure against the time honoured system

in Samachar Darpan80, while in 1842 Akshaya Kumar Dutt voiced

a similar demand.81 The first petition seeking legal

intervention came in 1855 from Baboo Kishorichand Mitra and

the Samajonnati Bidhayini Suhrit Samiti. On 17 December of that

year, barely two months after the submission of his petition

on widow remarriage, Vidyasagar forwarded a similar appeal

to ban polygamy.82 While his earlier petition comprised more

than five thousand signatures, this time he was able to

convince barely 127 signatories from all parts of Bengal

79 Risley and Crooke, People of India, 168.80 Samachar Darpan, 4.3. 1837, cited in Basu, Sangbad-Samayikpatre, 169.81 Dutt, Akshaya Kumar (Aug-Sept, 1842) ‘Adhibedan’, Bidyadarshan, 568-571, cited in Murshid, Samaj Samaskar, 103. 82 WBSA, General Miscellaneous, proceeding nos A 24-25, January 1867, and proceeding A3, June 1866.

32

with one from Benares, which laid open the frail popular

base of the movement.

At the outset, the state rejected the possibility of the

legal prohibition of polygamy. They found polygamy almost

universal, practiced by the largest proportion of all

classes, as both Hindoos and Mohamedans, were ‘in a position

to maintain a plurality of wives’.83 On 7 February 1857, a

hesitant administration introduced a bill, which was again

dropped as the Mutiny followed soon. Six years later, in

1863, around 1580 signatories from Bengal sent a petition to

A.G. Macpherson, Deputy Secretary to the Government of

India, for legislating against polygamy.84 Writing to

Colonel Durand, Rajah Deo Narain Singh of Benares attributed

the postponement of administrative intervention into

polygamy to the ‘disastrous’ events of 1857. He observed,

[T]here is a class of Brahmins in Bengal, calledcoolins, with whom the sacred rite of matrimonyhas been notoriously degraded to a system ofshameful traffic. These men, for the sordid gainof some paltry sum, visit village after village,accepting the hands of scores of maidens, thegreat majority of whom are destined never toenjoy the blessings of a wedded life. 85

After a gap of ten years, when the government appointed a

seven member committee to consider the case once again, the

panel was divided. While C.P. Hobhouse, H.T. Princep, Sutto

83 Ibid.84 NAI, Home-Legislative, Proceeding nos 4-8, December 29, 1863. 85 Ibid.

33

Churn Ghosal and Ishwar Chandra Surma endorsed legislation,

some Bengali members like Ramnauth Tagore, Joykissen

Mookerjee and Degumber Mitra recorded their objection. They

held the practice being confined within just a fraction of

the population of Bengal and the catalogue of crimes being

infinitesimally small.86

Objections were raised from within the Bengali literati.

Vidyasagar’s one-time friend Dwarkanath Vidyabhusan wrote in

Somprakash against the legislation.87 But the most eloquent

rejoinder came from none other than Bankim Chandra

Chattopadhyay.88 Comparing Vidyasagar with Don Quixote,

fighting a shadow enemy, he declared polygamy a ‘dead

monster’. Questioning the veracity of the lists provided by

Vidyasagar, Bankim retorted, ‘I doubt whether one among ten

thousand Hindus is polygamous!’ How could an all-India

legislation against polygamy ignore Muslims, he wondered.89

Bankim’s arguments were echoed by many Hindu nationalists of

early twentieth century, spurting off deep rooted anxieties

over demographic imbalance between Hindus and Muslims as the

latter had the religious sanctions to practice polygamy.

Some of these anxieties are not over yet!

86 NAI, Home-Legislative (A), proceeding nos 25-26, March 1867, 26, Report on Hindu Polygamy, 2-9. 87 Vidyabhusan, Dwarkanath (Sravan, 1871) ‘Bahubibaha Houa Uchit Kina?’ Somprakash, 30.88 Chattopadhyay, Bankim Chandra (1972) Bankim Rachanabali, 2, Calcutta:Sahitya Samsad, 314-318.89 Ibid, 315-317.

34

On 23 February 1867, the Bengal Government acknowledged the

impossibility of a legal ban on polygamy, but urged an early

solution to the problem. The bill, it was pointed out, was

flawed on two counts. First, polygamy was already in decline

and did not need such urgent legislation. Second, a Bengal

phenomenon, largely concentrated in a few districts of

western Bengal, did not merit all-India legislation. With a

searching analysis of some contentious cases of nineteenth

century India, Samita Sen argues that after 1857 the

government turned away from its ‘benign paternalism’ leaving

marital arrangements to the family, community and religion

sharpening the ‘gender asymmetry already embedded in Hindu

marriage’. This allowed men to marry any number of wives, to

keep all of them or to drive away some, but a woman’s entry

into marriage remained everlasting and undying. The British

agreed, Sen maintains that in the Indian context, women were

monogamous, but men were not, and the latter had to be and

ought to be allowed polygamy.90

Kulinism resurfaced once again in early 1907 in the

editorial pages of The Times, when Sir Henry Cotton

categorically denied any traces of polygamy in Bengal. He

recorded that the practice, which ‘appeals to brahmins of

the mendicant and priestly classes of small means’ had

completely died out. Cotton, however, raised a question,

90 Sen, Samita (2008-2009) ‘Religious Conversion, Infant Marriage and Polygamy: Regulating Marriage in India in the Late nineteenth Century’, Journal of History, 26, Jadavpur University, 99-145.

35

‘why does not the Congress which professes to act as a body

anxious to reform all matters’…‘apply itself to such social

matters of the highest importance?’ ‘Why does not it

commence its work at home before it stirs up matters of

political controversy?’91 Surely the Congress agenda, at

this hour, did not entail a marriage reform.

Cotton was soon to be challenged by Sir Henry Princep, who

put forward a ‘painfully different’ experience with

substantial evidences to prove on the contrary. ‘It is hard

to kill a social custom when bound up and interwoven with

the material interests of still a very influential class,’

supported John Christian, who added, polygamy ‘still

flourishes or still in vogue’ in some ‘dark corners’ of the

country. George Birdwood, while frowning upon the

‘lethargized discernings’ of opponents of reform, also

slammed the ‘inconsiderateness and unreasonableness’ of the

petitioners for ‘tacitly stigmatizing the kuladharma as

outrageous and degrading’.92

One remarkable reaction came from the contemporary British

novelist, George Bernard Shaw, who voiced against the ‘gross

insularity’ with which the subject had been discussed by

simply applying standards of English morality to the native

marriage system. He argued, ‘Kulin polygamy is unfamiliar:

therefore, it shocks us’, but ‘very few of us are trained to

distinguish between the shock of unfamiliarity and genuine

91 Risley and Crooke, The People of India, 423, 425.92 Ibid, 427.

36

ethical shock’. According to Shaw, ‘Bengalis attach great

importance to their children being well-bred. So do we.

English parents use their social opportunities to put their

daughters promiscuously in the way of young men of their own

caste’ in the hope of getting them married. ‘The Bengali

father selects a picked man—a Brahmin, representing the

highest degree of culture and character of his class and

pays him 700 pound to enable his daughter to become the

mother of a well-bred child’. He concluded, ‘It is certainly

not unreasonable and not inhuman’.93 Far from degrading the

race, Shaw assumed that kulinism was aimed at improving it,

breeding numerous children of fine physique exploiting

fertilities of Bengali women.

Kulin Women: Transgressions and Reclamations Shaw did not realise that even the limited aim or purposive

reproduction was not really met by Kulinism. It was assumed

that a Kulin with too many wives to service would send a

substitute, often a low caste barber (a napit). Thus many

kulin wives did not have any children; many had children

with men who were not kulin. And again, the marriage of

kulin woman, if it happened at all, often remained

unconsummated. Like some of the child widows of the times, a

kulin wife was condemned to sexual death.

93 Ibid, 428.

37

There was a widely shared belief that kulin wives sometimes

practiced clandestine prostitution. The term kulin-putra (son

of a kulin) was often used as a verbal abuse.94 Contemporary

journals were replete with skits and farces about sexual

transgressions of kulin wives. Samachar Sudhabarshan described

the dilemma of a young kulin man who was stupefied to

receive an invitation to his six-month old son’s annaprasan

(rice-giving ceremony), without paying a single visit to his

wife after marriage. The young kulin was consoled by his

not-so-surprised father, who had been asked to preside over

the upanayan (sacred thread ceremony) of his adolescent son,

without meeting his wife even once after marriage.95

Abortions or foeticides, committed by kulin wives, were not

also infrequent. Vidyasagar observed that parents of kulin

women were complicit with myriad desperate measures to hush

up such ‘accidents’.96 When such measures were not mastered

carefully, kulin women were left with no alternative but to

live on prostitution. Researches by Ratnabali Chatterjee and

Sumanta Banerjee had brought to light the fact that a major

percentage of Calcutta prostitutes were comprised of kulin

unmarried girls and wives.97 According to an earlier

investigation by Usha Chakraborty, out of twelve thousand94 Courtesy, Amulya Ratan Chakraborty.95Samachar Sudhabarshan, (27 April 1855) Benoy Ghosh ed., (1966) Samayikpatre Banglar Samaj Chitra, 3, Calcutta: Papyrus, 133.96 Vidyasagar, ‘Bahubibaha’, 195.97 Chatterjee, Ratnabali (1992) ‘The Queen’s Daughters: Prostitutes as an Outcast Group in Colonial India’, Report, Bergen: Chr. Michelsen Institute; Banerjee, Sumanta (1998) Dangerous Outcaste, The Prostitute in NineteenthCentury Bengal, Calcutta: Seagull, 77-78.

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prostitutes in mid-nineteenth century Calcutta, ten thousand

were listed as kulin widows and wives.98

In 1842, Vidyadarshan carried a letter from an anonymous

prostitute of Mechobazar, an abandoned wife of a much-

married kulin, who wilfully swept away from the path of

devotion under severe sexual pangs.99 The autobiography of

the eminent Brahmo reformer, Sivanath Sastri, told the story

of Thakomoni, who was rarely visited by her kulin husband.

Young and unprotected, she took to prostitution under the

enticement of a local man.100 Sexual transgressions of kulin

wives/widows did not always go past silently, without

creating a furore in society. In 1861, Jayakali, a widow of

a polygamous kulin, Ramgopal Bandyopadhyay, inherited the

property of her husband as the sole heiress of the deceased.

Six years after her husband’s death, when Jayakali gave

birth to a daughter ‘out of the blue’, she was sued by

Matangini, her stepdaughter, demanding that the unchaste

widow must forsake her husband’s property in favour of his

daughter. While the case clearly evidenced against the

‘character’ of the widow, the colonial legal bench, headed

by Peacock and Barnes, gave their judgements in favour of

the ‘unchaste’ widow arguing that under the Hindu law of

inheritance, any property, once inherited by a widow, could

98 Chakrabarti, Usha (1963) Condition of Bengali Women in the 2nd half of 19th century Bengal, the Author: Calcutta, 97.

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not be confiscated on grounds of ‘unchastity’.101 The liberal

stance of the state in this case, otherwise busy in

monitoring and punishing abortions and infanticides

committed by widows, takes us by surprise.

Not all kulin women and widows were, however, keen on sexual

adventures. Rather prone to stake claims on their survival

and livelihood, quite a few kulin wives moved to court

against their husbands demanding rights to maintenance. An

earliest example of such a case was recorded in the Friend of

India in 1843 where a kulin wife sued ‘her husband to make

provision for her support’, and subsequently won the case.

The newspaper optimistically looked forward to a day when

such ‘half a dozen judgments’ ‘would soon put a stop to the

species of polygamy’.102 Such a day might not have remained a

distant dream when in 1870, in a landmark case Lakshmi

Narayan Mukherjee was dragged to court by one of his wives,

Krishtomonee Devi. The Judiciary ruled in favour of the wife

sentencing the kulin man to jail for his failure to provide

maintenance for his wife.103

While these women moved independently against their

husbands, many kulin women were rescued from forced

marriages or enforced celibacy by contemporary reformers,99 Anonymous (1842) ‘Edeshiya Strilokdiger Byabhicharer Karon’, Vidyadarshan, reproduced in Ghosh, Samayikpatre, 20-21.100 Sastri, Sivanath (1918, reprint 1982) Atmacharit, Calcutta: Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, 171. 101 Cited in Bandyopadhyay, Sumanta (2008) Unish Sataker Kolkata O Saswatir Itar Santan, Calcutta: Anustup, 152-153.102 Friend of India, (1843) cited in Basu, Sangbad-Samayikpatre, 527.103 Bengalee (1870), cited in Basu, ibid, 528.

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especially by the Brahmo liberals. In 1880, Brahmo Public

Opinion ‘rejoiced to find a Society for the suppression of

kulinism’ at Khalia in East Bengal.104 The Brahmo agenda

included exogamous, inter-caste marriages and widow

marriages which had a special thrust on kulin women.105 Most

of these marriages were preceded by a string of exciting

events—escapades of prospective brides, elopement,

conversion, and a number of court cases. Rukmini, a Brahmin

widow, escaped from her village to marry a heretic Brahmo,

Gurucharan Mahalanabish, who later established a home for

destitute kulin widows and women and arranged several other

marriages. Netyakali Gangopadhyay, a Hindu Brahmin widow

from East Bengal, ran away with her three minor children to

join the Brahmo Samaj. Even after repeated appeals, she

refused to return to her family, and later gave her

daughters in marriage outside her caste.106

But none of the escapades was as dramatic as that of

Bidhumukhi Mukhopadhyay. Hurdling past a number of court

cases between 1870 and 1871, the marriage produced a stir

from the court room to the contemporary media. Bidhumukhi,

an 18-year-old kulin girl of Dacca, refused to marry a man

who already had thirteen wives. She was living with her

mother, Durga Sundari, who was one of the twenty wives of104 Cited in Basu, Sambad-Samayikpatre, 189.105 Report on the Administration of Bengal, Bengal Secretariat press, Calcutta, 1883, cited in Murshid, Ghulam (1983) Reluctant Debutante: Response of the BengaliWomen to Modernization, 1849-1905, Sahitya Samsad, Rajshahi University Press, Rajshahi, 172-173. 106 Sen, Sudakshina (2002) Jiban Smriti, Calcutta: Dey’s Publishing, 58.

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her husband, and stayed at her natal home like many kulin

wives of her time, under the guardianship of her uncle,

Shrinath Halder.107 When Halder arranged her marriage with a

polygamous kulin, Bidhumukhi refused to comply with her

guardian’s wishes. As she feared the marriage might take

place against her ‘consent’ she escaped with the aid of her

Brahmo maternal uncles, Barada and Sarada Halder.108

Bidhumukhi was subsequently converted to Brahmoism and as

she reached the cut-off age of 21, denoting her adulthood,

Bidhumukhi married Rajaninath Roy.109 Keshab Sen officiated

at the marriage, which was celebrated in 1874 in accordance

with Act III.110

Bidhumukhi’s escapade not only went against her guardians

and family, but against a collective choice of her caste,

community and society that had forced upon a marriage

against her will. The crossover was symbolic of the journey

undertaken by a woman, who dared to disown her roots in the

caste-based, Hindu Brahminic society to reach out for a new

life.

Kulinism and Popular Reflections

107 WBSA, General-Ecclesiastical, Proceedings of the Lt. Governor of Bengal, 1-5, September 1872, from Baboo Durgamohan Dass, Registrar of Marriages under Act III of 1872 to the Secretary to the Government of Bengal, 49-51.108 Ibid; Bamabodhini Patrika (October-November, 1870) 87, 6, 211. 109 Gangopadhyay, Prabhat Chandra (1997) Banglar Nari Jagaran, Calcutta: Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, 62-64.110 Sen, Jibansmriti, 66.

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In popular representations of nineteenth century Bengal,

which staked a share in the legal campaign on the movement,

the kulin woman remained central. Rashbehari Mukhopadhyay

composed many such songs where he beseeched the Lieutenant

Governor to mitigate the trauma of kulin wives. In another

song, composed by Ramchandra Chakraborty, kulin women stood

united in their appeal to a higher authority, Queen

Victoria, asking her to appoint Lord Campbell to defeat the

lynchpins of Vallal Sen. ‘We don’t need any battalion, nor

do we seek bombardment, we beseech a legal relief. Our

commander-in-chief is Vidyasagar, Rashbehari will be his

lieutenant, and we, the kulin women, will fill up the ranks

of soldiers’.111

The period between 1850s and 1870s witnessed several plays,

written and staged, by contemporary writers/artists. The

most prolific among them was Dinabandhu Mitra, who censured

kulinism in a number of his satires like Sadhabar Ekadasi

(1866), Biye Pagla Buro (1866), Leelavati, Sambandha Samadhi (1867),

Vallali Khat (1867), Jamai Barik (1872) and Nabin Tapaswini (1877).112

Among other literary creations there were Narayan Chattaraj

Gunanidhi’s Kali Kautuk, Ambika Charan Basu’s Kulin Kayastha,

Lakshmi Narayan Chakraborty’s Kulin Kanya Ba Kamalini, Haridas

Bandyopadhyayy’s Kulin Kahini Nabanyas 113 and Kusumkumari Debi’s

Snehalata (1891)114. There were also a number of plays against

111 Cited in Ghosh, Benoy (first published 1957, reprint 1984), Vidyasagar O Bangali Samaj, Calcutta: Orient Longman, 293-294.

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bride-price or purchase of daughters in marriage, such as

Harish Chandra Mitra’s Kanyapan ki Bhayanak and Bholanath

Mukhopadhyay’s Koner Ma Kande Takar Putuli Bandhe.115 None could

match, however, the popularity of the first play, Ramnarayan

Tarkaratna’s Kulin Kula Sarvasva.

Not all representations of the period, especially the so-

called elite representations, were critical of kulin

polygamy. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, himself a twice-

married Hindu Brahmin, expressed contradictory sentiments in

his novels. In ‘Debi Choudhurani’, published in 1884,

Brajeswar married thrice by the age of 21, and his grand

father had 63 wives.116 In ‘Kapalkundala’, Nabakumar was a

bigamous Brahmin and his sister, Shyamasundari, was a

neglected wife of a much-married kulin.117 However, Prafulla

(in Debi Choudhurani) and Padmabati (in Kapalkundala), both

abandoned or outcast kulin wives, were able to live

independently, one as a dacoit and another as a Muslim

concubine. The journey of these kulin women was indeed

fascinating!

112 All the plays are reprinted and edited by Brajendranath Bandyopadhyayand Sajanikanta Das (1946-1947), Calcutta: Bangiya Sahitya Parishat.113 Bandyopadhyay, Haridas (1885) Kulin Kahini Nabanyas, Calcutta: Amarnath Chakraborty. 114 Debi, Kusumkumari (1891) Snehalata, Calcutta: Rajendralal Gangyopadhyay. 115 Cited in Murshid, Samaj Samaskar, 89-198.116 Chattopadhyay, Bankim Chandra (first published1884) ‘Debi Choudhurani’,Bankim Rachanabali, 1, 746.117 Chattopadhyay, Bankim Chandra (first published 1866) ‘Kapalkundala’, Bankim Rachanabali, ibid, 106.

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While Bankim never castigated polygamous heroes of his

novels, ‘limited polygamy’ was defended by some writers on

the grounds of family necessity. Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay who in

one of his earlier essays, ‘Dwitiya Daar Parigraha’, condemned

polygamy as a social evil, changed his stance in

‘Bahubibaha’, where he characterized monogamy as selfish and

jealous possessiveness and glorified bigamy or polygamy as a

mark of versatile love.118

By the late nineteenth century within some urban and

educated middle class families, the grip of kulinism however

slackened. Debendranath Tagore, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar and

Kishori Chand Mitra preferred monogamy. Reformers like

Sivanath Sastri and Rashbehari Mukhopadhyay were forced into

multiple marriages by their orthodox guardians.119 While

Rashbihari assiduously struggled with Vidyasagar to uproot

polygamy from Bengal, Sivanath went to the extent of

arranging a second marriage for his second wife

Birajmohini.120

Conclusion

Kulin polygamy was on its last legs by the late nineteenth

century even though the colonial state failed to legislate

on the subject. Demographic changes combined with shrinking

economic resources, made polygamy unviable. Urban Bengali118 Mukhopadhyay, Bhudeb (first published in 1875 in Education Gazette, 1939) Paribarik Prabandha, Calcutta: Visvanath Trust Fund, 152-155.119 Sastri, Atmacharit; Murshid, Samaj Samaskar, 185-187.120Shastri, ibid, 87-94, 105-106; Ghosh, Vidyasagar, 293.

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bhadraloks came to prefer monogamy; a second wife was taken

only in case of the first wife’s death, barrenness, or

inability to bear a son. One more factor that prevented a

second marriage (even after the first wife’s demise) was the

newly invented ideal of pativratya, or wifely devotion. Such

an ideal invited some reciprocity from the husband who was

now prone to set aside co-wifery from the ambit of his newly

fashioned companionate conjugality. Terms like ‘henpecked’

or ‘uxorious’ were introduced at this time to describe

amenable husbands in Bengali households. By the turn of the

last century excesses of kulin polygamy declined and

abandoned kulin-wives slowly disappeared from Bengal’s

social map. Polygamy, however, continued to be legal and a

common practice among Hindu men, until it was outlawed in

1956.

This paper is an extract of my unpublished Ph.D. thesis ‘Widowhood in Colonial Bengal, 1850-1930’ (2006) carried out in Calcutta University under the supervision of Samita Sen.

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