Women and Social Control in the Kathāsaritsāgara: Patterns and Perspectives

Abstract

Patriarchal society have always felt the need to impose its hegemony over Women and her Sexuality. Hence, it is on women where rests men’s fear of transgression as well. This fear of women’s uncontrolled sexuality demands an efficient control on the part of the patriarchs to guard them. In India more than anywhere else in the world, we find these controls being more rigid, structured and embedded within the societal framework. As, the structurization and standardization here materialises from the ancient law books and literatures that sets an archetypal of a so called ‘Ideal- Woman’ and ‘Womanhood’. Therefore, Controls (both individual and social) are apparent in the lives of women which again is achieved through their subordination at large; and manifested through several patterns, agencies and collective consciousness. This paper attempts to focus on these patterns of control and the underlying attempts of modifying women’s behaviour and channelizing of her sexual prowess as seen in the ancient Indian texts with special reference to the Kathāsaritsāgara.

DOI: 10.46700/asssr/2025/v7/i2/182