Sambodhi 1983 Vol 12

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 87

82
Miss Bhatt Usha G.
was not supposed to go to the school. She was meant to be marrit to do domestic work and to deliver children. There were excepti like Diwalibai who wrote poems and few Nagar women knew Sansk or Persian, 2
Prior to the 19th Century in Gujarat child marriages were coming A girl was generally married between the age of three and 11 yea The marriages were supposed to be limited to the casts, subcasts or a loi community. Therefore tlie scope for the selection of a life partner limited. Besides the choice of a girl was not in the picture at a As a result of the child marriages unmatch-couples or odd coup (Kajoda lagna) were in the existence. An eight year girl could married to an old man of sixty!
The 18th Century poet Krishnaram remarks that girls at the age 10, 11 or 12 years used to become mothers. 3 The death rate of 1 pregnant women was high. Even after the delivery women used to due to unhygenic conditions, lack of medicines etc. Polygamy was pr alent in the society. Widow-remarriage was not possible and the cond ons of widows were terrible. They had to live their lives under varie social restrains. This was the general picture of social status of won in Gujarat.
II This picture began to change when a large number of social refoi ers appeared on the scene and they were the products of the Brit educational system. These reformars launched cruzed against the ca system and the evils like the child marriages and ban on the wic remarriages. For example in 1858 Karsandas Mulaji wiote that as ni and famale both are human beings they should have equal rights.+ F Narmada Shankar suggested 18 points to improve the position of wor and emphasised feinale education. 5 The Gujarat Varnaclar Society re cted this general environment and assumed the role of a change-ag It took up the work of woman's upliftment. In the initial stage Gujarat Varnacular Society was purely a product of the colonized atn phare. Like the Indian National Congress this regional organizat was founded by a Non-Indian named Alexander Kinlok Forbes 26th December 1848. All the managing committee members were Euro ans. Only in 1852 Bhogilal Pranvallabh, the principal of the Eng School was included in the committee.
. The basic object of the society reveals the symptom of decolonizat The object was to enhance the progress of the regional Gujarati langu