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Vol. XXI, No. 2
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stall the progress towards equality in practice. The attitude of men to women, of women themselves to their role conditioned by years of male superiority and social prejudices against girl-child, widows and divorces have not helped to raise the status of women. Reforms in law and educational policy are hampered by allergy of society to change, particularly when there is likelihood of its upsetting age-old values as well as family life. Even if government were to afford all the educational and employment opportunities that are necessary for women, that would still not be enough. A massive effort is required for changes in outlook.
To understand this paradoxial situation one has to look at the many interrelated values, customs, attitudes, behaviours of society towards woman and the girl-child.
Status: A conceptual analysis
The term, status was used in a different sense till 1920. It was used to refer to some of the capacities which could be legally enforced and also to the limitations of people or their relative superiority and inferiority. But since 1936 this term has undergone radical changes. It has assumed a non-secular usage generally called 'status' in the 'Linton Sense'. It has now come to be a synonym for any 'position in the social system'."
According to Linton, a status is marked off by the fact that distinctive beliefs about, and expectations for, social actors are organized around it. He defines status as the "Polar position......... in patterns of reciprocal behaviour." According to him a 'Polar position' consists of rights and duties, and a role as the dynamic aspect of status. Talcott Parsons has defined the term in a different fashion, though it stems initially from the definition of Linton. "Hence, it is the participation of an actor in a patternal interactive relationship which is for many purposes the most significant unit of the social system." Goodenough's conception of status includes combinations of rights and duties."
When we talk of status of women and the girl-child in India, we have to make a distinction between rural and urban women and between rural and urban girl-child. This distinction is very important to do justice to 80 percent of women who live in rural India. Again, when we talk about the rural women or rural girl-child one has to bear in mind the type of social stratification that exists in rural India. There are several categories of rural women/girl-child based on religion, caste, education, occupation, income and so on. Hence, unless a cross-sectional study is undertaken, a true picture of the status of women and girl-child will not be available.
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