NOW THAT I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, tHIS IS SOMETHING I WANTED TO SHARE WITH EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES THAT MEN AND WOMEN ARE MADE EQUAL IN THE SIGHT OF GOD.

As i was browsing through some books looking for articles to prepare for my panel discussion on women and decision making i to say the very least was shocked to see the laws that Manu a Hindu Law MAker had made for the women to restrict their legal independence. Though they may appear very unrealistic in today's world some of them still hold true in most indian household scenario's.

India's most famous early legal code. The laws of Manu were compiled over the years between 200-400 C.E. While the position of most women in early vedic India had been good, these laws illustrate the efforts of the Brahmin elite and restrict Women's Legal Independence.

• One of the statements we still get to hear in many homes in India is the first law of Manu and that is that in childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband , and when her husband) is dead to her sons; a woman must never be independent. I am not being insincere but till today this the mentality that prevails around us. If ever a woman is independent she is automatically judged as a bad mother, wife or daughter.
• If the women of the family live in grief the family is destroyed and it is only if the women of the house are happy that the family flourishes in all directions. This may sound very positive but then this again is not in favour of a woman because if for some reason a woman is sad, she is expected to conceal any kind of negative emotion, else she is considered to bring unhappiness and sorrow to the house. I know of friends who are not allowed to shed tears even if they have had a row with someone, as this would bring ill will to the family.
• A Father sins unless he marries his daughter off when she reaches puberty. From puberty it has now come to the phase where students finish their high school and parents need to "pack them off to their husband's house or else" BEWARE THE WRATH OF SOCIETY."Many of my students have discontinued their studies and have been married by the time they are 19 and 20 years old.
• According to Manu, Women should not care for beauty or pay attention to age; they must give themselves to the handsome as well as to the ugly just for the fact that they are lucky enough to get a man who is willing to marry them.. Till this day even if a woman is in a loveless or unhappy marriage she is expected to be faithful and loyal to her husband and not think otherwise even if he is old enough to be her father.
• A husband should be worshipped as a God, because to a woman a husband is the be all and end all of her existance itself.
• Nothing must be done independently by a woman even at home. Even to this day be it decision making of any kind a woman is expected to consult her husband and if not !!!!#$#%^%
• A wife, a son and a slave, these 3 are declared to have no property. THere are families where a girl child is not even expected to talk about property because she is only a guest in her parent's home unitl her wedding day and then she is a nobody.
• Women, dogs and crows are supposedly symbols of untruth, sin and darkness.
• It is the nature of women to seduce men in their world, for that reason the wise never remain ungaurded in the company of the female. Women belonging to certain religious sectors are not even allowed to come to public places. Some have never ever shown their faces or spoken to any man other than their husbands and brothers during their lifetime.
• MAnu also stated that a woman should not goto a public place and never should they dance or enjoy themselves like the young men" but sit at their proper places". Grandmothers and mothers at home still tell the young girls that Women who are from " DECENT HOMES" do not giggle, talk loudly or draw attention in anyway toward themselves.
• Manu's another "great" law is that a virtuous wife who after the death of her husband constantly remains chaste reaches heaven just like chaste men. So forget the whole concept of widow remarriage because now loyalty to dead husband means no heaven.

These are just a few of the laws of Manu, that are still followed( but much more subtlely) in indian households and though today we are in a world that is much more Gender sensitive, India still has a very long way to go. The recent attacks on women in Pubs and on the streets of Mangalore and Bangalore have again instilled a fear in our hearts. Are we really progressing or digressing is what we all need to think about....

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