south asia

Missionary Journals and a Rhetoric of Rescue: The Church of England Zenana Missionary Society and India’s Women (1880-1940)

Sabera Bhayat 2 Comments

Christian female missionaries played a prominent role in the spread and development of female education in colonial India. The missionary aim of ‘evangelisation through education’ placed literacy and learning high on the agenda of ‘women’s work for women’.[1] Such work and its attendant successes, setbacks, obstacles, and failures, were extensively recorded by female missionaries, and … Continue reading Missionary Journals and a Rhetoric of Rescue: The Church of England Zenana Missionary Society and India’s Women (1880-1940)

Indian Women’s Social Reform: Why Child Marriage, and Why Not Purdah?

Sabera Bhayat 2 Comments

Missionary Criticisms and the Religious Selection of Reform Social reforms in child marriage and female education were pursued in the late nineteenth century for the uplift of women’s conditions in Indian society. British criticisms on the treatment of women in India, encouraged Indian reformers to pursue changes to their conditions. The circumstances of British colonialism … Continue reading Indian Women’s Social Reform: Why Child Marriage, and Why Not Purdah?

Child Marriage and Female Education: the Religious Character of Social Reform for Hindu and Muslim Women in Late Colonial India

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Child marriage and the lack of female education were problems across both Hindu and Muslim women, and were highlighted particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet, in the Indian age of reform, each religious community chose to focus on different aspects of their women’s social conditions as subjects for their reform campaigns. … Continue reading Child Marriage and Female Education: the Religious Character of Social Reform for Hindu and Muslim Women in Late Colonial India