STATUS OF WOMEN IN THE VEDIC PERIOD

Abstract

            Women have been actively involved and participated in works from the earliest times. The Vedas accord a very honourable and respectable social status of women. They could occupy administrative and other important jobs mostly performed by men even today. The worked as judged also. In the battlefield, in the absence of the king, the queen took command of the forces and inspired them. They have left remarkable record as a patron of art and culture or as a common subject. The ideal of Indian womanhood as daughter, sister, wife, even mother, has never depicted in terms of equality with men or independence. In a society of prominence of the male beings, the women were taught to accept a position of subordination, listening to the stories of Sita and Savitri who personified the virtues of the Indian womanhood, glaring examples of subordination, service and sacrifice; they were taught that their life was meant for the happiness of their husbands and children. (Bose, p.97, 2002)