Page 108 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

The Indian Legal System 83

‘Implicit was the view that wives were not (or could not be) independent
free agents’ (Masselos 1998: 121). In such a case, the court generally
operated to bring home errant wives, but the caste panchayats also
acted from time to time to maintain the forms of marital life. There is
also evidence that women themselves were punished, as was the case
of a Lohana wife who was expelled from her caste because she had
been having a long-standing affair with another man. The husband
threw her out of his house. She brought the case to court to claim
alimony, but the magistrate, after saying that the old man should not
have taken such a young girl as his partner, concluded that she was
not entitled to economic support from her husband (Bombay Standard,
4 August 1859).
Sometimes neighbours or a woman’s blood relatives (both males
and females) would help her in case of abusive treatment by her hus-
band, but mothers-in-law would intervene (Masselos 1998: 127–28).
In the cases of conjugal violence, such as mutilation, self-mutilation
or violence leading to suicide, Masselos does not report any court
intervention. We then see the importance of the natal family in con-
flict resolution. With a low rate of court intervention, a woman could
practically only count on her natal family to protect her from conjugal
violence.
Although multiple forms of local and familial enforcement of the
ideal wife existed, and in spite of the approval or silence of the court
towards issues of violence, records of the nineteenth century also report
a story of opposition against the norms and the aforementioned ideal
of the wife. Numerous women broke out of the constraints of arranged
marriages, either by having lovers or by trying to escape from their
husband’s families and set up on their own. It remains unclear how
many of them successfully countered familial, caste and other social
pressures, or overcame economic constraints. However, the data show
that despite the internalization through cultural norms facilitating
the incarnation of this ideal wife, such as early marriage and virilocal
residence, some women refused to be obedient. The most famous case
of that century was the Rukmabai case. Rukmabai was married at
9
11 to Dadaji Bhikari, who was then 19. After the marriage, she remained
in her stepfather’s house for ten years. Her husband visited her from
time to time, but the marriage was not consummated. In 1884, her
husband sent his maternal uncle and his elder brother to bring her
to his home, which she refused to do. She fought her case in court,