An Alternate Moral Order

Abstract

This chapter recapitulates some of the data presented in earlier chapters in order to construct a representation of Odia Hindu women that while ethnographically valid diverges quite substantially from other, more commonly available representations of Hindu women. These representations tend to portray Hindu women either as passive victims or as subversive rebels. This chapter suggests that both these representations are perhaps the result of a bias in favor of liberal values such as individual liberty or gender equality, and therefore, not entirely valid—because these Hindu women do not necessarily subscribe to these liberal values. If, however, one were to adopt the moral perspective of the Odia Hindu women who participated in the study, then a very different picture emerges—these women are neither passive victims nor subversive rebels; instead, they are active upholders of a moral order very different from that exemplified by liberalism, a moral order in which self-control, self-discipline, loyalty, patronage, protection, and the ability to defer or even subordinate personal gratification are prized moral goods.