Dusk at the Dawn: A Study of Unwed Mother in Odisha

Abstract

The demand for the rights of women and the foundation of organizations for their protection could be described as the early stages of the welfare state development. women's struggles for political and social rights, citizenship, and welfare had been closely linked, and the emphasis was on working class women and their poverty. Many women fought not just for suffrage but also to shape social policies in favour of women. Women began to investigate poverty and found out that it was closely connected to maternity and to the status of single mothers. A group of feminist theorised that maternity should be recognised as work and be awarded a wage. In the United States, the first mothers’ pension law was enacted in Illinois in 1911, and by 1919 thirty-nine states provided some form of mother's aid. It was granted on two conditions: economic need and the absence of husband's support, and thus was granted especially to widows, but in some states also to single, deserted or divorced women. Such maternity policies were rooted in diverse and sometimes conflicting motives, they coincide to a large extent with the feminist demands for mothers’ rights.