Negotiating Crisis

Abstract

Abstract The story of the Great Depression is generally told from the top to focus on the roadblocks faced by an ascendant, industrial capitalism in the period between the two World Wars. This chapter turns the lens on the impact of economic turbulence on the everyday experiences of women and peasant families in rural Punjab. The crisis precipitated by the Depression demanded that women in rural Punjab take on additional work burdens in the fields and in homes, with increased pressure to spin and grind and a dietary squeeze. Faced with a contraction of resources, families resorted to pawning and selling jewellery, aimed at raising cash resources to meet the revenue demands. Women had to part with jewellery received from natal or marital families, which belonged to them and over which they had customary entitlement in substantial measure. The reduction in acquisition and accumulation of gold, along with mortgage and pawning, left the women in Punjab in a state of collective and individual impoverishment. When ‘normalcy’ returned, dowry increasingly became the accepted form of gift-giving at marriages. The shift away from bride price allowed for patriarchal norms to be reconfigured, with access and control over resources passing out of the hands of women. The Depression effectively undermined women’s economic security within the family and their control over the limited resources that they had access to, reinforcing the notion that their wealth and entitlement were at the disposal of their families.