The "Other" Culture: Craft Societies and Widow Remarriage in Early Modern India

Abstract

By juxtaposing the deployment of sati, an elitist custom that dominates historical scholarship, with the coexisting custom of widow remarriage (nata) practiced by vast majorities in early modern, precolonial India, this article draws attention to multiculturalism, the multiplicity of patriarchal manifestations, and the politics of difference in the South Asian context. It is an attempt to write a social history of gender relations from below, based on archival materials on craft communities from a region and culture that current literature has identified almost exclusively with Rajput ruling elites. Examining how widow remarriage was conceptualized and practiced in artisanal communities, it highlights a facet of "Indian Culture" that has remained invisible. Through an analysis of hitherto untapped archival documents from the Jodhpur Sanad Parwana Bahis in the Rajasthan Archives, this article engages with and interrogates the uniform typifications of a singular "Indian Culture" and the position of women therein.