Essay Rate of Literacy in Indian Women

Several scholars have linked birthrate decline to female education. Educated women, they reason, generally prefer smaller families, allowing them to pursue their own interests while investing more resources and time in each child. As it turns out, the map of female literacy in India does exhibit striking similarities with the map of fertility.

The first factor that makes arranged marriages are more successful is the parental involvement in the process of choosing a life partner. The author of the article “Arranged Marriage” states that “the parents decide every facet of the process and the prospective bride and groom just show up at the rearranged date of marriage” (par.5). Indeed, parents play an important role in deciding the time that their children should get married and selecting the right persons to get married to their children. That will create the success in their children’s marriage life in the future.

Yet in America, it is quite different. As stated by Paul Hockings, the Indian culture believes that a woman must obey the men in their lives in a certain order. For instance, a woman should obey her father first, next her husband, and finally her son. The head male of the family, whether it is the father, husband, or son is in charge of the entire family. The head male is also important in arranging marriages. The head male of the family, has to compensate or receive compensation at the time of a child’s marriage. In the Indian culture, the primary purpose of a marriage is to bring families together. It is usually not done out of love or romance. If a marriage is not approved or arranged by the parents involved, then the act is frowned upon. In America, marriages are not typically arranged and people do not receive compensation during a

In the typical Indian family, gender construction manifests itself especially in the roles of men and women in the household. As Judith Lorber so aptly put, “gender is a process of creating distinguishable social statuses for the assignment of rights and responsibilities” which in turn, creates the social differences that define a “man” and “woman” (Lorber). It is these differences that are used to construct and maintain an established gender order within the family. In the conventional Indian family, the order is such that the roles of the women in the household revolve around the roles of the men. This structure was something that I saw from an early age in my parents’ marriage. Though my parents defied the Indian norm of the arranged marriage, they still represented the quintessential model of an Indian couple in many other ways. My mother left her job to become a stay-at-home mom when I was about six years old. However, even before she left her job, she was implicitly expected by my father to shoulder most of the housework including cooking, cleaning, and caring for my older brother

Rajeev Narang, in telling the oral love story of how he met his wife, implicitly explains the culture of India in the mid-20th century and even delves deeper into the subcultures of the region and their impact on love and marriage. Indian culture, even more so decades ago, was known for its system of arranged marriages that primarily focused on the compatibility between families and little on the love between two potential partners. In their journal article, “Gender Scripts and Age at Marriage in India,” authors Sonalde Desai and Lester Andrist discuss the marriage system in India in terms of the gender roles that men and women play, the impact of family intervention, and how age and economic factors impact marriage decisions. Specifically, when mentioning the influence of family, they state, “It is particularly crucial to look beyond individual decisions to focus on what the marriage of a son or daughter represents for the parents. Marriage systems… have been dominated by the influence of the corporate family” (668).

Gender relations and inequality is experienced through lack of educational matters and unfair treatment of women and children, thus in many cases forcing women to run households, while the men are away at work in various seasonal migration jobs at unviable wages. As defined in a classic article, income inequality is “the distribution of total income amongst the represented population” (Gehring13). In outlined studies; evidence can conclude that poor gender relations in fact can be convoluted into other issues such as overpopulation, child malnourishment, low levels of GDP, and GNI. This in fact sounds to be true for what India is experiencing today. The predominant issue of gender inequality has led many down the pathway to poverty

Women are married young, become mothers quickly, and are burdened by stringent domestic and financial responsibilities. Like in Greece, they have little chance to progress in the work force. Females, in certain regions of India, are frequently malnourished since they are the last member of the household to eat typically and the last to receive medical attention. Also, only “54 percent of Indian women are literate as compared to 76 percent of men” (Gender Equity Issues in India). Unlike in Greece, women of lower status still receive little schooling, and suffer from “unfair and biased inheritance and divorce laws” (Gender Equity Issues in India).

This joint family, like any social organization, must face problems such as acceptable division of work, relationships and specific family roles. These familial relationships are managed on the basis of a secular hierarchical principle. In fact, all Indians owe respect and obedience to the head of the family, who usually is the father or the oldest man of the family community. In The Gift of a Bride: A Tale of Anthropology, Matrimony and Murder by Nanda and Gregg, it is explained that, “females [are] placed under the perpetual guardianship of first their fathers and elder brothers, then their husbands.” (Nanda & Gregg 22) Thus, all the spending decisions, studies and profession, or marriage, are exclusively the responsibility of the father after the possible discussions with the other men of the family. Age and sex are the basic principles of this hierarchical system. The eldest sons enjoy greater unchallenged authority than their cadets. Of course men have more authority than women, but older married women have an important role within the family. In fact, the authority of a woman depends on the rank of her husband inside the group. Traditionally, the wife of the patriarch rules over domestic affairs and has considerable power over the other women in the community, especially her daughters- in-law.

Parent understand that their girls are a burden and their sons are a gift, and this is what their sons and daughters grow up believing. The dowry placed on girls plays greatly into the sex-selected abortion rate in India. Boys are plainly and simply a better financial investment. Boys will not cost the parents money for marriage, in fact, with a marriage, they are guaranteed to make the parents money. Parents forced with the decision to have a girl and deal with the financial consequences, or abort and hope and pray for better luck in the gender of their child next time around. Quite often they chose the

One of the global issues that women in developing overseas countries face is a barrier in education. Females in India will have a different experience of education inequality than females living in Australia. The number of out of school children in India 64% are girls, which is the equivalent of two-thirds of all children whom are illiterate ageing from 15 - 24 being female. Girls in Australia receive equal education throughout the country, this is evident in my micro world of a year 12 high school student. Although I am fortunate to live in a country where my education is not limited because of my gender, it does not mean all women are given this critical right of learning.

Gender bias is a huge barrier that prevent girls from gaining knowledge at schools. That is the reason why illiteracy rate of female is increasing. In some countries, especially, in Asia, prior generations usually consider that girls don’t have to access with high education because their main responsibility is being wives. The generations argues that female’s task is housework, so they don’t need to get educational certificates in order to apply for a job. Because of the gender bias, girls have no chance to get knowledge from school and become illiterate

The consolidated nature of Indian families gives extended family members the power to have great influence over their younger relatives. If this aspect of Indian family life holds true, then it is natural for parents to have a colossal amount of influence over their children. In the Indian culture, parents are a symbol of unquestionable authority and the unmovable force of their household. We can see that Indian children are educated

The family unit is the most important thing in this society. It is generally very closed, private and closely—knit. It is still quite common for cousins to marry cousins. Each member of the extended family help the others and often finances is shared in order to start business or help those who are in difficulties. In this society males are seen as more important. Than female, older people are greatly respected for their wisdom and mother still dominates the household, the bond between mother and son is particularly strong. Marriage is very important in this society. The bride and bridegroom will have been either chosen or approved of by the parents of both. The bridegroom has to pay a bridal pryce for his bride and marrying into a good family

Deborah Brant, who is an English professor at the University of Wisconsin, conducted a research on literacy, resulting in the article, Sponsors of Literacy. In this article, she defines a sponsor of literacy as “agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy - to gain advantage by it in some way,” (Brant 556). A sponsor, much like a teacher, guidance counselor, siblings or mentors, can have an affect on a person’s literacy. While conducting her research, Brandt interviewed many people, all varying in age and different backgrounds. By doing this, Brandt was able to engage and observe whether they all had a different way of adapting to reading and writing, but also if social economic status, or SES, affected the way they became literate.

Traditionally, an Indian woman had only four roles and those were; Her role as a daughter, wife, sister, and lastly, a mother. The women in today’s time however are experiencing far reaching changes and are entering into new fields that were unknown to them. They are actively participating in social, economic and political activities. Unlike the older times, women today have received higher education.