Faces Of Change

A woman especially, if she have (sic) the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can,” says Jane Austen in the narrator’s voice in Northanger Abbey. In a novel, where Austen’s heroine Catherine Morland loves reading and easily lets her imagination flow into newer and unknown territories, that was a tongue-in-cheek comment on Victorian morality and its ideas about women. The Indian society, in large parts, mirrored the Victorian morality at the time. Eventually, education became a cornerstone for high-class, cultured women, but the household continued to be the natural boundary. An educated woman was expected to be a companion to her husband, make intelligent conversation, inculcate the right values in her children and run the household efficiently. Fast forward to 2022. The motifs of women’s journey have changed and have evolved into new...