Resources and Status If you recall the economic relations discussed in Chapter , you will realise that slaves, landless agricultural labourers, hunters, fisherfolk, pastoralists, peasants, village headmen, craftspersons, merchants and kings emerged as social actors in different parts of the subcontinent. Their social positions were often shaped by their access to economic resources. Here we will examine the social implications of access to resources in certain specific situations. .
Gendered access to property Consider first a critical episode in the Mahabharata. During the course of the long-drawn rivalry between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, Duryodhana invited Yudhisthira to a game of dice. The latter, who was deceived by his rival, staked his gold, elephants, chariots, slaves, army, treasury, kingdom, the property of his subjects, his brothers and finally himself and lost all. Then he staked their common wife Draupadi and lost her too.
Issues of ownership, foregrounded in stories such as this one (Source ), also figure in the Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras . According to the Manusmriti, the paternal estate was to be divided equally amongst sons after the death of the parents, with a special share for the eldest. Women could not claim a share of these resources. However, women were allowed to retain the gifts they received on the occasion of their marriage as stridhana (literally, a woman’s wealth).
This could be inherited by their children, without the husband having any claim on it. At the same time, the Manusmriti warned women against hoarding family property, or even their own valuables, without the husband’s permission. You have read about wealthy women such as the Vakataka queen Prabhavati Gupta (Chapter ). However, cumulative evidence – both epigraphic and textual – suggests that while upper-class women may have had access to resources, land, cattle and money were generally controlled by men.
In other words, social differences between men and women were sharpened because of the differences in access to resources. Draupadi’s question Draupadi is supposed to have asked Yudhisthira whether he had lost himself before staking her. Two contrary opinions were expressed in response to this question. One, that even if Yudhisthira had lost himself earlier, his wife remained under his control, so he could stake her.
Two, that an unfree man (as Yudhisthira was when he had lost himself) could not stake another person. The matter remained unresolved; ultimately, Dhritarashtra restored to the Pandavas and Draupadi their personal freedom. Source Do you think that this episode suggests that wives could be treated as the property of their husbands?