Assignment on: The Review on ‘Motijan’s Daughters’ and Women’s Position in the Society

Submitted to:

Aditi SaburLecturer

Department of Women and Gender StudiesUniversity of Dhaka

Submitted by:

Mahmuda HoqueRoll: 05

1st Year, 2nd SemesterBSS (2010-2011)

Date of Submission: October 1, 2011

Context:

Opening

Gender Analysis

Domestic Violence

Dowry

Battering

Son preference

Ending

Introduction:

Literature is the mirror of the social order. ‘Motijan’s Daughters’ is a story of our society

which reflects the women’s position in our culture; written by Selina Hossain. Men are

judge as intellectual when female are emotional, Male are treated as rational on the other

hand, female are irrational and private in the social structure. Women are practiced to

consider themselves as dependent and they have no opportunity to think about right and

wrong. Even sometimes women deprived from their basic rights and they do not

conscious about their rights. As a result, they are oppressed.

Motijan’s Daughters is a story which is mainly paying attention on domestic violence and

women’s rights in a male biased civilization.

Gender Analysis on “Motijan’s Daughters”:

Gender analysis offers a framework for illuminating the opportunities and constraints in

development activities that are based on the relations between women and men.

Papanek (1989) stated: “Gender differences, based on the social construction of

biological sex distinction, are one of the great fault lines of societies-, those marks of

difference among categories of persons that govern the allocation of power, authority,

and resources.”

Man and women have different role in the socializing process and their role that is

gender, is determine on the basis of their biological construction.

Here, I try to focus the gender based analysis of the characters of “Motijan’s

daughters”

Motijan :

Motijan is the symbolic character of the patriarchal social construction where women are

subordinate in every stair of life. After her marriage she started to be oppressed before

understood the state of affairs around her. She was treated just like a servant. Her

husband’s family was controlled by a muscular hand of her mother in law. Abul used to

go to another women in market but no one find any blunder to this kind of manner

because he is a man! Her husband as well as mother in law pressured her for dowry but

she new the financial position of her father. Women are oppressed for dowry is very

widespread in our sub-continent. Physical abuse, death, suicide etc. are common

phenomenons that are occurred for the cause called dowry.

Motijan worked the whole day in the house but sometime she did not get food to eat. Her

mother in law did not give her food and she could not protest her because society taught

her not to dishonor the elderly person. She wanted to be tough like her mother in law.

Subsequent to passing a year of her marriage, she was demanded for a child by Gulnoor.

No one was taking into account that Abul rarely stayed at home and was not

conscientious for anything in the family. Society does not pay any attention for a

woman’s sexual needs. The circumstances around Motijan forced her to go into an inlegal

relationship with Lokman. Because of giving birth to a child, she went into this physical

relationship. But fortune was not in Motijan’s support. She bore a female child and could

not put away the so called family line. After the birth of another female child, Gulnoor

could not tolerate that but Motijan told the truth fearlessly that, Abul was not the father of

her daughters so, there should not have any question of family line. Thus, Motijan went

to an unknown future of herself as well as her daughters.

Women have to perform their duties but it is not important if man perform his duties and

responsibilities. We have to take into account that, women are not only the beauty, not

only the source of love and motherhood, they are also human being and like other basic

needs they have sexual need. These are completely ignored to the society over and above

in the fictions.

Gulnoor:

Gulnoor is very ordinary character in our society. As a mother, she is very kind hearted

but as a mother in law, she was not so. Her life is full of struggle. For this explanation,

she was known as a hard woman. We judge Gulnoor as a desperado because we are not

become accustomed to see a woman as an iron character as her. She learnt the attitude

that she did, from the social order and circumstances around her. She has power over the

family and did not show any kind of softness to her daughter in law. She had been a

widow for twenty two years. So, her life was not much straightforward and she must

struggle for live in the male biased society. Dominating character is present in her for

this reason. Even her son is subordinate to her. She felt so proud for her own stiffness.

This rigidity made her the ideal women to her daughter in law.

But Gulnoor was not out of the society. She tormented her daughter in law physically

and mentally. She forced Motijan for dowry and male child which she learned from the

patriarchal civilization. Sometimes she afflicted on her daughter in law is go beyond

limitation. She pressured Motijan for child because of save the family line but she did not

see her son’s fault that he was not stay with Motijan.

Gulnoor wanted to marry her son again because she guessed Motijan was barren. Again

when her first child bored, Gulnoor could not tolerate that because, according to her

thought a female child cannot save the family line. She did not mark any mistake of her

son. She learnt this kind of attitude from the son preference society’s circumstances.

Abul

Abul leads a very universal male character in our civilization, which had no

accountability to his mother, wife or family. He forced his wife for dowry for a luxurious

life and did not felt any hesitation to beat her. He was not paying any attention to his

family unit. He just eat, sleep and enjoy his life. He got ahead of most of the days with

another woman in the market place. So, his wife was deprived from her sexual rights.

Abul was an addicted man like other addicted people in our society. He physically and

mentally tormented to his wife. He tortured his wife for a child who could save the family

line but did not give any time to his wife.

Ours is a patriarchal and male biased society. The discrimination between men and

women is not based simply on class but also on gender. At this point, Gender is the sign

of power. Therefore, it is called the phallocentric society. In this society, the inaccuracy

of a man is out of consideration. Consequently, here Abuls are dominating women and no

one take it into account. It becomes the social system.

It is said that,-“An infant is born with the first and develops the second.” Gender

differences are not biologically determined, they are culturally produced.

Motijan, Gulnoor, Abul are human being, existed in the society and they learnt their

outlook from here. As a result, individual of them is not absolutely right or wrong. They

got their attitude from their social learning.

Domestic Violence Against Motijan:

Domestic violence is very frequent phenomenon in our country and Motijan is a case in

point, created by Selina Hossain. It is a problem of women in marital relationships being

assaulted. The real problem is the implicit societal acceptance of violence against women.

It has many causes. This can take the form of those related to dowry demands, the

physical and mental tortured and as a co wife pressure, which we can see in Motijan’s

life. The pressure and danger women face when their rights to reproductive choice are

interfered with and the danger expectant mother’s face due to negligence and ignorance.

Motijan’s husband as well as her mother in law persecuted her physically and mentally.

She tortured for dowry, household work, and male child or sometimes for no reason.

Dowry, battering, psychological pressure and all these domestic violence were in

attendance in Motijan’s life. When she could not stay behind silent and protest herself

adjacent to her husband and mother in law, she became a victim of battering. Every so

often Gulnoor tied Motijan’s leg and do not gave any food to eat. Gulnoor and Abul

treated Motijan as she was not a human being. Motijan have to do all kinds of household

works but she did not have the right to identify about the household. For example, she did

not allowed to open the shopping bag and she never wanted that because she is used to

know her as a day labourer. Though, Motijan’s brother came to know about his sister’s

sufferings, he suggested her to be happy because it is a societal system! These kinds of

system should be changed otherwise, all Motijans in our society lost their rights and even

they could not able to be acquainted with that.

Dowry:

The story is paying attention on the most important social wickedness in Indian

subcontinent that is dowry. It makes Motijan’s life excruciating. Dowry demands affect

the lives of women socially and culturally in a much deeper manner. Basically, they

undermine the equality of women and construct culturally accepted forms of

discrimination against them. They can affect the life of a girl from the very start.

Preference for boys often begins with the parental realisation that the trouble of finding

dowries falls on them as soon as the child is born. Thus, the devaluation of a child takes

place in culturally subtle forms from the very beginning. In Motijan’s Daughter, we can

distinguish how a women is treated for dowry by her in laws. Gulnur blamed motijan’s

father as a liar, because he could not carry out their demand of a cycle and wristwatch.

Abul, Motijan’s husband also supported his mother. This continues throughout her early

years and up to the time of marriage. the practice of dowry or joutuk, demands made by

the husband’s side to the bride’s side, have in the last few decades become a extensive

practice supported neither by state law nor personal laws, but apparently designed to

strengthen. The most common motives behind the dowry system are the grooms’ and

their families’ greed, growing consumerism, extreme materialism, the need for status

seeking, and rising expectations of a better and well-appointed life. A traditional

patriarchal assumption as we see in Motijan’s in laws family. This must be acknowledged

as reality and the Dowry Prohibition Act amended. . According to the Qu’ran, receiving

dowry from the bride’s family is haram, forbidden by the Islamic law; it is the husband’s

family that should provide mohorana, money for the bride’s family. Though Abuls were

Muslim, they forced Motijan for dowry.

After the year fleeting of Motijan’s marriage, she was asked for baby, but Abul’s liability

was not focused. Then a neighbour suggested Gulnur for Abuls another marriage with a

large amount of money. So, it is uncomplicated to understand that, dowry made women’s

position low in the society. It makes a woman no more but commodities only. It is a very

terrible situation for the society. Women & their family suffer a lot for this dowry system.

I think poverty, illiteracy, narrow mentality, negative attitude to the women, dependence

on husband and living on their income, social corruption etc are the main cause of dowry.

Under enormous pressure from human rights groups and the international community, the

Bangladeshi government passed the Dowry Prohibition Act in 1980, which legally

banned dowries and imposed sanctions, as well as the Cruelty to Women Ordinance in

1983. Yet, incidents of domestic violence due to dowry issues have not decreased as we

see in Abuls family.

Battering:

Wife battering is very widespread in our country and it is a leading cause of damage for

women. Motijan is a sufferer of this. Abul used to go an extra woman called Rosoi, and

when Motijan tried to protest him to went there, she was rewarded by beating. Gulnoor

do not give any concentration if her son came to the home or not. She became very

comfortable

Son Preference:

Bangladesh is a country with a pervasive preference for sons. In her married life, Motijan

experienced a lot. One of the most essential causes was that, she did not give birth of a

male child. Her mother in law could not accept her when her second daughter was born.

This is a common prospect in our country.

In this male biased patriarchal society a female child is discriminated from her birth. She

can not save the so called family line. It is believe that, a woman do not have economic

reproductive power. So, she is considered as a burden. That’s why the social structure

builds on son preference.

Conclusion:

Bangladesh is a country of patriarchal communal impression, but domestic violence is

faced by a woman not only from her husband but also from her in laws. The main causes

of such acts of violence are the inability to bear children or sons, dowry demands and

physical appearance. In these cases, the aggression takes the form of mental abuse,

polygamous marriage etc.

We can notice Motijan in fiction. At the same time, we obtain Rumana Monzur in the real

fiction of life. One of them is educated and empowered and other is not. But cruelty gives

them the same place, both of they are the victim of violence. Besides the violence itself,

the shame surrounding the victims is the most destructive part of it.

References:

Dowry paper Mohamed, (2011)

A weekly publication of The Daily Star, The Star, July 22, 2011

Mahtab, N.(2007) Women In Bangladesh

Giddens, A. Sociology, 5th addition

Azim, F. & Zaman, N. Short Stories by Women from Bangladesh