The wife, the public woman and the land: Addressing the question of ownership of women’s body in select Indian short stories

From the perspective of ecofeminism, both women and nature seek their liberation mainly from one kind of oppressive authority – the patriarchal capitalism. While taking the liberation of women specifically into account, one may be confronted with different categories of women and their different situations and experiences making them subjugated. This paper focuses on one such category – that of the public woman (who is often regarded as a prostitute) – and delineates her representation in a few selected Indian short stories. These stories are “Giribala” by Mahasweta Devi, “The Housewife” by Ismat Chughtai, “Giribala” by Rabindranath Tagore, and “The Kept Woman” by Subodh Ghose. It further compares this representation with the figure of another category of women – the wife. The paper argues that the public woman and the wife are compared to and treated as one of the most priced properties of man – the land. Their liberation, however, depends on the different circumstances, rising from the difference in their treatment by the hand of their so-called master, the man. The authors have used the theoretical framework of ecofeminism and the methodology of textual analysis to read the mentioned short stories after giving an historical account of the land-like treatment of both the wife and the public woman in India and elsewhere.