[Reader-list] Early women's magazines in Kerala - 1st posting

[sabitha t p]

When the first women’s magazine in Malayalam, Kerala
Sugunanabodhini, came out in 1886 it began with an
editorial that ran like this: “Nothing related to
political matters is included here. Philosophy,
physical science, humourous stories that entertain,
moral essays that enlighten, stories, women’s duty,
culinary science, music, histories of exemplary women,
history of places, book reviews, essays on other
educational subjects: this book will contain these
mostly in prose and sometimes in verse. We shall not
include reductive religious debates here.” This gives
us some idea about the contents of early women’s
magazines. In the course of my project I wish to
explore the modalities by which urbane femininity is
constructed through the discourse of education in
early women’s magazines in Malayalam (1886-1926).
Whether to educate women or not and whether it is
appropriate for women to be educated in English were
hotly discussed topics in Kerala in the late
nineteenth- early twentieth centuries. If such
questions were answered in the affirmative, the
corollary was an enquiry into what kind of education
suited women and what the subjects to be taught should
be. All such debates were built on certain
predetermined notions concerning femininity. These
notions are not uniform or homologous; we often find
conflicting ideas about ideal femininity emerging from
such discussions.
I have identified three broad discursive categories
related to the project of educating women to become
ideals of urbane femininity. These are: sexuality,
health and hygiene, and physical appearance. In
women’s magazines such as Sarada and Lakshmibai that I
have looked at so far, there are a number of essays on
monogamy and the excessive femininity of dancers, on
environmental hygiene, medical knowledge and the care
to be taken in maintaining good health, and on
enhancing physical beauty and the perils of being too
vainly attached to one’s looks. All three categories
of essays employ these common discursive techniques:
desirability, propriety and women’s moral
responsibility for the upkeep of a healthy public.
There are several essays that discuss the Nair
Marriage Bill that would make polyandrous Nair women
subscribe to a code of legally sanctioned monogamy.
The sexual excesses of Nair women possible through the
selection of multiple partners or serial monogamy are
decried and loyalty to one partner is advocated. This
agenda is clear even in essays not dealing directly
with the impending Nair Marriage Bill. Essays titled
‘Paativratyam’ (monogamy) or ‘Streedharma’ participate
in the debate on curbing the sexual freedom thought to
be enjoyed by Nair women. These essays employ a
variety of discursive strategies to justify monogamy:
that polyandry is unnatural, that it is uncivilized
and improper and that it is detrimental to the
well-being of the State. Mohiniattam, performed only
by women, also is viewed with suspicion as a seductive
form of art in this period. Polyandrous Nair women and
Mohiniattam dancers are both considered antithetical
to the moral health of the public sphere and domestic
harmony.
What is significant in essays related to women’s
health and hygiene in women’s magazines is a belief in
women’s education as useful to the public sphere in
that it contributes to the maintenance of a clean
civic sphere. The woman’s role as citizen is laid out
as consisting of the hygienic upkeep of her
environment and the medical know-how to take care of
her family in case of illness. It is even suggested
that a basic education of women in natural sciences
will prevent the public body from falling ill. All the
issues of the magazines I have looked at so far have a
plethora of essays titled “Vayu” (Air), “Jalam”
(Water) and “Arogyaraksha” (Care of one’s health).
Related to this are essays that support the systematic
education of women in medical science, both Western
and Ayurvedic.
In the essays relating to physical appearance, women
are warned against “saundaryabhramam” or being too
madly attached to beauty and enhancement of appearance
with make-up or too much jewelry. The path to be
followed by women is a middle one where neither are
rituals of beauty to be entirely neglected, nor
obsessively engaged with. A large part of the
readership of these magazines consisted of middleclass
women and in the interest of the middleclass we notice
frugality being promoted through these magazines.
“Saundaryabhramam” is considered a sign of vanity and
works against the principle of modesty to be adhered
to by respectable and desirable middleclass women.
However, we can notice a contradiction when we engage
with the discourse on dancers that I mentioned
earlier. The dancer’s seductive ability is attributed,
at least partly, to her artificially enhanced looks:
eyes lined with large amounts of kohl, reddened lips,
hair adorned with flowers, and neck and arms with
sparkling jewelry. Even though men are thought to be
drawn to such women, the respectable middleclass woman
loses her desirability if she attaches too much
significance to her physical appearance.
By looking at these three classes of essays in early
women’s magazines in Kerala, I hope to arrive at an
understanding of what went into the making of a
desirable woman as well as to bring out the fissures
in the models of desirability being made available to
women through early print culture in Kerala.
The most significant materials that will be looked at
for this project are:

A.	Copies of early women’s magazines in Malayalam:

1)	 Kerala Sugunanabodhini (1886, only 6 months; again
1892)
2)	Sarada (1904)
3)	Lakshmibai (1906)
4)	Bhasha Sarada (1914)
5)	Mahilaratnam (1914)
6)	Sumangala (1915)
7)	Mahila (1919)
8)	Vanitakusumam (1926)

and

B. Curricula for girls’ schools in late nineteenth –
early twentieth centuries.


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