Indian Women: Status, Role & Empowerment

In ancient times, women in India were revered as Goddess and she occupied a great position in the family and society. But this position of woman degraded as time passed in the name of religious and socio-political practices and they were denied opportunities of growth. Since then many attempts were made to ameliorate and emancipate the woman but much result could not be obtained due to hard core religious practices and superstitions prevalent in the society and her position remained more or less the same. The movement for the improvement of legal status of women was an integral part of the general movement for the emancipation of women. The social reformers from the very beginning held the view that one of the principal means of improving the status of women was legislation. The study of history of social legislation in India thus becomes necessary to ascertain and evaluate the progress made and empowerment gained by Indian womanhood. Towards this endeavour, the book "Indian Women: Status, Role and Empowerment" highlighting the position of women before independence and advent of new reactionary ideology at the beginning, presents elaborate discussion on various problems and evils facing Indian women and includes various laws, provisions, and acts enacted by the government to ameliorate and emancipate women and make them equal partners in the progress of society and nation. The domain of these enactments include provision in Indian constitution; labour laws and labour policy; issues of immoral traffic, sexual harassment, discrimination, education and welfare; social legislation and various issues like marriage, divorce, dowry, prostitution, social security, wage policy, property and occupation rights and human rights. The whole gamut of legal provision on all these issues is presented in easy-to-understand language and covers entire field of women’s empowerment. Readership: students, teachers, sociologists, policy framers and general readers, especially women who want to know about the empowerment of women.