Reading Gender through the Lens of Law: The Case of Phulmonee Dasi and Rukmabai

Abstract

This article discusses the impact of the Act of Consent Laws on the women of the nineteenth century.  I have discussed the laws pertaining to women in the late nineteenth century.  I discuss the Age of Consent law, which dragged on for many years as modernists and traditionalists were divided in their opinion on raising the age of consent from ten to twelve for girls for the consummation of marriage.  Other laws regarding child marriage, property laws, the right for widows to remarry, infant mortality, and patrilocality laws are also discussed.  I have also taken two case studies of Rukhamaibai, who was a child bride who refused to consummate her marriage and Phulmonee Dasi, a child bride married to Hari Mohan Maitee, who raped her.  To both goes the credit of starting a discourse on the age of consent.