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Michigan Scene a
University _ i

emu..—

© 1976

FLORENCE ELIZABETH MCCARTHY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

BENGALI VILLAGE WOMEN
MEDIATORS BETWEEN TRADITION AND DEVELOPMENT
BY

Florence E. McCarthy

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS '
Department of Sociology

1967

TAB LE OF CONTENTS

Preface
Chapter 1. Introduction

The Comilla Thana

The Academy: A Modernizing
Institution

The Women's Program

The Setting: The Bengali Village
Research Design

Field Work

Chapter 2. The Patterns of Mediation in Its Wider
Context

Recent Traditional Image of Islamic
Village Women

Chapter 3. The Identity of Mediators: In Relation
to the Village

A Representative Sketch
General Status

Age grade

Marital status of mediators

Education of mediators
General Socio-Economic Status
Family

Low -prestige , non-agricultural
occupations

14

20

26

26

38

38

46

46

49

51

52

61

63

 

T raditionally pre stigeful agricultural
occupations

High prestige , non-agricultural
occupations

Contact and Exposure to the Outside
World

Mobility in the village
Restricted mobility in the village
Mobility extending to relatives' baris

Mobility extending to neighboring
baris, both relative and non-relative

Relatively unrestricted mobility

Friendship Patterns

Mobility Outside the Village

Mar ginality

Type s of Mediators

Chapter 4.

Social status
Education

"Centrality" of Mediators in their
families

The Identity of Mediators: In Relation
to the Academy

Recruitment

Self-Orientation

Reaction to Mediators Going to the
Academy

Adjustment of Mediators to the Academy

ii

65

66

69
69
7O

72

73
73
75
79
81
86
87

90

91

104
104

111

112

113

”an-r... L 7 '_

 

F.'1 '

Socialization 119

Chapter 5. Village Work Experience 122
Types of Villages 122
Functions of Mediators 127
Innovative Process: Organizers 130
Innovative Process: Teachers 136
Interpersonal Relations 141
Personal Influence 144
Coverage of the Village 146
Homosociality-Heterosociality 148

Reaction of Villagers to the Mediator
and Her Work 149

Chapter 6. Summary and Implications for Wider
Theoretical Concerns 153

iii

 

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Types of Villages and Number of Women
Interviewed 16 -‘

Table 2 Education and Social Status of Sample ' 3
Village Mediators 94

Table 3 "CentralityH of Position of Women in - '1‘
their Families and Education 95 '

 

Table 4 ”Centrality” of Position of Women in
their Families and Social Status 96

Table 5 Education and Social Status in Relation
to Centrality of Position of Women in
their Families 97

Table 6 Reaction of Bari, Para, Village Peo-
ple to Mediators Working for the
Academy 120

Table 7 Number of Centers, Students, Rela-

tives of Teachers and Location of
Baris of Students 146-147

iv

LIST OF APPE NDICES

Appendix I Glossary of Bengali Terms 172

Appe ndix II Que s tionnair e 174

PREFACE

 

The present study is the result of three years of experi-
ence in East Pakistan, and is an extension of the interest that
developed in the culture and people of that country. From 1961
to 1963, I worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer at the Academy
for Rural Development, under the directorship of Akhter Hameed
Khan. My particular task involved assisting in the design and
establishment of a small, experimental program for the village
women who resided in villages having men's cooperative socie-
ties. The object of the program was to provide village women
with opportunities, heretofore nonexistant, to learn techniques
and acquire knowledge which would enable them to become more
effective in the areas of their responsibilities; i. e. their homes
and families. For this reason, the program emphasized prac-
tical skills and basic knowledge centering around such subjects
as child care, home sanitation, kitchen gardening, poultry rais-
ing, sewing, literacy, the cooperative movement, handicrafts
and so on.

While still at the Academy, I realized that my educational
background was inadequate for understanding and summarizing
that in which I was involved and that which I was observing.
Hence, I decided to go to graduate school to acquire the necessary
concepts, knowledge and tools that would further my effective

contribution at Comilla. I entered the Department of Sociology

at Michigan State University in January, 1964. During my gradu-
ate training, I found that I gained a broader perspective on my
interest in Comilla. From a concern with programmatic prob-
lems, I have become increasingly aware of the power of the theo-
retical analysis of the process of change, not only in its implica-
tions for Comilla, but also for other areas and other programs
involved in development.

The present study represents the change in my own think-
ing from a programmatic concern with village women, to a
theoretical consideration of them in the throes of meeting and
coping with the rapidly changing world that is impinging on their
level of consciousness as well as on the structure and life of their
villages.

The field work was done during the year 1966. The months
in the field, and much of the graduate study up to this point, was
made possible through a grant from the International Programs,
Michigan State University. The sincerest thanks go to Dean Tag-
gart, Dean Smuckler, Dr. Ross and Dr. Jacobson for their help
and interest in making this project possible.

A sincere thank you can only inadequately express my
appreciation and gratefulness to Richard O. Niehoff, Coordina-
tor of the Pakistan Project for his instrumental help and support
in making this study possible.

Also, grateful thanks are due to Akhtar Hameed Khan,

the faculty and staff of the Academy for Rural Development, for

all their help and support during my stay there, and most particularly
for letting me return to do the study. Thanks are also due to Tahrun-
nessa Ahmed, Instructor, to my assistants Korduza Ahmed and Nilifur
Nur, and to the women of the staff of the women's program for their
patience, cooperation and support.

Out of all the help and guidance given me, greatest thanks and
deepest appreciation go to Dr. John and to Dr. Ruth Hill Useem. It
was largely through their efforts and patient instruction that I gained
the skills and perspective necessary to support new intellectual con-

cerns that range far beyond the confines of this study.

CHAPTER 1.

Introduction

In order to understand the following study some background
information is necessary. The site for the research project was
in East Pakistan, in the Comilla Thana (county) at the Academy
for Rural Development. East Pakistan is a predominantly Mus-
lim country, with only a small percentage of the people being
Hindu, or Christian. Until 1947, the area that is now East Paki-
stan was part of the province of Bengal in India. After partition
the area of East Bengal became East Pakistan with Dacca as its
capital. As of 1961 the total population of this province was rough-
ly 60 million people.

While East Pakistan does have a problem of rapidly ex-
ploding population, many of the people came from other areas of
eastern India with partition. This exchange of population and its
antecedents in communal living has had its influences on the
cultural patterns of Pakistan now, in that while it is mainly
Muslim in population there are areas of overlap with the Hindu
culture. However, of most relevance to the study are the Islamic
patterns that influence the world of women, particularly village

women. Most crucial is the system of ”purdha" which is the

exclusion of women from the majority of active positions within
the society outside Of the home and family. "Purdha, " as dis-

cussed by K. M. Kapadla in Marriage and Family in India , is

 

considered to be a series of impositions "on the social inter-
course and public movement" Of Muslim women.1 The ramifica-
tions of this system affect all areas of the lives of women as they
are less educated, less able to go out and experience the outside
world, or contribute to the family income, or have the positions
and rights in regard to inheritance and property that women have
in most other cultures. As will be discussed later, this has had
great influence on the villagers' attitude to change as regards
women and on the self image of the women themselves. Women in
purdha were once characterized by Akhter Hameed Khan, Direc-
tor of the Academy for Rural Development, as ”frogs down a
deep well. "

The position of women in the Comilla thana is one of
isolation, in terms of their ability or actual moving from their

village to other villages, to the town, or in some instances from

 

l. Kapadla, K. M. , Marriage and Family in India, London:
Oxford University Press, 1958, pp. 185-203.

2. Speech at the Third Women's Rally, Comilla, East Pakistan,
1966.

 

one area of the village to another. This system of purdha has
ramifications on the independence of women as they, having no
opportunity to earn money, are entirely dependent on their hus-
bands for support. Nor does the system allow for much educa-
tion of the women, except as they may learn in their father's
house, before puberty and marriage. It is within the context

of the purdha system that the first efforts were made to develop
a program for women at the Academy.

The Comilla Thana

 

The Academy is situated in the Comilla Thana, an ad-
ministrative unit similar to a "county" in the United States. The
Thana is located in the Tippera District which is about fifty
miles southeast of Dacca, the provincial capital of East Paki-
stan. The Thana covers an area of approximately 107 square
miles. Within this area live 217, 297 people scattered in over
four hundred villages and two urban centers. The town of

Comilla has a population of roughly 55, 000 people.

The Academy: A Modernizing Institution

 

The Academy for Rural Development, in the Comilla
Thana, is basically an in-service training institution sponsored by
the government of Pakistan, and the Ford Foundation, whose grants
are administered by the Michigan State University. The Academy

began functioning in 1959. The original objective of the Academy

was as an in-service training institution for government officers
in the methods and approaches to development, and to the recon-
struction of the rural areas. Basic in the approach of the Aca-
demy was the experimentation within the Comilla Thana of meth-
ods and ways of combating the problems of the rural areas.

The government of Pakistan assigned the Comilla Thana
to the Academy as an area for experimentation, observation, and
research. The objectives were to find the prerequisites and
methods for successful village improvement. The concept of
training was expanded to include "training fortified by research
and validated by demonstration. "

"The principle underlying the total approach of
the Academy is that training must be supported by
research, and research must be directed to practical
ends, that is to actions. that result in th: revitaliza-
tion of old institutions in the Villages. "

Experimental projects were initiated in four main areas
of village life. In economics, a program was devised encourag-
ing the formation of village multi-purpose cooperative societies

to provide savings, credit, and the facilities for increasing goods

and services for local villages. Of crucial importance in this under-

 

3. Akhter Hameed Khan, ”The Basic Principles of the Comilla
Program, " Pakistan Academy for Rural Development, Comilla,
February, 1963.

4. "The Academy at Comilla: An Introduction, " Pakistan Academy
for Rural Development, Comilla, 1963.

taking was the on- going training and utilization of local village
leaders by the Academy for the introduction of new ideas and
methods into the villages. Second, was the reorganization of
local governmental administration by providing for greater co-
operation between governmental officers and village leaders.
This was given impetus through a rural public works program,
a public school works program, and specialized training for
Thana officers. The third area was in education. Efforts
were made to improve the number and quality of village schools
and teachers, to establish youth clubs and to begin programs

of adult education for village men and women. Religion was the
fourth and most recent area to be touched. An experiment was
devised whereupon village religious leaders took on the func-
tions of school teachers in villages which did not have primary
schools. The women also were trained to teach other adult
women in the villages, and in the primary schools.

Since April of 1963, the Academy has been situated at
two sites. The original site is located about one mile south of
the town of Comilla on the Pilgrim's Road. This was originally
an old Gandhian institution called the Abhoy Ashram. It is now
called the Thana Training and Development Center. Here are
located the Thana officers, the central Office of an Additional

Director of Agriculture in charge of the Comilla Expansion pro-

gram to other Districts; the extension plots, rice research experi-
ments, The Kotwali Thana Central Cooperative Association and
Special Cooperative Federation, with the bank and loan facilities.
Numerous other experimental projects such as a dairy, rice mill,
and creamery are located in the Center as well as classroom
facilities for the training of villagers.

The other site of the Academy is approximately six
miles west from the Abhoy Ashram. Called the Kotbari campus,
it was opened in 1963 as the main site for the training of govern-
ment and non-government people, and the center for the numerous
research projects that are being done. Here are located the class-
rooms, communication section, cafeteria, dormatories, and
administrative offices. The Kotbari campus has come to be known
as the Acade my, while the other center is known as the Abhoy
Ashram, or simply, K. T. T. C. A.

The Women's Program

 

The persons who were the object of the study were those
women who worked as teachers and/or organizers in the Academy's
women's program. Basically this program was established to in-
volve the women in the development process by presenting them
new opportunities for learning and earning that would make them

more effective in their homes.

Major socio-economic problems encountered in estab-
lishing the women's program were: strongly conservative tradi-
tions, including the system of purdha which confines women to posi-
tions within the family; high rates of illiteracy; extremely poor
economic conditions in villages; and high rates of interest and
indebtedness. A technique which had been used with success in
the men's cooperative program was the "organizer system, "
whereby a local villager was selected by other villagers to be
their representative at the Academy and the Academy's represen-
tative in the village. The "organizer system" was adapted to the
women's program by having the men's cooperative select village
women for participation in the new program for women. The
women so selected went to the Academy5 for training one day a
week, for a period of eight to sixteen weeks. At the close of
the training period, each woman established a class in her own
village on the subject in which she had been trained. Many women
took training in additional subjects or in different jobs related to
the women's program, and hence had continuing contacts at the
Academy for a lengthy period and taught multiple classes in their

villages. (Related areas to the teachers and organizers are the

 

5. Academy is the word used by the women to mean the Abhoy
Ashram, however for most of the other people "Academy"
means Kotbari. The term Academy will be used as the vil-
lage women use it, i. e. to mean the Abhoy Ashram.

midwife training class and association, and family planning agents).

Since its inception in ten villages in 1961, the women's pro-
gram has expanded to approximately forty-three villages, with other
villages being included this year, and with still other villages in
which there were only part of the total women's program. For
example, villages that only have midwives coming to the Academy,
or hand spinners. A family planning program has also expanded
during this time. However, the basic framework still exists,
training village women at the Academy and teaching by these wo-
men at their local level.

A Bengali Village

 

Geographically it is difficult to distinguish the boundaries
of Bengali villages. From the air what is seen are groups of houses
located in clusters and shaded by trees. Reasons for this indistinct
boundary pattern is the lack of fixed territorial or township systems
of land division, and also land settlement patterns. Land holdings
in Bengal tend to be fragmented. That is, the limited lands of the
cultivators are not consolidated plots but are broken up into small
segrne nts and scattered in the area surrounding the homes.

Within the village there are other geographical distinctions.
One of these segments is called a "para. " A "para" is a cluster of
living units which include outbuildings, kitchens and cow barns

that are set off from the rest of the village by paddy fields, bamboo

groves, garden plots, or tanks (ponds). The number of inhabitants
in the village, the number of families and kinship groups, and the
land holding all influence the number of combined living units
composing a "para. " However, the determinate factor of ”para"
is that of geographical separation from other living settlements in
the same village. Another partial explanation for village settle-
ment patterns is the people-land relationship. Settlement deve-
loped in one area as heads of households established their homes
and worked the land. One finds within a "para" more than one
kinship group. Over a period of time, the distinct relationship

of family land may become blurred, but the settlement as a "para"
remains. That is, a family may lose their land, but still remain
living in the same "para," even though the men of the families
either work for other landowners or work outside the village in
the town.

The patrilineal and patrilocal hierarchal pattern in the
villages also influences the placing of combined living units within
a village "para. " Living units are built on the land surrounding the
head of household or elder of a particular kinship group. These
kinship units in "paras" are called ”baris. " A bari is a living
unit of usually four to ten houses built around a central rectangu-
lar compound. The individual living unit is called "ghor. " When

all available land in one bari is occupied another area of familial

10

land is selected for settlement. A cluster of houses then develops
in this new area. While the area might be in another para of the
village, the kinship ties remain strong and binding.

The "bari" or living unit is a combination of dwellings
(ghors), kitchens, cow sheds, and the surrounding trees, bamboo,
gardens and possible tanks. Within a bari live a single kinship
group, patrilocally based. For the women this means that they
leave their father's house at the time of their marriage, and go
to live in the village of their husbands. The fact that the women
are non-related to each other except by marriage is the cause
of many frictions and quarrels within the family, as Nicholas has
pointed out. Within the bari there may be more than one house-
hold, as is determined by kitchen. A household is defined by the
people who share food out of one kitchen. It is possible for there
to be three or four kitchens in one bari, all of the same kin group.
The smaller eating units are indicative of the joint family in
transition.

The "ghor" is the main living building in a bari. The "ghors"
give some indication of the wealth, amount of land, and social rank

of the land owner. While the overall architecture is the same from

 

6. Ralph W. Nicholas, "Economics of Family Types in Two West
Bengal Villages, " The Economic Weekly, Special Number,
July, 1961, p. 1059.

 

ll

ghor to ghor and from generation to generation the differences are signif-
icant. A villager's house is usually about 20 feet long and 10 feet wide.
The house of an owner of paddy fields (rice) is usually made of thick
mud walls covered with a mixture of clay and cowdung. A door and

two small heavily shuttered windows give the only light to the ghor.

As a measure against floods, the floor level of the ghor is raised

three to four feet above ground level of the compound, which has

itself been raised three to six feet above the surrounding paddy field
level. The roof of the ghor is generally made of thatch. Less pros-
perous families, often landless, have ghors of woven bamboo. Villagers
with more land may have corrugated iron roofs on their mud ghors. A
very few villagers have wooden or brick ghors of several rooms, and
these also have corrugated iron roofs.

Within most villages the main occupation is agriculture, how-
ever there are many men that are unemployed and landless, and who
find seasonal work only either working for some larger landowner, or
on the public works program. In most villages now there is a varying
percentage of men who have found employment outside of the village
and who either commute to work, or who live outside the village at the

place of work. In the Comilla Thana the average landholding is l. 7 acres

per family, which includes the land used for the ghor.

12

Arising out of the past experience which dealt with the develop-
ment of a women's program for the "functional emancipation" of village
women was an interest in how new alternatives for action, new oppor-
tunities, and new experiences were incorporated into the lives of tradi-
tionally oriented village women. "Functional emancipation" is defined
as teaching village women the techniques and giving them the knowledge
for making them more effective and contributing members of their
families. The newer interest that developed was to see, on a more
theoretical level, what is involved for these women who were engaged
in the Academy's program. As a way of conceptualizing the process by
which village women are selected by their villages to represent the
village at the Academy, and the Academy in their village, the concept
of "mediation" is used. The conventional meaning of mediator or medi-
ation as working to bring compromise, or agreement between disagree-
ing parties, is extended to incorporate the process by which village
women become and continue to act as links between a traditional village
system and that of a modernizing institution such as the Academy. The
basic assumption made is that in the process of such activity new
patterns of behavior, communication, leadership and influence are
developed and maintained, or old patterns are reorganized and modi-
fied in light of the experiences of the women involved.

The process of mediation is thought of as being that process

by which new knowledge, techniques, and behavior are introduced into

13

the traditional milieu with some degree of acceptance occurring. Basic
to this is the notion that in order to influence other women to change

the mediator must remain enough within the traditional pattern of
village life so as not to have the village rise up against her or treat

her as a deviant. Mediation is a process of attempted balance between
old values, norms, and behavior patterns and those incorporated in

the modernizing process.

In regard to the mediator herself, the interest is in seeking
to learn more specifically what working for the Academy has done in
encouraging a woman to leave her village, to learn new techniques,
use new methods, to go to new places, meet new people, create or en-
large areas of influence in the village, in the family, and with other
women from other villages.

The process of mediation is broken down into more specific
component parts; the mediator in relation to the Academy, village,
family and self. Areas of interest have been in how village women
have been selected or have agreed to go to the Academy; their condi-
tion before they began going; their experiences at the Academy; the
reaction of the family to a woman's working and her influence in it.

In regard to the mediator's work in the village the interest is in how
the work began, who helped; kinds of opposition, how it is handled;
how the women like the work, how they work in the villages now,
what they teach; for what other things do people come to them now,
that they didn't before; what were the problems in the beginning, what

are they now?

14

To summarize, the main concern of the study is an investi-
gation of how new patterns of behavior, influence and communication
develop and are maintained by village women as they move in a new
context which demands new behavior, which offers new opportunities
and which teaches new knowledge and techniques. The resultant
patterns that develop are not representative of entirely traditional
patterns, nor are they entirely new. Rather these patterns and ad-
justments are an accommodation, a blending of the old and new. The
successful reconciliation of old and new depends, in large part, on the
ability of the mediator to understand and work in the village milieu, to
pass on what she has learned, and on her ability to become a model of
or reflect that which she has seen and learned. In the following pages
the emphasis will be on the identity of the mediators, their condition
before coming to the Academy, and their experiences while at the
Academy.

Also to be considered will be the process by which mediators
established or are establishing new work roles for themselves in their
villages, how the process has been initiated, what kinds of problems
have to be overcome, and informal results that occur. Where relevant,
findings will be in cluded regarding areas of self and tie family.

Research Desifl

 

At the time of the research there was a total of forty-three

villages in the women's program. These were villages from which

15

local women came to the Academy and worked in the villages either as
teachers of basic literacy, or as organizers, who taught basic health
and home economics in the village. The two functions, teacher and
organizer, are considered to be the main mediating functions for purposes
of the study. While there are other women who come and work for the
Academy either as midwives or as family planning agents, they are
not included in the mediating strata because their attachment to the
Academy is a more tenuous one. That is, they do not come into the
Academy as often for training, nor are they directly responsible to the
staff of the women's program, but are linked to other government offi-
cers posted at the Abhoy Ashram.

The total population of the mediating stratum is fifty-seven
women, from the forty-three villages. (In some villages there were
two women who work for the Academy, one teacher, and one organi-
zer. In most cases, these two functions are performed by one woman).
These fifty-seven women are the universe fr om which a sample was
selected.

In developing the research design it was decided to select a
sample based on the types of villages participating in the women's
program. Types of villages were used as the basis of selection in
order to enhance the possibility of generalizing from the findings to a
broader context than just the individuals involved.

For the categorization of the villages, a combined variable

"accessibility" was used. This was developed after a period of re-

l6

connaisance during which all of the forty-three villages were visited.
"Accessibility" included distance from the town, and communication,
or types of roads linking the village to the outside world. That is,
consideration was given to the presence or absence of roads, making
walking the only means in or out of the village, whether there were
dirt roads, or mecadam roads linking the village to the town.

The forty-three villages were then classified into four cate-

gories as shown in table 1:

Table l: TYPES OF VILLAGES AND NUMBER OF
WOMEN INTERVIEWED

 

 

 

Proportion Women
Category Total Villges Selected Interviewed
In or near town 5 2 3
l- 3 miles 12 6 7
4 - 9 miles 18 8 10
10 miles and over 8 4 4
TOTAL 43 20 24

 

From each category a (nearly) proportional number of villages was
selected from which the women were interviewed. The sample was a
stratified-proportional sample. Selection of the villagers to be included
in the s ample focused (on incorporating as much of the variation as
possible in each category. Village information regarding family,
occupation, percent literate, schools, number of boys and girls in
school, and the presence or absence of a maddrassa (religious school)

were matched as much as possible. That is, a village with the main

17

occupation agriculture, with a relatively high rate of literacy was
matched with an agricultural village with a low rate of literacy, and
so on. The literacy rates were taken from the Pakistan census, 1961.

A questionnaire was developed and pretested on other mediating
teachers and organizers who were not included as subjects in the sam-
ple. The questionnaire reflected the interest in the mediator in rela-
tion to the Academy, village, family and self. Another section was
added to the questionnaire to gather background and profile informa-
tion on the mediator. A series of questions were developed and pre-
tested aimed at tapping the experiences and problems as perceived by
the mediators themselves in a series of open-ended questions.

A flexible interview schedule was used, which rotated the inter-
viewing. That is, the questionnaire was divided into five sections, and
one section of the questionnaire was taken at a time. As the mediators in
the sample cam e to the‘ Academy, they were interviewed on one sec-
tion of the schedule at a time. All twenty-four of the mediators in
the sample were asked one section of the interview schedule before
the next section was begun. This meant that the time spent interview-
ing one mediator was spread out over five days, in a period of rough-
ly three months. Each section of the interview required approximately
one hour. After each interview, and before the next session with each
mediator, the recall information was reviewed, and inconsistencies

were spotted and noted for later checking. Originally a short-form

18

interview was planned using the most salient questions, of mediators
not included in either the pretesting or in the sample. However, be-
cause the time allocated for the study was about finished, there was not
sufficient time remaining to do the short-form interviews. On an in-
formal basis, however, the women not included in the prete sting or

the sample were asked about specific areas of village life in order to
get as much representation or verification as possible. Also, because
the interviewing was done in an office where women could come and go
freely, many of the other village women came in and listened to the
interviews, occasionally adding their own comments.

In regard to the data information process, four months recon-
naissance was used to visit fifty villages in the thana, to establish a
basic knowledge of the Bengali village culture. This information has
been used to supplement and add to the information gathered through
the interviews, and the re-visits. Because of the difficulties in get-
ting women alone, or anyone but the oldest woman to speak in the vil-
lages, the interviewing of the mediators was done during the time
that they were attending the Academy for their weekly instruction.

The mediators were interviewed in a separate office in the women's
section, but because many of them were nervous, other women were
not forbidden to come in. While irrelevant interruptions were kept to
a minimum, a generally free and relaxed atmosphere was maintained,

in order to make the woman being interviewed feel as comfortable as

19

possible. The mediators were given "pan" (betel nut and leaf) to chew,
and general conversations were held before the actual interviewing be-
gan. In most cases, an attempt was made towork the questions into a
general flow of conversation. Also the assistant and I spent time in
informally talking with the mediators, attending their meetings, answer-
ing their questions, visiting their villages. An attempt was made to es-
tablish a general recognition that "the foreign memshaeb was curious,
but harmless, " thereby encouraging the village women to speak freely.
That is, our object was to build sufficient rapport and trust so that

the village women were assured that what they said would not be mis-
used or cause trouble for them or their families.

All the mediators selected for the sample were used; there
were no drop-outs. In general, the mediators were pleased to be
asked as it was something of a new experience to be asked as an author-
ity on anything. The mediators in the sample were helpful, interested,
and cooperative, especially as they thought it a " good thing that a
book was going to be written about them. " (This was the rationale
used to explain what the project was doing).

After the interviewing was finished, three villages were
selected, one from each of the categories of villages, except for the
category "ten miles and over" as the time was the end of monsoon and
the impassable rOads made it impossible to go to any village this dis-

tant from the__.Academy. The purpose of this selection was for "re-n

20

visits." That is, each of these villages were visited again, this time
for three days in a row. The object was to see the mediator in action
as she moved to different parts of the village, as she interacted with
different women, as she, in effect "mediated" between different
paras, and people in the village. If time had allowed, more villages
would have been “re-visited" in this way, as it gave insight into the
problems attendant on any one mediator, in any one village, in a
variety of different situations. Also of benefit was seeing and hear-
ing at first hand, how the mediator was accepted by other villagers,
both men and women, others' evaluation of the program, and the
woman mediator. In this way, also, a number of men, either rela-
tives, the coop manager, or just a villager, were talked to, giving,
in some measure, an evaluation other than that derived from the medi-
ator's own perspective. Problems of the cooperative society, of
different women in the village, disagreements between different
families, or women, tensions and stresses in the work situation were
seen at first hand, and were extremely informative.

Field Work

 

In doing the field work a number of considerations had to be
taken into account. For example, the cultural context of purdha set
the stage for many of the expectations that were. held for me. While
there was some recognition among the villagers that I was "different"

and not a Muslim, there were certain standards that had to be met,

21

if for no other reason than that I was held as a model of what a ”modern"
woman was. For example, it was considered in bad taste for any woman
to talk too freely and openly with men. Women do not go alone to the
villages, hence Iwas always accompanied by other women. It is
unheard of for women to spend the night in a village that is not a
relatives' village.

In spite of the bona fides established during a previous stay
in Comilla, there were many village men and women who had not
known me before. They required time in order to assess for them-
selves that which they heard from others about me. The period of
reconnaissance was valuable for me and it also gave them the needed
opportunity to observe, test and draw their own conclusions about
me in comparison with their own experience and value systems.
Ultimately, a rejection on their part would have made the study
impossible to carry out.

For those village men and women who had known me before,
the tendency in some cases was to presume that I knew more than I
did. I was supposed to know about many aspects of the Bengali cul-
ture because of the previous experience there. Some Pakistanis
had a tendency to act in terms of these assumptions and were sur-
prised when I had to ask for interpretation or explanations.

In addition, it was necessary for me to establish a position

at the Academy so that villagers could place me within a known struc-

22

ture. As there is little or no understanding among the villagers
about what comprises research, or of what a researcher is, it'was
necessary to explain my work within their frame of reference. 7 The
explanation given was that I was going to write a book about Bengali
women and village life. Since education is held in high esteem 'in
the villages, books are known, and valued. Therefore, this ex-
planation sufficed.

Although all the field work, including the interviewing, was
done in Bengali, it was still thought advisable to have a Pakistani ‘
assistant. The two assistants were invaluable as resource people,
and as "mediators" in their own right between hesitant village women,
and the thousand-questioned foreign memshaeb. The first assistant
worked on the project until the end of the interviewing. She then left
to join her husband who had been transfered to another thana. She
was a college graduate, and although unused to village work, learned
quickly how to relate to village women and put them at ease. Her
sustained interest and dedication to the project made her an invalu-
able colleague. The second assistant was also a college graduate, an
extremely intelligent woman who provided invaluable assistance in
checking the reliability of the English versus the Bengali translations
of the interviews, and in helping with the village re-visits.

With a largely illiterate population, a data gathering tech-~

nique had to be developed which was cognizant of this. Also with

23

women who were relatively unsophisticated, it was necessary to have a
rationale for the study that made sense to them, in terms of their own
concepts, and also to have interview sessions which took into account
the relatively short attention span of the women. Also in terms of
data gathering, it was found that an interview situation was unique

in terms of their past experiences, and so a great deal of time was
spent in putting them at ease. During the process of interviewing these
women, it was noticed that many of them had to learn to answer ques-
tions. That is, in the first interviews the women would often give
highly unrelated responses to the questions put to them, making it
necessary to ask the question repeatedly or in numerous ways and

with much prologue, until it was finally understood by the interviewee
what was sought. Later interviews showed this to be less of a prob-
lem, and many of the women took time to consider a question before
answering it.

Another area of concern in the development of a questionnaire
and in the actual interviewing was to obviate a tendency on the part of
the respondent to "say what they want me to, " or in other words, to
get around a cultural phenomena of those who feel in subordinate posi-
tions to function as "yes men" to those in superior positions. Regard-
ing village women, an effort was made to ask questions which were
open-ended enough or unstructured enough so that. this tendency would

not be encouraged. For example, no simple "yes" and "no" ques-

24

tions were asked, and in most cases specific examples were asked so
that the question was related directly to the women's own experience,
not to some general category of experience or hearsay. In terms of
the general understanding that the women had of their own culture,

it was necessary to relate questions also to their own experience,
and most often to their world and not to that of the men's or of the
village or society of which they had little knowledge.

Language presented a whole realm of problems and consider-
ations. The language problem existed on a variety of different levels.
One was the fact that the author while relatively fluent in Bengali,
was working entirely within another language and therefore another
conceptual world. While the problems of this were lessened by the
fact of an assistant who also helped with the interviewing, in careful
construction of the questionnaire, and in double comparisons and
checking of each interview, the whole data gathering procedure became
double in length and time, as great care had to be taken in the trans-
lating of Bengali responses into English. Also, there was the prob-
lem of comparability and equivalence of concepts and words used in
the interview schedules. Great care was taken to make the questions
as accurate as possible to the English, yet maintaining a valid Bengali
meaning.

As a corrolary of this, the semantic differences in the lang-
uages and the meanings and conceptualizations attendent in these dif-

ferences had to be taken into account, not only on the part of the re-

25

searchers in relation to the village women, but in regard to the women
themselves, as they spoke a number of dialects, or with a number of
different accents. What would mean one thing to one woman often

was expressed in another way, or by different terms by other village
women.

As an over-riding concern that of the cultural context in which
the study was done, was paramount. The cultural context of the villages,
the Academy, the relative position of the women, had to be taken into
consideration. It was also necessary to have as much understanding
as possible of the culture in order to undertand and evaluate more reli-
ably the information that was collected. In terms of the time sequence
of the research, because of the factors mentioned in the last few pages,
a period of reconnaissance of four months was set aside and used. The
reconnaissance before, as well as the re-visits after the interviewing,
were also useful sources of additional information besides that gathered

in the interview 3 .

CHAPTER 2.

The Patterns of Mediation in Its Wider Context

The Recent Traditional Image of Islamic Village Women

 

Woven into present day Bengal is an image of Islamic ex- F

i

cellence for women that has its antecedents in the distant past when ' i
the earliest Muslims were Arab tribesmen. Even today in the vil-

lages, status for village women is based on criteria stemming from

 

these antecedents of Abraham as the patriarch and the model for family
organization, and of St. Paul, who emphasized the need for control-
ling the influence of women. That is, a woman has high status by
being a good example of the ideal as traditionally defined. As one
villager said in speaking to this point:
"They are wives not girls. . . .She (sic) knows

and can do farming work. She can speak well. One is

good who behaves well, is shy and has shame, who moves

in purdha. . . . They can sew, talk well, do good work.

There is no jealousy, and no quarreling. "
What he is saying is that in order to establish full adult status and
prestige, a village woman must be married, and must have children,
preferably sons. In this context of being a "wife, " the woman must
know how to work well in the bari: drying, parboiling, husking the
paddy, caring for the house, growing some vegetables, caring for

chickens, drying rice straw, sweeping, cleaning and myriad of other

chores. She must observe purdha, which in actuality means that from

26

27

the age of puberty she should not be seen by strangers, or go out in the
village to be seen by other villagers. From the age of marriage to old
age, she should remain the majority of the time in the bari of her hus-
band. Twice a year however, she is allowed to go to her father's house,
after the two major rice harvests. Besides remaining in the bari, the
wife should be quiet but able to talk when spoken to, respectful of her
elders, attentive to the teaching of her mother-in-law, refraining from
quarreling with other wives in the family. This is part of what is
meant also by being "shy" and having ”shame. " Shyness is defined

in terms of a woman's interaction with the members of her husband's
family or other villagers, i. e. , remain shy in front of elders, keep
one's head covered, wear no powder or make-up, work hard. "To
have shame” means to behave in such a way as not to bring shame

or disrespect on the family name, i. e. , not go out in the village and
be seen by others, not quarrel loudly that others overhear.

Implied in the idea of "moving in purdha" is the knowledge of
the Koran, which means knowing enough Arabic to be able to read part
of it, although not necessarily understand it. Usually, this is the ex-
tent of a woman's formal education. As a child, before puberty, she
might have attended a religious school in the home of the village Imam
(religious leader), to learn to read Arabic. The ability to read the

Koran, to know and say the Prayers, to keep the Fasts, and other

Religious Observances are thought especially important for women.

28

However, only a few of the women know either the Koran or the
Prayers. One old woman, recalling when she was a wife said, "When
praying or washing for the prayers I say "Bismillah" and nothing more.
Now I have learned a little more from the other women. . . .That woman
who is pregnant and reads the Koran, certainly the child will also
know it. " One finds however, that among the younger generation of
girls there is a greater emphasis on their knowing Arabic, the Koran,
and the Prayers, and on having a basic grounding in Bengali. A girl
who has these talents has a greater chance in getting a good husband.
Marriages in East Pakistan are arranged. The age of marri-
age varies with economic status and time. Tradition in the past has
been child marriages of young girls of seven or eight years to men in
their twenties. In these kinds of marriages, the girls remained in
the baris of their father until puberty, after visiting her husband's
bari. The more recent trend is for girls to be older at the time of
their marriages, twelve or fourteen years. Some of the women
thought ten or twelve was a good time for marriage. In the higher
socio-economic families the age of marriage is eighteen or nineteen
years for the girls. This is in part due to the fact that girls from
these families are going to school and so are not available for mar-
riage until later ages. The men are usually older by ten or more years.
In settling the arrangements for the wedding, the boy usually

has a say in the matter, but the girl is not consulted, although "the

29

women of her family know if she consents to the marriage or not. "
If the girl does not wish to marry a particular individual, it is rare
for her wishes to be considered. Usually some third party or a pro—
fessional marriage arranger is used in bringing prospective fami-
lies together. Representatives from both families visit the other
to see the prospective bride or groom, to assess the socio-economic
level, histories, and backgrounds of the families involved. Running
through any description of the marriage institution is the difference
between "ideal" and the "actual. " "Ideal" practice is for the girl
to come from some village other than that of her husband, to be of a
good family able to support her, and keep her well. It may be a fam-
ily in which previous alliances had been arranged, or it may be a new
family. In actuality, many times the marriages are arranged to pro-
tect the inheritance of one family and therefore cross-cousin mar-
riages are preferred. In this way, any of the inheritance of a woman's
would stay in the husband's family and she would not be able to take it
out of the family in case she claimed it. Given the increasingly dras-
tic problem of the shortage of land, it is apparent why these kinds of
arrangements are made.

Once the respective families have seen each other, if the
marriage is considered to be wise, the steps are undertaken to plan
the details of the settlement, the date, and the amount the bride will

bring with her. The standard form of the arrangements is that the

 

30

groom's family Spends the money for the clothes, jeWelry for the bride,
and her family, and for the feast in the groom's house. The bride's
family agrees to pay a certain amount as "morhana" (bride price) for
the girl. This goes to the groom. When the wedding party comes to
the bride's house, the bride's family bears the cost for the feast and
gifts for the groom. If the groom is educated, the bride's family
gives him gifts of a radio, watch or bicycle. The "morhana" is a
certain amount that is fixed on the bride-to-be during the marriage
negotiations. The bride brings this money with her upon her marriage
to her husband's house. However, if the marriage is not realized, or
if the girl is divorced later, the husband is supposed to return the
amount of the original “morhana" along with the girl to her family.
This system is supposed to be a protective device making divorce more
difficult than just the simple pronouncing three times of "I divorce
thee. " In actuality however, most women who are divorced neither
take nor ask for the return of the ”morhana, " as village women ob-
served that, "If a case is made to get the money back, if another pro-
spective groom hears about the case, he won't marry the girl. "

In regard to property, the traditional pattern still obtains.
That is, while under Islamic Law women are entitled to a share in

their father's inheritance, in reality this right is rarely claimed. The

31

women said,

"Girls don't take their share, but give it to their
brothers. Twice a year then the brothers have to bring
their sisters to their house. They also have to give
them saris, and clothes to any children that might have
come along. "

The women observed that "if they took their share from their k

brothers, the brother would not take care of them if it was ever

necessary."

 

Village women keep strong ties with their father's family,
even though they spend the majority of their lives in the baris of
their husbands. This acts as a built-in security for them in case
of divorce or widowhood. If a woman is married into a family that
is economically well-to-do, and that can support her if her husband
dies, her future is somewhat assured. However, with the death of
the husband the wife loses rank and prestige, and in many cases the
woman who stays on in her husband's bari becomes saddled with the
more menial tasks in the family. Supported widows in a family must
have some economic means.

Another alternative for a woman who is widowed is to return
to her own family. If her ties are strong and her relationship good,
upon the death of her husband, her brothers might welcome her
home to live with them. If, however, her relationship with them is
not good, if she has taken part of her father's inheritance for example,

the brothers might not ask her home, or they may not take such good

32

care of her. In this context it is not surprising that women do not
usually take that part of the inheritance due them, but invest it in
their future security by giving it to their brothers. In extreme cases
in which neither family can or will support a widow, she may be given
a place to sleep but she supports herself by becoming the village mid- a
wife or working in the baris of richer villagers. In terms of Islamic

values, however, highest honor goes to the family that cares for and

 

supports the widows of their men. The woman's parental family is

Yr!

also reluctant to have their reputation lowered by having one of their
women working.

For the younger woman, there exists the possibility of re-
marriage. This is becoming more frequent. The women say "Where
is my food going to come from if I don't remarry? Is Allah going to
put rice in my mouth?" Among older women remarriage is possible,
but it is not as acceptable. It is better to continue living in the bari
of the husband, or in one's own bari than to remarry. But it is better
to remarry than resort to work.

The traditional view regarding divorce was generally nega-
tiveas divorced women have low status. If a woman was sent home,
the children remained in the husband's bari. By Law a woman can-
not divorce a man. If a woman wants to leave her husband, she can
come to her father's house and the men of her family then work to

convince her husband to divorce her. Among many of the village wo-

33

men, however, is the feeling that remarriage of divorcees is a
necessity just as it is for widows, for the same reasons, that is as
a measure of security where none else exists.

While it is a mark of status to be educated, few Bengali
women are. The recent trends within the villages, however, has been
to educate the girls of the present generation. With the development
of primary schools, the maddrassas (religious schools) and "feeder
schools" in the Comilla Thana, ever increasing numbers of girls
are going to primary school. The traditional pattern was that girls
who went to study went without purdha, hence were bad. Women re-
marked that the people's reaction was: "Will they have an office job
or not? Why should Muslim girls study? They can't go to Heaven
if they. are not in purdha. They will burn in Hell. " The vast major-
ity of those women who are wives now, or older are illiterate. They
know no Bengali, but may be able to read some Arabic in the Koran.
It is their daughters who are learning to read and write in Bengali
now. They can go to the primary school from about the age of five
to ten, or until marriage. The interest in the education of girls is
not something "that all villagers share, but among many of the women
education is thought of as one of the elements contributing to the
future security of their girls. A girl who can read and write has
the opportunity to make a better marriage, to increase her chances

of being well cared for while married, and to have security in case

34

her husband dies or divorces her. As families decrease in economic
elements of status reflecting the loss of land as the basis for status,
bargaining power has to be built-in to the children through education,
and through employment outside the village.

In talking with village women who were not associated with
the Academy, and some who did not even know about it, one found
that there was an awareness among these women of changes in vil-
lages that have occurred during their own lifetime. For example,
the vast majority of the women spoken to were aware of the tremen-
dous increase in population and the decrease in the amount of food
available.

"Before people were few. Now they have increased.

Before one rupee ($. 20) could buy what ten rupees can get

today. Things before were good. There were many things

before. Now they are scarce. . . because the people have
increased. . .even with three crops there is scarcity."

Among these older women changes are perceived in the ob-
servance of purdha, and in the training and character of the younger
women, the wives. Many of the women thought purdha was about
"four annas less" (out of 16 annas) than it had been before. One woman
put it this way,

"During my time we had more purdha than we do now.

We couldn't go out of the baris or be seen by the men. We

washed in the house, someone brought the water to us for

bathing. The burkha was ,not worn then either. When going

to my father's house we needed a bullock card or palki to
go. "

35

Another woman added, "Before there were maid servants to bring
,
water and go out of the bari for chores. Now there are not as many
(servants), the people can't afford them. " They told stories about
life in their father's baris, where the women had to keep their heads
covered at all times. "Even now, " one woman about 75 said, "I
won't speak in front of my husband. I feel shy in front of him. "
This grandmother said that when she wanted to go to her father's
house she would go to the ghor where her husband was, and "stand-
ing behind the partition would inquire, 'I am going to my father's
house?‘ From a distance I would speak." The women say,
"The young girls are not shy at all. Now women cover
their heads in front of men and boys out of respect, but
modern girls put clips in their hair and don't cover their
heads at all. When women want to go to the cinema, they
tell their husbands to take them. Before women listened
to their husbands, now husbands listen to their wives. "
An old woman remarked, "Before, during my time, the women
went out by palki (carried covered box) or by bullock cart. These
were the only ways to go. We went around the village, if ‘at all,
at night. The burkha came in only recently. "

The younger mothers and wives say that purdha is less be-
cause Of the advent of the burkha which allows a woman to go out
legitimately during the day and still observe purdha. While the

burkha has been in use in East Pakistan for several hundred years,

its use was restricted to the upper classes, those with the economic

36

facilities, as well as the status to afford it. For the wives of the
small farmer, it has been only in the last fifty years that the burkha
has come into the villages. In some villages it has been as recent

as ten years ago. Along with the burkha, the increase in roads,

both dirt and paved, and in rickshaws, buses, and tri-wheeled

cud-51',
'

carts called baby taxis, have all contributed to the greater mobil-

ity of women.

 

Inherent in the trends of change also is the growing belief
that for a good marriage it is now necessary for girls to know how
to read and write in something other than just Arabic. Before it
was said, "Why should girls study: Are they going to have jobs?

If girls know reading and writing, they would be talking with all
kinds of outsiders. There would be no purdha. It would not be
good."

In contrast to this traditional belief, the younger wives are
saying, "Now is the age of education. No education, no marriages. "
This change in belief is also manifested in the changing marriage
patterns. Now, not only are boys looking for educated girls, there
are actual changes in the arrangements and gift exchange in the
marriage negotiations. The tradition is usually that if both parties
are sufficiently happy with the prospective couple, the marriage
arrangements are finalized. If the boy is illiterate he gives gifts

to the girl's family. However, if he is literate and is educated,

 

37

then the girl has to give some gifts to him as well, "as it has cost a
lot to make this boy literate. " The. gift exchange becomes mutual
if the boy is literate or if both are educated.

In terms of a larger context in which the study of the mediators
was done, it becomes apparent that there are elements of change
and shifting patterns of behavior and meaning in the villages. They
were not static. In many ways, the mediators could be said to be
catalytic agents, springing from positions of semi-marginality in
the villages, bringing together the threads of already existent
change, into new patterns of behavior which serve as summaries
of what before was piecemeal, which draws on the store of toler-
ance and flexibility in the village, and which points to future patterns
of change. Besides the actual ability of the individual mediator in
her role, much of the success of her work in the village depends

on the store of flexibility and change already existent in her village.

CHAPTER 3.

The Identity of Mediators: In Relation to the Village

A Reprefintative Sketch

In order to give some idea of the village context in which
the village women live, the following sketch is presented. While
not representative of one specific woman, it is based on facts and
information drawn from the stories of the mediators themselves.

The first light was just relieving the darkness of night when
Joynub unbarred the bamboo door of the sleeping ghor and quietly
slipped out into the compound. It was very quiet, about an hour
earlier than her usual rising time. Pausing for a moment, she
quickly took in the other three ghors and outbuildings surrounding
the compound. The chickens were safe, she noted, no jackals
had disturbed the enlarged coop the apas (staff) had told her to build.
The goats were all right as well. The sasur (father-in-law) was
still asleep as was the basuer (husband's older brother) and his
family.

Satisfied that all was well, Joynub moved around the ghor,
across the garden plot to the latrine. Briefly on her return, Joynub
checked the pepper plants, plucked a bug-eaten leaf from a bean
plant to take with her to the Academy, and noted with pleasure that
the young lemon and papaya trees planted four months earlier looked

well and strong.

38

 

 

 

 

39

Returning to the compound, J oynub went to the already unlocked
side door of the ghor in which her family still slept. Entering the small
area used as a kitchen, Joynub took up the large clay water ju’g and
moved out of the dark, thick-walled ghor across the compound, onto
the path leading to the adjacent bari and to the tubewell which served
both baris with water.

On the way she stopped to pick up the peg lines and the three
goats. Joynub felt pride looking at them. Three years ago there had
been no goats in her household, not since the death of her husband,
long before, had necessitated selling bit by bit the previous goats,
chickens, the cow and finally the land in order to have money to live.
But since the Academy work had begun this condition had gradually
changed. No longer was it necessary for her husband's brothers
to collect donations from the villagers for her support. No longer
was it her family that received the skins of the sacrificial animals
on Little Eid. J oynub thought how the first goat had been purchased
out of the savings'she had made from the rickshaw fare given her when
she first began going to the Academy. "Out of one rupee I would
walk eight annas and ride eight annas worth. "

Arriving at the tubewell, J oynub saw that Sayera, one of the
wives in the other bari was already filling her jug. "What's new?"
asked J oynub.

"You are going to that place today?" Sayera asked.

40

"Yes, I go every week at this time, " Joynub replied, moving to
take the handle of the pump.

"Listen, apa. The baby is no better. My husband took him to
the doctor shaeb and spent two rupees for medicine besides eight annas
for the doctor. But last night he cried most of the night. I had to
sleep in the kitchen with him. "

Joynub looked at her friend. "You know what to do. Take him
to the Academy. They have big doctors there, and good medicine for
only two annas. They will give you medicine also. "

Sayera sighed, "Each year my children die, but my husband O
won't give me permission to go and see the doctor. He says there are
men at the Academy. If I go they will see me and purdha will be ruined.
What shall I do? Perhaps you should speak With him. " Joynub, in
preparation of lifting the new full jug, flipped the end of her cotton,
blue sari over her head. He r keys, tied to the end, dangled just be-
low her-ear. "I will ask the apas, " she said. "Last time they men-
tioned bringing other women to see the Academy. If so, I will talk
to your husband. They will give the rickshaw fare to you. " So say-
ing, she moved away, back toward her own bari.

Back in her own ghor, Joynub deposited the water jug inside.
Then taking the basket of leaves and the dried cow dung chips that her
daughter had fixed the previous day, she bent over the sunken chula

(stove) in the corner and placed and lit a fire. After encouraging

41.

the reluctant flames to a steady heat, Joynub moved to the clay pots
hung, one on top of the other, and held by a jute net that held the

gound spices, beetle nut and pan leaf, dry spices and general cook-
ing items. Taking down the spices ground the night before, she put
them to one side and reached up for an aluminum cooking pot, also A”
hanging in corded nets. Taking some ashes from the side of the

chula, she dampened them and moved to the doorway to wash the pot.

 

Rinsing it in clear water, Joynub put the pot on the clay chula, added . 1.!
mustard oil from a bottle hanging overhead, deftly cut up an onion
and began cooking the food for the day.

Hunkering before the chula Joynub thought, "Before going to
the Academy there was not enough food for us. We would eat one day
and not the next. The children would cry, and I would go to other
baris and ask for food. Now we have rice. We eat three times a day.
How much better the condition is. Two of my sons are married. One
daughter is about ready to be. "

Rising she went around the bamboo parition to the next room.
On the large, wooden bed her children, still at home, were sleeping.
Reaching out, she caught the arm of her youngest son and shook him
gently. "Hey, Bapu, wake up. It's time to do your lessons. " Turn-
ing then to the recumbent form next to him she called to her only
daughter. The girl, about eleven years, stirred slightly and drew

her sari closer around her.

 

42

Going to the bamboo door J oynub threw it open, letting the
early light into the dark room. Crossing the small room to a row of
large storage bins along one side of the room, Joynub took broken
rice for the chickens and went to feed them. Letting them run free
for awhile, Joynub returned to the kitchen. She added water‘to the H

rice and put it on to cook, and to another pot added the remaining

spices. With quick, automatic movements she moved about get-

"VT-

 

 

ting down and washing the two aluminum and one clay plates, rins- . r
ing the glasses, filling a small jug with water, and getting out the
puffed rice and bananas for breakfast.

The children struggled up, first the girl going to the latrine
and then to the tank to bathe. Later then the boy. The girl, Korzum,
entered the ghor and gathered up the blankets and pillows to be spread
out in'the sun. Joynub watche d her as she went past the door, a thin,
slightly built girl, with only the faintest hint showing of approaching
maturity. "She's not too dark, and her features are good, " thought
Joynub. "If she could learn to read the Koran a good husband could
perhaps be found for her. "

The boy, Bapu, came in, hungry, not really awake, with water
still on his face. He was a small-boned child with a pinched face and
sharp features. The last child, Joynub remembered how sickly he
had. been. Now, however, he was going to school. In class two and

doing well she thought, "At least he can make and does practice his

43

letters. If he does well, he will be able to get a good service job."
She set a plate of puffed rice before him with two small ba-

nanas and a glass of water. She gave similar food to herself and to

the girl. As they ate she gave directions to Korzum about finishing

the cooking, sweeping the compound, gathering leaves and fixing

the dung for tomorrow and grinding more spices. Bapu was told to

watch the goats and chickens and to bring wood and more water after

school.

 

Breakfast finished, Joynub left the dishes for Korzum to wash,
and picking up a sliver of soap and her other work sari, went off to
bathe in the tank. Returning, J oynub took down the prayer mat and
facing east said her prayers. Finishing, she rose, and taking some
coconut oil from a small bottle, she oiled and combed her hair. From
a bamboo pole running the length of the room she took down a white
cotton sari, with a green leaf pattern in it, a yellow blouse, and a
white petticoat, her newest possession. Quickly she dressed and
gathered her burkha, plastic bag, pan box and notebook together.

Korzum who had been watching these preparations asked,
”Won't you eat rice before you go? The rice is almost ready. "

"No," said her mother. "The time for going has arrived.

I will be late if I linger. Put it aside for me. I will eat when I re-
turn." As she moved to the door she added, "Feed the boy before

school and see that he bathes. I am going now. "

44

The path out of the village led down between tall mango and
bort trees, clusters of bamboo, and shrubbery. To either side the
people of the village were appearing, the men on their way to the
fields, the children off to collect leaves, to get water, or to look for
eggs. The women were in the compounds sweeping, or laying rice
out to dry in the sun. Or they were sitting in the doorways of their
kitchens eating the first of many pieces of pan and waiting for the
rice to cook.

The sun was steadily climbing, chasing away the last of the
mist, and any coolness, promising to be hot and unrelieved by rain.
On the other side of the para, where the path began to wander among
the paddy fields, Joynub met two villagers with hukhas and baskets
over their shoulders, on their way to their fields. Rather than turn-
ing off across the field to avoid them, Joynub lowered the front of
her burkha and walked on.

"There goes the 'Ulka, "' one of the men said in jest.

The other villager addressed her, "Why do you go to that
place, the Academy? There are men there. There is no purdha
either. You should stay home. "

Joynub stopped and said, "All right, I will stay home. How-
ever, my son is going to school and needs new trousers. Give me
ten rupees so that I might buy him clothes."

The villager said, "I can't give you that money. I don't have it. "

45

Joynub replied, "Then don't tell me to stay home. By going
to the Academy I earn money. "

"That's right," said the other villager. Addressing his companion
he said, "you shouldn't be saying these things to her. "

Joynub went past them without further comment. A mile
further on where the path joined a pucca road, Joynub took a rick-
shaw and began the six-mile ride to the Academy. As she went she
thought of a time three years ago when she would have been unable to
answer such a challenge.

"How frightened I was when I first began going to the Academy.
I was unused to going in the village. I had rarely been to the town.
The villagers told me that at the kademy there were foreign shaebs
who would carry me away. I was afraid to go there. But then I
thought people don't eat other people, so I went. I was in tremendous
need."

"When I first went to the Academy I sat in the corner of the
room, far away from everyone else. I didn't talk to anyone, parti-
cularly to the apas. I keptmy burkha on. I couldn't answer any ques-
tions. I had to give my thumbprint in order to get rickshaw fare."

"The apas took us around to show us the gardens, chickens,
dairy, offices, go-down, and bank. I liked it. Iwent again. I
thought that if I could make some income it would be good. Gradually

I came to like it more. I met some of the other village women who

46

also come there. We talked together. I took training classes in
gardening, child care, poultry, sewing. I can sign my name now.
I make money. There has been much progress. The apas have
taught us how to talk politely, how to behave with other villagers."

"Now I don't like to stay in the bari. If I can't come I am
upset and sad. All day I think what is happening today? What are
the women doing? What are the apas talking about? What am I
missing?"

She began to think of the report she would have to give to the
apas; the woman with the sick child; the chickens that needed injec-
tions; the bugs in the beans that needed spray.

Her line of thought was interrupted by her arrival at the
Academy. Getting down at the main gate, she ignored the men stand-
ing around waiting for the bus, or waiting for customers for their
rickshaws. She instructed her rickshaw-gwallah (driver) to be back
at 3:30. Turning, she walked around the road by the tank, along
the rice go-downs and rice mill to the women's section. Arriving
at the bamboo office-classroom buildings, she hurried over the
grass toward the classroom and the already gathered women. Another
day had be gun.

General Status: Age Grade

 

In Comilla, reflecting a different orientation to time, village

women are not sure how old they are and are unable to say their age

 

47

in years. Rather, time for them is measured in terms of major
events than by years. A woman knows approximately how old she was
at marriage, or when her children were born, but it is not a yearly
chronology.

For this reason it is difficult to speak of age-grades of the
mediators in Western terms. Any categories that would be used
would be rough approximations at best. * Of the twenty-four women
in the sample, all have been married at one time or another. From
this and other information, it is possible to divide them into three
age-grades: l) younger wives, Z) wives, 3) old wives, some being
grandmothers. The younger wives range approximately from their
late twenties to early thirties. There are four women in this cate-
gory. They have young children or are still having children. Being
younger, thesewives have more living family members, that is,
parents, in-laws, siblings. In three of the cases their responsibility
in the home is less, as there are older women who are in charge and
from whom the mediators receive direction. (On the whole these
four women are relatively better educated than most, all of them
having attended school to at least the fifth grade. Only one husband' '

is traditionally employed in agriculture. Of the other three husbands,

 

*Part of the problem also for a foreigner is being able to make
accurate guesses in light of influences such as health, many preg-
nancies, early marriage, and short life spans of the village women
involved.

48

one works as a tutor, one for the police, one in a government
office).

The second category of wives is composed of women who
range from early thirties to forty years. Eleven of the mediators
are in this grouping. These are wives with older children, perhaps
the oldest married, but the majority at home. These are wives
who have fewer family links, and in many cases have full responsi-
bility for caring for the husband's house.

The third category, older wives, has nine women in it. Six
of them have grown and married children, but one or more children
still at home. The other three women have all their children at home .
Inthi‘s category there are three of the four women who are supporting
themselves and their families by working in other baris.

In general, the need of observing strict purdha decreases
with age. An exception to this is in the three cases where younger
women are living and working as mediators in their father 's bari.

In these cases, because it is their "own" village, they have more
mobility and are freer to move than are wives in their husband's
bari. Being a daughter of a village allows a woman greater freedom
as she "belongs" in a way that women brought as wives to that vil-
lage do not, or as the woman in question does not belong in the vil-
lage of her husband. She is always considered to be a reflection

on her father as well as her husband. Because of this greater free—

49

dom, women are always anxiously awaiting the time when they can
visit their father's village. This is one of the reasons why the women
strive to keep amicable relations with their brothers, after their
fathers die.

In terms of age grades, there are no young unmarried girls,
or no extremely old women who are acting as mediators. The medi-

ators represent village women who are actively engaged in the role

 

of housewife, raising children, caring for the bari and the other
people within it. From what has been mentioned regarding the tra-
ditional criteria for status, these mediators fulfill the minimum,
that is, they are or have been married, and they fall within the age
categories that bear the greatest responsibility in village life. What-
ever the marginality of the status of the mediators, it did not origi-
nate from age. In general, the mediators are catelytists who are
integrated enough. within the village to be effective in terms of in-
fluencing others to change, but who are marginal enough to cause
change without disrupting in an obvious way, the traditional patterns
of village life.

Marital status of mediators

 

The marital status of mediators showed that seven are widows,
two are separated or divorced, six women have husbands who are
living and working away from the village, and nine women have hus-

bands living at home. Of these nine husbands at home, four are

50

employed (one overseeing his land, two are day laborers, one is
a tutor), three are not working, one is old, and one is sick.

Of the younger wives, all four of their husbands are living.
Among the older wives, five out of nine husbands are alive and of
these only two are employed. The other three husbands are either
too old or ill to work, or just unemployed. Of the eleven remaining
mediators, six of their husbands are living and five are employed.
Two of the mediators are divorced or separated from their husbands
and live and work in their father's bari. Three of these wives are
widows, one of whom has a married son, the other two are depen-
dent on their father's or their husband's families for support beside
what they earn working for the Academy.

All twenty-four of the mediators by being married at one time
or another have achieved full adult female status in the traditional
sense. Out of the twenty-four women, only two of them have not
had children; one woman who has been divorced, the other woman
whose husband threatens to divorce her. In this sense, the fourteen ‘”
women who have been divorced, separated or widowed have lost sta-
tus, but there are no women mediators who are deviants from the
traditional village patterns by not being married. This is an impor-
tant point in regard to their ability to influence other villagers. ‘If
mediators represented deviant elements in the village, their probable

influence would be much less, and their being sent to the Academy

51'

would represent a lack of commitment on the part of the village co-
operative society to the Academy in this phase of their program.

Education of mediators

 

In general, those mediators working primarily as teachers in
the Academy's program carre from higher socio-economic fami-
lies and are themselves better educated than other mediators from
lower socio-economic families.

There are eight mediators who work primarily as teachers,
and sixteen women who work primarily as organizers in the Women's
Programme. The eight teachers vary in degree of education from
class 5 to class 10 and matriculation (junior high school equivalent).
Of the organizers, five women are educated up to class 5. The
remaining eleven women are uneducated but have learned to sign
their names since coming to the Academy. Education is a discri-
minating item. By knowing if a woman is educated or not, a num-
ber of other generalizations can be made. Most generally, a woman
who is educated comes from a family which can afford to educate
its girls, and which has a somewhat more progressive attitude re-
garding the education of girls. Besides general family economic
condition, the education of girls is ageneral indication of social
status as well. That is, it is likely that educated girls come from
relatively high prestige families in which there has been the tradi-

tion of educating girls as well as boys. In the sample, it was found

 

52

that among the educated mediators, particularly the teachers, the
tendency was to educate all the children in the family, girls as well
as boys. This was not the case with the organizers. This item of
education along with social status and centrality of the mediator in
her family when combined, give an indication of the types of media-
tors represented in the sample. This will be discussed later under
types of mediators.

General So cio-Economic Status

 

Much of the original focus of the Academy's cooperative and
women's programmes has been on the marginal, subsistence farmer
and his family. These are farmers who, although owning and farming
land, are downwardly mobile, predominately caused by a vicious
circle of indebtedness to local moneylenders. The early cooperative
membership and leadership came from this stratum of the village
societies. It is not surprising to find that the majority of the women
mediators represented the same lower stratum.

Traditional criteria for status in the villages are: prestigeful
occupations; ownership of land; bullocks and other livestock; education;
wealth; and long-standing family prestige. Also important is a com-
plete family, i. e. , husband, wife, children and extended kin all
living together. A family that can feed and care for its widows, di-
vorced daughters and young unmarried kin has'. higher status than
other families who are unable to provide econOmically for kin beyond

the nuclear family.

 

53

Of the twenty-four women in the sample, only three come from
families fulfilling the traditional criteria for status. One is a younger
wife living in her father's bari in what had been a joint family until

the year 1966. Her family has enjoyed high prestige in the village;

 

it has land and economic affluence sufficient to support and provide
for a large number of people out of one kitchen. (The designation

of kitchen is the crucial item in the determination of households).

 

 

There are twenty-seven members in this family all sharing the same , J;
kitchen until last year. The men of this family serve as village lea-

ders, are members of the Union Council (local governmental body),

or wcn'k outside the village. The mediator's husband works for the

police in another District. As an indication of their relative economic

condition, this mediator “said that there were No laborers kept on

a yearly basis to help with the work. "In the harvest months of

Agrahon and Posh, ten or more laborers are sometimes needed to

 

help. They are paid on a daily basis. "

The second mediator in this category comes from a family in
which the men of her husband's family have worked as sub-inspec-
tors or inspectors of police, high prestige occupations. The women
brought as wives to this family were educated, the mediator having
passed from secondary school. This family helped establish the

village school and the mother-in-law of the mediator taught Arabic

 

and the Koran to village girls for many years. While the men of

 

54

this family are not primarily engaged in agriculture, there is some
land that is farmed by sons of the family. The husband of the media-
tor works outside the village as a sub-inspector of police. His father
also held this or a higher position in the Police. The position of

the family is established by the prestigeful occupations that are re-
presented. Before his retirement, the father of the family took his
wife with him to his different assignments, and so the old woman has
had some knowledge and acquaintance with places outside the vil-
lage, a rare occurence of a woman of her age.

The third mediator's husband is not employed outside the home,
but rather oversees the farming and managing of his land. This is
the traditional role of the landowner, which few farmers can fulfill
in present times. Besides the prestige deriving from being a fairly
large landowner, there are also bullocks and other livestock, and
general economic sufficiency to allow for the education for all of the
children of the family as they become old enough.

In all three families there are large numbers of kin living
together in the same bari or village. There are also extensive kin-
ship ties outside the village as well.

For these three mediators and their families there is food
throughout the entire year, the children go to school, some luxury
items can be purchased. In general, for these three families, the

traditional means of livelihood are still sufficient to the needs of

 

 

 

55

the families. Change is incurred less and more as the result of novel-
ty, as the response to new ideas, or as the desire for more luxury
goods.

The economic condition of the remaining twenty-one mediators
is quite different. Eight of the mediators reported that they are poor
and that their husbands are dead or separated from them. Typical
of the condition of this group is the following:

"Before going to the Academy my condition was bad.

We were very poor. During my husband's time, we rented

and farmed a little land, After he died we couldn't do any

farming. I worked in other people's houses. . . . There was

no land of our own. When my husband was alive he did

some farming. He ate. I ate. Then when he died, the

flood took the land. Then Our condition became even worse.

I made fishing nets, worked in other baris. The little

land we had was mortgaged and we lost it. I became total-

ly poor. "

This group of mediators has lost the status derived from having a
husband who is alive, and by becoming widows or alone, they no
longer have the status of their husbands, what ever little it was, to
sustain them. Besides destitute economic conditions, these women
are poor in “other ways as well. That is they have "no people" with
whom to share the troubles that come upon them, nor to share any
of the happier occasions either. To be without kin means that there
is little security for the women in question. There is no one to take

care of them in their old age, there is no one to turn to in times of

stress or need, or to care for their children should they die. There

56

are few recourses for action open to these women outside their fami-
lies. They can work in other baris, or become midwives, or live
by hand to mouth, relying on the village to support them.

Seven of the mediators described their previous economic con-
dition as poor with their husbands being home. Three of these seven
husbands are unemployed, relying on their wives or the sale of their
land for income. The four remaining husbands work as laborers when
employed; one is a weaver salesman. All of them have times of un-
employment when there is no income, and the families exist on loans,
or by mortgaging land, jewelry, or anything else of value. As one
woman asserted:

"Our condition was very bad. My family was very poor.

My husband was a day laborer. He cut wood. Before he

brought in Rs 2/50 ($. 50) daily. We would eat one time and

not the next. If no money, then no eating. But there was

not work every day. From my bari I wove and sold bas-

kets to keep the family going."
For the mediators of these families, even with their husbands living,
pressing economic need and few resources of income result in low
social status, and poor economic condition. The women have the
personal advantage of having their husbands alive in terms of meet-
ing the traditional criteria of status, but in general their economic
and social status is not much higher than the widows and divorced
or separated wives. These families have neither wealth, land, live-
stock, or the occupational status traditionally indicative of status and

position in the villages. For most of them as well, they are also "poor

in people. "

57

In this category of mediators coming from families of poor
economic condition, six of them mentioned having somewhat better
economic condition, with food for part but not all of the year. During
the short period, food has to be purchased. Representative of this
type of condition is the following comment; "Before going to the Aca-
demy we were weavers. Sometimes were busy, sometimes not.
We got along. That which came we ate. If (there was) no work then

the times were difficult. " For these six families, while there is em-

 

ployment for the men, it is irregular enough so that a fixed income

is hard to maintain. While the family has enough to eat generally,

there is little money left over for the purchase of luxury items, or

for the education of the children. In these six families there is some
land, but not the other accoutrements of wealth, livestock, or pres-
tigeful occupations required for high position in the villages. In re-
gard to family size these families have somewhat larger kinship groups,
but still have less than do the families with higher socio-economic status. 7

"Poor" was defined by the mediators as having insufficient

land for farming or no land at all, no bullocks, cows, goats, or even

 

7. It should be noted that differences between families in terms of soc-
ial status, economic condition, in particular, and such items as live-
stock, etc. , are relatively minute. That is, observably there seems
to be few distinctions that can be made, but those that exist are well
noted by other villagers, and are significant in terms of village pat-
terns. By some other standard even those families noted as being
relatively better off would be considered impoverished.

58

“chickens. "Food and clothing was scarce. " As one woman described
it, "There was such great need at that time. I also worked. If with
great difficulty we could buy chickens, if we got sick or if great need
came (then) we would sell them. Many days we did not have anything
to eat. " Being poor also meant having few kinfolk.

For these twenty-one women there is a lack of alternative ways
of possibly improving their conditions, and only a narrow margin of
operating safety between subsistence and starvation. At some point
the land passes to the moneylender and the cycle of yearly indebted-
ness finishes, leaving the man of the family towork as a farm labor-
er for other more well-to-do farmers, or perhaps as a tenant farmer
for the moneylender, or as a day laborer in the town. In many cases,
the woman of the family is not allowed by her family to work outside
the bari and so she weaves fish nets or baskets if she knows how.
Adding to the economic difficulty also are the dependent children,
usually three or four to a family. Traditionally large families were
a necessity because of high death rates which resulted in only a few
out of the total born surviving childhood. Now, however, with the
improvement in basic health services there are greater numbers
of children living out of relatively the same number of children being
born. On a wide scale there is not the realization in the villages that
because more children live, there is less need for so many to be born.
Grown and settled children are one of the few sources of security for
old people. In this light it is understandable why there is resistance to

family planning.

59

Of the twenty-four mediators in the sample, only three women
are without children. Of these three, two of the women are caring for
children from a previous marriage of their husband, or are raising
the daughter of a sister. For the rest of the mediators there are chil-
dren for whom the women feel emotional ties and responsibility. The
fact of having children to provide for seems to be a motivating factor
for the women in working for the Academy. No matter what the limi-
tations in a woman's ability to provide for her children, they represent
her links to the future, in terms of security for her old age, and in
terms of continuing the family name. This concern with continuing the
family is primarily the concern of the men, but not to the exclusion
of the women. The concern with family by the women is understandable
in light of its importance in establishing their basic status. For exam-
ple, the lack of children is a legitimate reason for divorce. In many
ways, the woman without children is in greater difficulty than the wo-
man without a husband. For the childless woman there is no security
in the present nor in the future. One of the mediators faces this prob-
lem, as she has had no children after fourteen years of marriage.
Herihusband threatens to divorce her and marry again, and the im-
provements that the woman has made in the family through her work
in the Academy Only partially compensates for this lack of children.

This concern over children, seems to be one motivating force

encouraging the women to work for the Academy. For the teachers

‘60

the ability to educate their children was mentioned as a reason for
working for the Academy when there were few expressed economic
reasons for doing so. For the majority of the other women, other
factors were mentioned as more pressing, but in the need for food,
for example, was included the provision for their children. One of
the side benefits of working for the Academy was the ability of the
women. to send one of the children of the family to school where none
had gone before. Also the women expressed the belief that one of the
advantages of having an educated daughter was that she could make a
more advantageOus'marriage; for sons, the advantage lay in their
ability to obtain a more lucrative position once they began working.
These were seen by the mediators as some of the advantages made
possible by their working for the Academy.

It should be mentioned that there are some forms of "social
security" built in at the village level, that exist outside the family.
It is possible for women 110' work in other baris husking paddy (rice)
if allowed to do so by their families. There is a "genteel" form of
begging in which a woman can go and ask for food for her children
from neighbors, which will be given. Also there are village collec-
tions ("pieta") that men of a family can gather for an impoverished
woman member and her children. Another source of aid is the giving
of food to the needy during the major Islamic Holiday of "Eli" and
the donations of sacrificial animal skins to the village mosque or

directly to the village destitue during the "Korbani Eid, " another holiday.

 

61

Family

Within the context of Bengali society, the family is perhaps
the most important unit of social organization. Family of orientation
and family of procreation are important in areas such as contact and
exposure to outside world, education, mobility and to the relative
ability of mediators to influence those around them. The type of
family establishes a certain frame of reference and background of
information from which differences can be observed in kinds and de-
grees of experience of the mediators. For example, it is thought that
those mediators who come from economically poor or lower status
families joined the Academy's program for a somewhat different set
of reasons that did mediators from higher status, more economically
affluent families.

For the more marginal, lower socio-economic status media-
tors the appeal of the Academy was as an alternative for a situation
which traditionally had few if any alternatives. Joining the program
was an alternative where none others presented themselves. For the
majority of the mediators, economic conierns such as the possibility
of earning an income, making money, and having more food, were the
primary reasons for their working for the Academy.

For the five-mediators of higher socio-economic status, the
reasons for joining the Academy's program were economic reasons of

a different nature than for the others. The primary interest of these

62

mediators was in earning additional income that would be used for the
education of their children, for more luxury items in the family, and
not for crucial necessities such as food. In general, for the majority
of the mediators improvement in their conditions represented sub-
stantive increases in material items. That is, improvements meant
increases in food, clothes, livestock, education where insufficient
amounts existed before, or were completely absent. For the five
fairly well-to-de families, improvements in the family condition

were additions to already existing items, or came in the area of luxur-
ies, not necessities.

The dual nature of the Academy's tasks caused a differential
principle to work in the selection of women from different status fami-
lies inthe villages. As mentioned before, the primary tasks were
teaching and organizing. Teaching implied educated women, which
automatically focused on higher status families in the villages that
could afford to educate their girls, or bring educated girls into the
family as wives. The job of organizer was geared to the improvement
of basic skills and techniques within the village homes, and therefore
could be filled initially by uneducated, destitute women.

In discussing the types of families represented in the sample,
the occupation of the mediator's husband will be used as a base
point. The criterion of husband's occupation is used as an indication

of type of family as it is through the male line that status of a family

63
is determined in the Bengali society. Within the family, a woman has
position and status which is hers. But in the village or larger society,
her status is basically determined by that of her father, and with mar-
riage is a reflection of that of her husband. In a family, a woman has
the prestige of position, such as mother-in-law which carries a great
deal of influence and power, especially over younger wives.

A woman has reputational prestige as well. That is, she ful-
fills the position of wife or mother in terms of her own abilities and
is known for her accomplishments. However she is known in the family
and village as "yusuf's ma," (the mother of John), or by kin designa-
tion "bou" (wife), "ma" (mother), or by some term of affection
"oh gou" (hey you). She is not called by name except when a small
child. In the villages it was noticed that this was an area of much kid-
ding and joking, as many of the older village women had trouble re-
membering their given names, and in general, most women were
quite shy in saying their names.

In discussing occupation of husband as a basis for analyzing
family information of orientation and procreation, there appear to be
three rough categories: 1) low prestige, non-agricultural occupations,
2) traditionally prestigeful occupations in agriculture, and 3) high
prestige, non-agricultural occupations.

Low prestige, non-agricultural occugations

 

 

There were eleven mediators who came from families of the

first type. Of these, two of the women are Hindus. Both of their

_L n" “3 -_ .

64

husbands are weavers, one husband sold woven shawls and saris,

the other works at an Ashram in another Thana. One of the husbands
has studied to Class 6. The other has not studied as far. Their fathers
were also weavers, one could sign his name. The oldest Hindu media-
tor has had no formal education, but has learned since coming to the
Academy. She works as an organizer for the Women's Program.

She has one boy, reading in Class 6, and two girls, the older of whom
is married, the younger only irregularly goes to school. The other
Hindu mediator works for the Academy as a teacher. She has studied
up to Class 5. She has five children.

Of the nine remaining mediators in this category, four have
husbands who are daily laborers, and five husbands are in low skill,
non-agricultural occupations: a clerk's helper, a cigarette maker,

a rickshaw puller, a small local wood seller, a husband who performed
circumcisions. Seven of the husbands have had no education; three
husbands could sign their names or read the Koran; one husband has
studied to Class 10. Three of these mediators are widowed. At the
present time, four husbands are working, two are unemployed, one

has left his family and gone off. The mean average number of chil-
dren in these families is three, the largest family having seven.

In the mediator's families of orientation, four of their fathers
were cultivators, two were farm laborer 3, four were in small trades,
e. g. , weavers, or employed as office peons (errand boy) or as clerks,

and one was a homeopathic doctor.

65

In regard to the women in this category, seven of the media-
tors have had no formal education. The four remaining have studied
no farther than Class 5. Of the thirty-one children in nine families,
two women had no children, seven children from four families are in
school. These are all young children, four boys ranging from Class 6
down, and three girls in the first and second grades.

Traditionalll prestigeful agricultural occupations

The second type of family represented by the mediators are agri-
culturally based. There are five such families. In all cases the hus-
band was a small cultivator by occupation. Three of the five fathers-
in-law were also cultivators; one husband was an orphan so there was
no information regarding his parents. Information was also lacking
on the other father-in-law. Two of the husbands have been to primary
school, one to Class 3 and the other to Class 5. The other three were
uneducated, three of the husbands have died, one has divorced his
wife, the fifth is old and unemployed. In the five families there are
twelve children, three of the. boys, are in primary schools in Classes 2
and 3. Seven of the remaining children are married.

Except for the mediator who has been divorced and lives with
her father, the other mediators in this category were extremely poor
and of low socio-economic status. The divorced mediator's father
has seven sons, six of whom are employed wage earners. The father
is saving money to make the Haj (pilgrimage) to Mecca. They have

just completed building a new bari.

C J,

66

The other families of orientation of the mediators in this cate-
gory were also agriculturally based. One mediator's father was a
village functionary, the "alim" or man who prepares the dead for
burial, an essential but not highly esteemed occupation. One of the
mediator's fathers has died when she was quite small and there is
consequently little information available about him.

Only one of the five mediators in this group have had any edu-
cation. That is the divorced woman. She had gone to school to the
third grade, and then later, after her divorce and return home, stu-
died at home with her brother's tutor. The other four women were
uneducated originally. However, they have learned to sign their names
since working for the Academy.

High-pre sti ge , non-agricultural occupations

The third type of family represented by the mediators are those

 

non-agriculturally based, with husbands employed in more prestige-
ful occupations. There are seven women in this category, or 29 per
cent of the total. Two of the husbands are employed as clerks--one,
an Intermediate Arts pass (high school equivalent), is ‘ in the Malaria
office in Sylhet District. The other is the local union board clerk
and cooperative society manager. He has attended school to Class 9.
Of the other locally based husbands, one is a tutor living in his
wife's father's house. He has" been educated up to matriculation
(junior high school). The third village based husband occupies his time

by overseeing his land, a rare occurence in modern day Comilla.

 

67

There are four husbands who are employed outside the village;
one was the clerk in Sylhet already mentioned. Of the other three, two
are sub-inspectors of police, the third works for a government depart-
ment in Dacca. Two of these men have been educated through Class 5,
one through Class 8.

There is only scanty information on the families of orientation
of these husbands. For the most part, their fathers were either far-
mers or employed in non-agricultural occupations such as office boys,
clerks, contractors, rail line inspectors, or as government officials.
From the information gathered, six of the seven men mentioned have
been educated ranging from Class 3 to matriculation (junior high
school).

Of the families of orientation of the mediators, their fathers
were employed for the most part as farmers. However, the informa-
tion regarding their husbands' fathers was scanty as many of the
fathers-in-law had died before the marriage of the mediator. For
this reason there is little information available. In one case, the
father-in-law was a sub-inspector of police, educated to an Inter-
mediate Arts level, his wife being educated through Class 7. How-
ever, this is the exception to the others.

Of the present families of procreation, there are 29 children
altogether, a mean of four children per family. Of these children

50 per cent, or 18 out of 29 are going to school. The largest family

68

has eight children. The mediator with the smallest family, of two chil-
dren is pregnant with her third child. In these families all children
of school age are sent, boys'and girls, and not just one boy out of a
family as is the case in the other two types of families. For the maj-
ority of the mediators in the two other types of families, the atti-
tude towards education is exemplified by the woman who stated, "One
boy should be educated. It will improve his commonsense. " These
families are just beginning to put into practice that which the higher
status families observe as a tradition. For the poorer families how-
ever the realization is just coming that educated girls make better
marriages, and that educated boys have better occupational opportuni-
ties. For most of these families, the desire for education is being
matched for the first time with the economic resources to make it pos-
sible. The education of some of the children of these poorer families
is an example of new ways of building prestige and position in the vil-
lage. For the families in the high prestige, non-agricultural fami-
lies, the education Of children is not a rare occurence, but a stan-
dard procedure. Rather than build prestige or position for these fami-
lies, educating children is one of the ways of maintaining the position and
prestige already held.

Regarding the education of the mediators themselves, two of
them have been educated through Class 5, one through Class 6, two

attended school to the eighth grade, one through Class 10, and one

passed the equivalent of junior high school.

69

ContaCtiand Exposure to ‘Outside‘ World

 

To get some idea of the social networks involvement and geo-
graphical movement Of the village women before they became media-
tors, questions were asked regarding mobility and friendship patterns
within the village, and types and extent of contact outside the village.

Mobility in the village

 

In the discussion of the traditional criterion for status for wo-
men, the observance of purdha was mentioned as being extremely im-
portant.

Included in the ideal observance of purdha is the restriction of
a woman's movements to only the bari of her husband, and an occasional
trip to her father's bari. In terms of village patterns, the freedom of
movement of women is a reflection on the position and status of a family.
Those families which have status and position to maintain, and the eco-'
nomic sufficiency to sustain it, endeavor to keep their women within the
narrow confines of the bari. In families where there is great economic
need, there is not this choice and many times the women of these fami-
lies must work in other baris in order to help maintain their families.
Since it is the male line that carries the prestige and status of a family, [I
the mobility of the family women is a reflection on the status of the men.
Because a woman carries the status of her husband and his family, and
has little status of her own in terms of the village, the necessity that

would bring her out of her bari is not indicative of her status, but only

70

speaks for the condition of her husband's family. The women are foils
in a larger game, and their mobility serves as a threat to the men of
their families, especially if a position is being maintained. For ex-
tremely poor families this would not be an issue, as their position
would fall at the lower end of the status hierarchy in the village.

For those women from destitute families whobecome media-

tors, the necessity of being mobile in the village posed few status prob-

 

lems for them. However, for the women from more affluent families,
there was a general reluctance in moving with any great freedom or
regularity in the villages. As will be discussed in the next chapter, the
teachers handled this problem by establishing classes in baris having
relatively similar socio-economic status. They also established

work routines which found them holding classes in their own, and one
other bari, but making few, if any, trips to the baris of their students.
The impetus for working in the first place was more an attempt to in-
crease or maintain an already established status than it was to build
rank. In the village system of values, education and teachers are highly
esteemed. To be a teacher therefore, carries a certain status with it
that could counter any opprobrium engendered by a woman's moving
outside the confines of her bari.

Restricted movement in the village_

 

The mediators reported varying degrees of mobility in their vil-

lages before joining the Academy's program. Four of the women ob-

71

served that they did not go "out to other baris. " One woman remarked,
"I was a village wife, therefore I could go to my uncle's bari but to no
other." (Her bari is separated only by a tank (pond) from the bari of
her uncle. To go there she must wear a burkha). Three of the four
women are married with husbands working. These women have had
some education; two of them up to junior high school, one to Class
three. The fourth woman is uneducated. She is married to an older,
extremely conservative Orthodox Muslim, who rigorously controlled
her movements. Just prior to coming to the Academy, this woman's
husband left her, thereby enabling her to have greater mobility, and
also precipitated greater need to support herself and her family.

Three of the four come from poor economic conditions. The ex-
ception is the highly educated woman from a well-to-do family. Simi-
lar to the woman with the conservative husband, the other women have
conservative fathers or in-laws who restrict the movement of their
women folk. This would be particularly true of families having tenu-
ous positions in the village, where a small deviation from the standard
pattern has greater consequence than for a higher status family which
can afford to deviate. In this sense, it is the families in the middle that
bear the brunt of maintaining whatever the village patterns are thought
to be. The more prestigeful families are "above" most censure, and
the economically poor have little status of consequence in the first

place. One of these four followed a distinctive pattern however, in

72

that while not allowed to go about in the village, she did go to town to
sell the sewing she had done.

Mobility extending to relatives' baris

 

Five mediators allege that prior to entering the Academy pro-
gram they went to relatives' baris in their own but not in other villages.
One of these is a Hindu woman, fairly young, who says that her hus-

band and the village people do not like it if women go freely in the village.

 

She did go occasionally for some religious ceremonies and functions. The L
other four women are Muslim. One, an older widow, comes from a con-
servative family. She has been a teacher of Arabic to village girls, a
position of some repute in the village. Being a source of religious
teaching meant that the teacher was held as a model for the young girls,
a position which carried with it greater expectations, making it unseemly
for the teacher to go freely in the village. Also her sasur (father-in-
law) survived her husband, and he controlled her movement in the vil-
lage. The other three women are married with employed husbands, re-
presenting the highest socio-economic levels in the sample. All four of
the women are educated, from Class 3 to Class 8. Much of the restric-
tions put on their movements in their villages stems from their relative-
ly high socio-economic positions. Both family members and non-family
villagers expect women from such families to be restricted in their

movements .

73

Mobility extending to neighboring baris, both relative and non-relative

Seven of the 24 women mediators observed that before coming to
the Academy they could or did go to other near-by baris in their vil-
lages, to both related and non—related baris. Three of these women are
widows of low economic condition. Their increased mobility grew out
of their low economic condition. That is, necessity demanded they
work to support their families, and being of widow status the norms of
purdha cb not obtain for them. Two of the seven are married, but all of
low economic condition. Two of the women were old, their husbands are
unemployed because of illness or age. What contributions they do make
to the family income comes from selling land. The other two married
wives are young. Their husband 6 work outside the village, so their
movements are freer. In addition, one young wife is living in her father's
village which also increases her mobility. As mentioned before young
girls. and women once married have greater freedom in their father's
village than do daughters-inalaw' in the same village, or: thanthey do'. in
their husband's village.
Relatively unrestricted mobility

One third (eight) of the mediators relate that before coming to
the Academy they moved with relative freedom in the village. All of
these women are uneducated. Of these women, one an older Hindu,
was alloweda; certain freedom in the village because of her age and

religion. An additional factor, her husband was the first manager for

74

their village's cooperative society. In this newly developing position
of leadership in the village, the husband could use his influence with
the society members to win permission for his wife to go too in the
village.

Four of the eight women, less restricted in their movement,
had been employed. The economic necessity to support their families

outweighed the tabu on movement. Three of the four are widows. The

 

one married woman and her husband formed a nuclear family with no
extended kin, hence the wife and husband had to rely on their own earn-
ings for subsistence.

Another Muslim woman who enjoys a certain amount of freedom
in her village is a remarried widow. Originally she had been raised and
lived as a married woman in the town and had come to the village only
upon her second marriage. These elements in her background plus her
age gives her a mobility that other women did not have.

The two remaining women in this category live in their fathers'
villages. One is divorced; the other, although married, does not re-
side in her in-laws' village. Her husband is employed outside his village.
Both of these women come from relatively sufficient economic condi-
tions; the former mediator is part of an upwardly mobile family; the

later woman a member of a joint family just breaking up.

75

Friendshigpatterns

 

In the village society, particularly in the world of women, friend-
ship is a kin related phenomena. Given the system of purdha which re-
stricts the movement of most women in the villages, and the lack of
specific functions or duties that bring non-related women together, it is
not surprising that half of the mediators report not having friends. The
family is such an important unit in the village that most of the routine of
daily living is carried out within the confines of the bari. There is little
time, or need (as seen by other family members) for women to obviate
traditional patterns by forming a closeness with other women who are not
related.

Part of the friendship patterns in the villages is also influenced
by the training and orientation given to young girls. That is, they are
socialized to anticipate fulfilling the roles of wife and mother. However,
in terms of self-identity there appears to be little emphasis given to a
girl as an individual with the attendant series of expectations, interests,
and rights that would accompany such a self-concept. The girl is
trained to be a wife and mother, but there is little socialization of her
as a unique individual. In terms of interaction with others, she is re-
sponded to and expectations are held of her, in terms of her position
in the family. Mention has already been made of the fact that women are
not called by name, but by kin term, or designation. The only excep-

tion to this pattern is while the girl is very young.

76

Another exception to the general patterning in the village, is for
those girls who attend the primary school. Here the emphasis is on the
child as an individual, or at least is based on non-familial terms. It
is in the school milieu as well, that the young girl has the opportunity
to meet and associate with other girls her own age. In this situation
friendships are formed, which add another dimension to the experience
of the child. Friendships that are formed in school last until the marriage
of the girls involved. In some cases the friendship continues after mar-
riage. Since only a minute percentage of the total female population goes
to school, those who receive the advantages of friendships, besides the
education, are girls from higher status village families.

The village women mediators spoke of a "friend" as "Someone who
always talks with you, about good and bad, who tells secrets. (Friends
are) fond of one another; they eat together." Another woman observed,
"Those things that I tell her (friend) she doesn't tell to anyone else. "

The mediators were asked who their friends were before coming to the
Academy. Ten of the total twenty-four women replied that they had no
friends. Some comment, "It is un-Islamic to have them." Another wo-
man elaborates her answer as follows: "I have no friends. I never
made "relatives" of non-relatives either. I am friendly with the vil-
lage people, but have no friends. " This is an excellent summary of

the friendship patterns in the villages among older married women.

This woman, in saying that she never makes relatives of non-relatives,

77

is saying in effect, that she never enters into special or favorite rela-
tionships with people who are not already her kin. A friend for this
woman, is a relative with whom one had a preferred relationship.
Friendship in this sense, becomes an additional quality added on to an
already established kin relationship. Others of the mediators attes-
ted to the veracity of this statement, but none so succinctly stated

it.

Seven of the women, particularly those who have been to school
as children claim they had friends as young girls in their fathers' baris.
Two of the women who have not attended school, also report having friends
in their father's baris when they were young children. This does not
mean that they have friends in their husbands' villages after marriage.
Before joining the program at the Academy, most of the women mention
they they had no. friends in their husbands' villages.

Seven mediators report having friends in their vildages now. In
some cases the friends are relatives, in one case it is a man, or is a
childhood friend. These are women who are either maintaining ties with
childhood school friends, or women who are the most mobile of the wo-
men before coming to the Academy. Present friendships seemingly
arise out of two situations: one, the women have remained near or
returned to their childhood baris and have continued friendships estab-
lished in childhood; or second, they are mobile and either establish new
friends or are able to keep old friendships alive despite separation or

marriage.

78

In regard to other contacts with women, in the villages, the medi-
ators commented that those women who went from bari to bari are most
often the older women, not wives. The women who can "visit" in the vil-
lages are the older women, for whom purdha no longer applies, i'.-e. ,
grandmothers. When women come visiting, the mother-in-law or the
oldest woman of the bari is called. She does the entertaining, not the
younger women of the family. Ten women claim that women may go at
night to other baris, in order to get something, to find out some informa-
tion, or to attend a special function. Nine of the mediators say they went
to other baris only on special occasions. In general there appears to be
no set patterns of regular association among women outside their irrrned-
iate bari. There is no convenient well from which to draw water, and
exchange gossip. There are no clubs, or even times in a day when the
women are most likely to gather just to gossip. Within each family,
there are periods when the work lessens, and at these times the women
of the family rest. Within the family hierarchy, young wives may con-
verse together, but it is not considered proper to talk freely with the
mother-in-law or older wives.

To assess the possibility and frequency of contact of the media-
tors with outside places, they were asked how often they visited the
Camilla town before they began working for the Academy. Eleven of
them commented that they did not visit the town before they began

going to the Academy. Eight women mentioned they went through the

79

town on the way to the baris of relatives, or rarely went on other oc-
casions. Only five of the women noted they came with any regularity
to the town; to see a doctor, to attend the cinema, to perform pujas, or
to visit relatives living in the town.

Mobility outside the villa&

 

No matter what the mobility patterns of women within their vil-
lages of residence, all who live away from their fathers' baris periodi-
cally visit in their bari of origin. The only exceptions are orphans.

It is customary to visit a father's bari after the main rice har-
vests and after preparing the paddy into rice. The pattern is for the
father, brother or head of the woman's family of origin to write or
send an emissary to the husband's village, asking for a time when the
wife could visit. The woman's husband's family decides when she
can go and sends an answer. At the agreed upon time, a representa-
tive is sent to get the wife and accompany her home. In some cases,
the husband and young children also go for the visit. The length of
the visit varies from two weeks to many months, depending on such
factors as the economic ability of a family to feed visiting daughters,
and the capacity of the husband's family to cook for, watch over, and
take care of the husband and children not. visiting with the woman in
her father's bari.

For fourteen of the women, their fathers' baris are in a dif-

ferent village, but in the same thana, as their husband's. For two of

80

the women, their husband's bari is in the same village as their father's.
Four of the mediators come from different thanas (counties) to live in
their husband's villages. Three of these women are from the educated,
fairly well-te-do families of the sample. The fourth woman was raised
in the town and moved to the village with her second husband. Three of
the mediators live in their fathers' baris. None of them intimated that
there are set times for visiting their in-laws, i. e. , husband's bari.

One of these women is divorced, and the other two women said there

is nO‘ set time for going.

Except for those women who have to travel to another thana to
reach their fathers' bari, the vast majority of the mediators have the
boundary of the Comilla thana as the parameter in which they move.
Within the thana, three-quarters of them are limited to restricted
movement within their own villages, or to movement between their hus-
bands' village and their fathers' village. The spatial limitations to
their mobility both within and without the village is important in terms
of their general orientation to the world, and in terms of the range
and depth of experience possible to them. The narrow dimensions of
their world, both spatial and intellectual, found the majority of the
mediators largely unknowing and unsophisticated about relatively sim-
ple things when they first joined the Academy's program. In their as-
sociation with the Academy this means that learning occurs in areas

not of direct programmatic concern to the Academy, but still basic

81

to the development of role related behavior of the mediators. Examples
are learning to sit on chairs, to sign their names, to come to class on
time, to use flush toilets, or to wrap their saris "correctly. " The
previous, relative isolation of the mediators, while limiting their
knowledge and experience of the world ourside their villages, made
them acutely aware of the problems and happenings related to their
own families. This extensive knowledge about their families and the
juxtaposition of the Academy's alternatives and resources served as
an impetus for quickly learning, accepting and utilizing those aspects
of the Academy's program most applicable to their own situations and
needs. The classes and techniques taught at the Academy had immedi-
ate usefulness for the women. Also their previous isolation resulted
in the women being without preconceived notions of good or bad, or
set biases. That which the Academy taught seems applicable and pos-
sible. The Academy is a prestigeful institution, and the mediators
are willing to listen to what the Academy people say. The end result
is that village women learn a great deal in short periods of time. This
being the case, for many of the mediators the association with the Aca-
demy is a means fOr their own personal development, with the bene-
fits gradually being extended to other village women by the mediators.
Marginality

As has been maintained earlier, mediators are thought to be to a

‘ certain extent marginal to modal village patterns, but integrated enough

82

that they have some degree of influence within their villages. However,
"marginality" in this sense does not signify the more standard meaning
of persons or people standing between two groups, fitting neither. Nor
does "marginality" connote psychological marginality. That is, the
village women mediators are not deviants or neurotics. They-are not
dealing with psychological problems and are notusing .the Academy
as an alternative attempt to solve insoluble problems of their past.
Instead their efforts .are aimed at coping with external problems, over
which they have little control. .

"Marginality" as used in the context of the village women con-
notes structural influences causing the w'omen to be marginal, not
those resulting from influences of personality. The personal experiences
of the mediators are not unique from the vast pattern of village life.
For them as well as for the majority of village people, it is "Fate"
which allocates and controls their lives. For this reason, widows are ‘:
not ostracized for working in other baris, nor are the vicissitudes
plaguing a family thought to be retribution for past behavior. In this
sense, the misfortune occuring in a family is not thought "to be brought
on" by the family member's themselves. An individual is thought to
be only minimally responsible for the consequences of his or her
actions. One can be "ashamed, " that is, by bringing dishonor on his

or her family, but the individual is not held to be personally "guilty, "

that is, directly responsible for what happens.

83

The mediators, in terms of personality types, vary in temper-
ment, disposition and so on, but all come within the range of normal
expectations of what is acceptable behavior by village standards. They
are "fringe" people in terms of structural happenings over which they
have little or no control, Because they are structurally fringe people,
and not psychologically marginal, the mediators are able to channel
their energies to the attempted solution of external problems. Not
being bothered by internal problems, they can remain open to new ex-
periences and respond to new situations which are not threatening psy-
chologically. In this sense, the village women could channel their
energies to becoming mediators, even though the position represented
something new and unheard of in the villages. To the women, working
for the Academy was perceived as an alternative way of coping with the
problems facing them. Being open to new experiences, they can and
do learn quite fast.

Using the factors of marital status, children, socio-economic
status, education, age-grades, and mobility, one can see elements con-
ducive of both integration and mar ginality influencing the position of
mediators in their villages. For example, in regard to marital status,
all of the mediators are or have been married, which gives them a higher
status than a single woman. The fact of marriage gives them full adult
status, and is a factor integrating them in the village structure. Twen-

ty-two out of twenty-four of the mediators have children which further

84

ties them into the structure of the village. However, only four of the
mediators have marital situations which conform to normal expecta-
tions. The rest are all marginal in some way: seven of the media-
tors are widows, two are divorced or separated; six of the fifteen
employed husbands work outside the village, and five husbands living
in the village are unemployed.

The socio-economic status of the mediators finds only three of
them coming from relatively advantaged economic conditions. These
families have men working in high prestige jobs or overseeing family
property. Theirs are relatively "old" prestigeful families in which there
is a tradition of educating children, including girls. This represents
a highly desired but seldom obtained condition in the village.

Of the remaining twenty-one women, six of them an ntion having
food for most of the year but having to buy through the short season.
Fifteen of the women in this category, with or without husbands, re-
ported being poor. Four of them; three'widows, and‘one married'woman,
worked in other baris before joining the prog ram at the Academy. Be-
ing poor, or in economic need is not in itself a factor of: marginality
as this is a condition of many villagers, particularly the small farmer.
What is marginal is the response made to economic need and the re-
sults of these actions to the mediator and her family. The acceptance
of a position with the Academy is in itself, a response that the vast

majority of village women would not make.

85

In considering education, the eleven uneducated mediators fit
the general pattern in the village, as few women are educated. What
stands out as being different is their learning to sign their names and
some basic literacy during the course of their work for the Academy.
Those five women who are from the better families and are the most
educated of the sample are marginal in a different way from the others.
They represent an extremely small minority. in a society in which e ven
the ability to sign one's name is considered an achievement for a woman.
The marginality incurred by high status poses different problems for
these mediators than for others. Largely this revolves around being
accepted by other villagers. High status villagers are looked up to
but nd: emulated. Their lives are too different from those of the aver-
age villager to be models or an obtainable reality. Those with high
prestige are above the patterns most known and adhered to in the vil-
lage. They can "afford" not to observe certain norms, as their posi-
tion in the village would not be endangered.

As mentioned before, in terms of age-grades, mediators are
neither very young or very old women from the village population.
They are not expendable people whose going to the Academy or doing
something new would simply be discounted as de viancy. Rather they
are wives, either still bearing or rearing their children, actively en-

gaged in caring for and managing the family and household.

86

Also, before they became mediators, the women had only limited
mobility in their villages. Except for seven of the women who moved
with more freedom than the others, the general pattern was the ob-
servance of purdha, as defined by each village, in terms of what was
permissible movement for women in the village. For example, one
woman who is extremely poor said that in spite of her poor economic
condition, her relatives would not let her go to other baris to work, but
rather had her stay at home, while they contributed to her support.

In general, it is the participation of these women in the Academy's
program, and their response to the presentation of new alternatives that
mark them as marginal in ways that they were not before. The fact
that they acted as catalytic agents in the village influencing and encour-
aging change in other women, shows a degree of their being accepted
and integrated in the village. Without it, the village response to the
mediator's behavior could have been quite different, that is, the respon-
ses to a deviant vis-a-vis the response to a non-conforming group mem-
ber.

Types of Mediators

 

In order to ascertain possible differences among mediators cer-
tain aspects of their behavior were considered in looking for general
similarities of patterns. The women represented as mediators, may
or may not be representative sample of general village women before

they become mediators. But now that they are teachers and organizers

87

they are different. In ascertaining types, the variables of education,
social status, and the "centrality" of the mediator in her family are

used as discriminators. These three factors are considered as being

the most useful in denoting differences among the mediators, especi-
ally when taken together. In assessing possible types, it was found

that except for high socio-economic status mediators, the remainder
clustered together. Taken separately, none of the three factors men-
tioned was able to clearly discriminate types. When considered to-
gether, the factors of education, social status and the centrality of

a woman in her family give indications of possible types among the medi-
ators. However these factors are used as ways of distinguishing pos-
sible nascent patterns emerging and coalescing around various media-
tors. The factors are not meant as predictable units determining who
would or would not be "good" organizers or teachers. That is, the factors
of education, social status, and the centrality of a woman in her family
are units which join together in different ways giving some insight

into possible types among the mediators. These distinctions held

for the majority of the mediators, but not for all. Four of the women
seem to represent somewhat different patterns of adjustments to being
mediators.

Social status

 

Among the twenty-four women in the sample there seems to be a

basic differentiation between those women who represent families having

88

some social status in the villages, and those who have very little. Hav-
ing or not having social status is also closely aligned with economic con-
dition.

Among the mediators there are thirteen women who come from
fairly low positions in the village. These include the widows, with one
exception; those with the greatest economic need, with husbands that are
not working, or are employed in menial occupations. These are women
for whom purdha does not hold as they have few of the accoutrements
necessary for its observance. Necessity demands that these women also
participate in supporting the family. Except for three of these women,
the majority are uneducated.

The remaining eleven mediators come from families having
some to fairly high status in the villages. Except for two mediators
in this group, the economic conditions of these families is relatively
advantaged. That is, some have their own rice for a year, and do not
have to purchase any from the local market. For others in this group,
rice has to be purchased for a few months each year. Of the two ex-
ceptions, one is the widowed Arabic teacher, the other is also a widow,
whose economic condition was greatly weakened by the lingering ill-
ness of her husband. All except one of these women have had some
education. Eight of the eleven are teachers.

It should be noted that social status as discussed here is ex-

pressed in terms of the status of the husband's family. As mentioned

89

before the woman reflects the status of her father or husband in terms
of the social structure of a village. However, mention will be made
later of the individual status of the mediator, separate from (and in
addition to) the one of her husband and its influence on her ability to
work as a mediator. In regard to village work, the status of her hus-
band gives the mediator a stratum of the village population in which to
work. This stratum usually is complementary to the status of her hus-
band's family. For example, the teaching mediators, coming from
the higher status families, tend to establish a class in another rela-
tively high status family bari. Girls and wives from other (lower)
status families can attend the classes, but the teacher does not visit
these baris very often. For the teachers in general, the village work
is utilized to maintain the status already established by the family.

For the organizers, on the other hand, their work centers on families
who have roughly the same economic condition and social status. The
organizers can and do move more freely in their villages, as they have
less status to maintain. For them, the work in the village becomes a
way of building or improving family status. No matter what their ori-
entation, however, all mediators are establishing new patterns of be-
havior as, through their work, they become contributors themselves

to family status .

90

Education

 

In considering the mediators as a group irrespective of the vil-

‘-"'~‘

lages from which they come, a simple distinction is made between those
mediators who are educated and those who are uneducated. Education
is thoughzof, not in terms of Arabic, but in terms of studying Bengali
and attending a primary school, or studying by tutor. The crucial ele-
ment is a certain mastery of literacy in Bengali. Education is thought
to be a crucial variable as it is a scarce phenomena in the villages par-
ticularly among women. It is thought that any family that can afford

or would make the effort to give some education to its girls would dif-
fer in many other respects as well from other families. In general,
this distinction proves useful and viable.

There are thirteen out of a total of twenty-four mediators who
have had some education. The range is from class three to matricula-
tion (junior high school). Only four of the thirteen women have gone
beyond primary school. There are eleven women who are mediators who
have never had any formal schooling. On the whole, the educated women
are younger than the uneducated women. Of the thirteen educated media-
tors, four of them are those women designated as being young wives,
that is, under thirty years of age. Seven of the educated mediators are
in the middle age category of mid-thirties to forties, and only two are
older women. In contrast, among the uneducated mediators there are
four women between the ages of early thirties and forties. The remain-

ing seven uneducated mediators are over forty years.

91

Among the uneducated mediators, five are widows and one is
separated from her husband. Of the five uneducated mediators with
husbands, only two husbands are working. One is a Hindu, of the
weaver caste, working in an Ashram in another Thana. The other is
a Muslim who is employed as a day laborer. Of the three unemployed
husbands, one is too old to work, another is ill, and the third is only
irregularly employed as he performs circumcisions, or sometimes
works as a laborer.

Centrality of mediators in their families

 

In order to conceptualize the position of the mediators in their
families and baris, the idea of "centrality" is used. By this term is
meant the relative responsibility and possible influence of a mediator
in her family. The centrality of a woman may be due to no other fac-
tor than there being no others with whom to share her responsibilities
within the family. In the traditional culture of Bengal, the oldest woman
member of the family is in charge of the women's duties and household
responsibilities. In joint families, this could be the husband's grand-
mother, or his mother, In extended families, the woman in charge may
be the oldest wife ("jal") of the eldest son, or the mother-in-law,
("sasuri"). In a small nuclear family, the wife carries the total burden.
Her relationship with her husband, in this sense, may be more direct
than in larger families, as she manages the hous e herself, makes her
own recommendations on what items should be purchased, and even plays

some part in the decisions that are made regarding the family.

92

s For smaller families, the increased importance and responsibility
held by a woman is indicative of an additional factor. Most often small
families tend to be economically poor as well. For in the preferred
Islamic pattern, economic sufficiency manifests itself in the ability to
care and provide for large families. Sufficient resources means that for
all family members food can be purchased, medical aid secured, edu-
cation provided, and suitable marriages arranged for the children. In a
society in which there is no government or village system of social secur-
ity, the family has this as one of its primary responsibilities. Providing
those items mentioned above is part of this security. But an important
additional function of the family is to provide "human resources" of ex-
tended and distant kin, beyond the family group itself. With "human re-
sources, " disasters can be mitigated by having others to help in times of
need. Part of being poor is not having others with whom to share the vicis-
situdes or the joys of life. Within kinsl'ip groups the ties are so binding
that one relative has to assist another. But because of these ties and
responsibilities there is little "civic" or communal help patterns. A man
would be more likely to extend aid to a distant relative than to a neigh-
bor, if only because he then establishes the lasting obligation of that
kinsman to return the lelp, if it ever becomes necessary.

Most generally also, lack of kin and inadequate economic condition
are indicative of and contribute to relatively low social status. Families

who have few resources, either economic or familial, have difficulty

93 ‘

finding advantageous marriage partners for their children. In a sense
the process becomes "self-fulfilling prophecy" of a type, in that it is a
self-generating process which re-establishes the next generation at
the same or, more likely, lower level, but rarely increases the posi-
tion of a family. In this sense, families who are1 poor can become
poorer, but they rarely improve in social status. These families usu-
ally lack the accoutrements of status, of which land, mOneyJ’ family ties
are part. The village society offers few if any alternatives), After once
losing its land, a family may continue to exist in the villag , but it has
fallen below and out of that part of the social structure that "counts. "
A bare existence may be maintained, but the future promises little in
a society where there are few alternative ways of making a living other
than by agriculture. For the women in such a family, the traditional
pattern of purdha does not apply, as she has none of the basis for purdha,
i. e. economic or social status. In many cases, a woman of a small fami-
ly can not observe purdha because she has to work to help contribute to
the family income. Under these conditions a woman who works is not
opposed, she just does not count, as she is not considered by others as
a threat to any of the traditional patterns. Within the family itself,
because there are few other relatives with whom to share or discuss

,.
problems, and because of the reluctance to talk with those outside the
family circle, the wife or sons, if old enough, become included in the

decisions that are made.

94

One alternative however, to the situation in the village, is for a
family to leave the village and drift into an urban center. There, although
the social statgs is no different, there is the possibility for some ,work
on a more regular basis. The man of the family may find a job as a day
laborer, a rickshaw puller, or as a helper in a small shop. This exis-
tence offers few advantages except that the family is closer to the facili-
ties of the town, primarily the schools and health clinics. A possible
means of improving a family's condition lies in educating one of the sons
of the family, at whatever cost. A son who has struggled through primary
school has a slightly better chance of finding a more profitable job, and
it is on the basis of the occupation of the sons, rather than on land, that
status is created by those families in the urban setting.

Education and social status may be considered in relation to the

. centrality of a woman in her family, and may be considered in relation
to each other. In terms of the twenty-four women of the sample, the
following clusterings are noticed:

Table 2: EDUCATION AND SOCIAL STATUS OF SAMPLE
VILLAGE MEDIATORS

Social Status

 

 

 

 

 

 

' High Low Total
Educated 10 3 13
Education
Uneducated l l 0 l 1
TOTAL ll 13 f 24
I

 

 

 

 

95

In regard to social status, "high" and "low" degrees of status are rela-
tive terms in that the significance of status is in its basic presence or
absence. For village people who do not have status positions in the
village, the norms and expectations of others towards them differ from
those held for villagers who have positions to maintain. As mentioned
before, the landless families, or the widows have "fallen below" the
level that "counts" in the village society. While there are relative dif-
ferences also among those who do have positions in the villages, the
most significant difference is between those who have and those who do
not have status in the villages. For this reason, high status in the table
is a combination of those mediators who represent families that have sta-
tus in the village, combining high and "medium" degrees. The signifi-
cant differential is between those who have and those who do not have
much, if any.

Table 3: "CENTRALITY" OF POSITION OF WOMEN IN
THEIR FAMILIES AND EDUCATION

Centrality of Po sition

 

 

 

High Low Total
Educated 8 5 13
Education
Uneducated ll - l l

 

TOTAL 1 9 5 24

 

 

 

 

 

 

96

The general relationship between centrality and education is that in fami-
lies in which there is not the education of women, and (by implication)
general economic need, the women have positions of greater responsibility
and weight than in families in which there are more women, with the younger
women being educated but having less responsibility. Part of the as sump-
tion, as mentioned before, is that families with greater degrees of status
than others, also have more advantageous economic conditions and larger
families. An indication of status, and economic affluence is the education
of women. For eight of the mediators above, a seeming contradiction is
implied in their having education yet high centrality. Some insight is
gained when it is noted that five of the husbands of these women are em 4
ployed outside the village, therefore making their wives ’more responsible
for the management of the family affairs if only by default. 'Ihnse five
mediators having education and low centrality are those coming from the
highest status and most economically advantaged families represented

in the sample. The remaining three mediators, are women who have made
particularly individual adjustments to the mediators role.

Table 4: "CENTRALITY" OF PCEITION OF WOMEN IN
THEIR FAMILIES AND SOCIAL STATUS

Centrality of Po sition

 

 

 

 

High Low Total
High 6 5 11
Social Status
Low 13 -. 13
TOTAL 19 5 24

 

 

 

 

 

97

In brief, the table shows that women having low status have more likeli-
hood of also having high centrality in their families. Five of six women
who show high centrality and social status, represent women who have
some status in their villages, yet whose husbands work out of the village.
(For this category and in all mention of status, except where expressly
defined otherwise, status is considered to be that of the husband's family).
The sixth mediator is one who will be discussed later under the heading
of those making individual responses to the mediating experience.

In combining education and status and considering it in relation to
the centrality of position of women in their husband's families, the fol-

lowing clustering appear 8 .

Table 5: EDUCATION AND SOCIAL STATUS IN RELATION TO
CENTRALITY OF POSITIONS OF WOMEN

Education and Social Status

 

 

 

 

 

 

High Education-Status ‘ Low.EducgtionaSmtus Total
High 5 10 15
Centrality of -
Position
Low 5 - 5
TOTAL 10 10 20
Non-cate go- 4
rized indivi- ‘ - 4 4
dual response

 

 

 

 

 

98

Nascent forms or clusterings of patterns of behavior which may or
may not be trends of the future appear in three general groupings, with
four mediators who do not seem to cluster together, not do they seem to
be similar to the other patterns that appear to be emerging.

The first type of mediator are those five women who have low cen-
trality of position in their husband's families, and are educated. Their

husband's families also have relatively high prestige in comparison with

 

the other families in the sample. Their economic condition is such that
the husbands are either working out of the village in high prestige occupa-
tions such as Inspectors of Police, or in other positions for the govern-
ment. In one case the husband is overseeing his land in the village, and
has no formal outside occupation. In regard to family size, these families
are larger than the other families in the sample, with the mediators hav-
ing less responsibility within it. One of the mediators in this category
is divorced, but her father's family is of sufficient prestigeand status
in the village so that she does not suffer from the loss of status involved
in divorce. Four of these five mediators are teachers. They all are
educated. The one mediator that is not a teacher is an organizer. One
other woman in this grouping has held both positions of teacher and organi-
zer. In her own words she comments on her efforts in both positions by
saying

"I haven't done very good work in education. I have only had

seven students receive their certificates. But I have done other

work of the organizer for a longer time and I do this much
better, so my name can sit on the top step for this. "

99

For the five women in this type, their work in the village is a way of
maintaining the already established status of their husband's or father's
family. That is, as teachers they work in the village on comparable
levels of established families, but allow and concentrate on women of
other lower positioned families as students. Because of the high esteem
that is attributed to teaching, these women are not jepordizing their
husband's or father's position in the village by teaching literacy to 'vil-
lage women. By having classes in baris of similarly advantaged fami-
lies, the teaching mediator does not lose status by going to these baris.
Also by having the students come to her, and by the teacher not going in
the village to the baris of the students, she is reiterating a pattern al-
ready known in the village of higher status people not going to the baris
of those not as advantaged.

A second type that appears is composed of five mediators who

although educated and from families having status in their villages,

 

have positions of _h_i_gh centrality in their families. As mentioned earlier,

 

the cause of this high centrality in the family of procreation for three

of these mediators, is due to the outside village employment of their
husbands. Because the men of the family are not home except during
leave, the women have to assume much more responsibility for the day
to day management of their bari affairs. In cases of major decision-
making the husband continues to make decisions, but the women probably

also have some say in the matter. In these three families, there are

100

parents or in-laws living in the same bari, or in the same village. In

other words, these are fairly large families, with many kinship ties.

 

For two of these mediators, the death of their husbands makes them of
high centrality in their families. In general, the economic conditions
of these families is not as advantaged as those families of the first
type mentioned.

Among the five mediators in this second type, three are teachers
and two women work both as teachers and organizers. One of the widows
is an older woman; two of the women are of middle age, and two of the
mediators are young wives. For these five mediators, the work in the
village is primarily a way of building prestige or contributing to that
which the family already has. The three teachers follow much the same
pattern of instruction as do the teachers of the first type mentioned, in
that they go to relatively the same advantaged families in their villages
to open centers. The students in their classes come from neighboring
baris, and some from other paras to attend class. The teachers however
only rarely gotn the baris of their students. In the case of these teachers,
the position of their families is such that the uniqueness of their efforts
in the village will add to the status of their families. Their families
are not so well established that their own work and earnings will not en-
hance their general position in the village. The two women who work
both as teacher and organizer follow somewhat of a different pattern, but

in general much of the instruction that is given is done in the context of

101

the literacy classes. Part of the variation that occurs in their work is
that they travel more in the villages, seeing the work of the women in
their own baris.
By far the largest grouping are those mediators who are uneducated
and who have relatively poor economic conditions before becoming media-

tors. They also have high centrality in their families. There are ten

 

mediators who come within this grouping. Six of these mediators are wi-
dows, one woman is separate 6. from her husband. Of the remaining three
women who have husbands, only one of them is working,’ the other two
husbands are unemployed. These are families which would be defined

as being poor by the village, before their women beginjworking for the
Academy. Generally they are landless, or with very little land. There
is not enough food, and little resource to rely on in case of need. Part
of the reason for the high centrality of the women of these families,

is that their lack of economic affluence is matched by a dirth of kinpeople .
That is, the families are without many or strong extra-nuclear family
ties. On an economic basis there is little to support relational ties as

these are subsistence families. Within the family each of these media-

 

tors has the majority of the resLonsibilithor the household affairs, and
in some cases, for the entire support of the family. Before joining the
Academy's work, four of these women worked in other baris. Without

p

exception, these women are old.

102

The mediators in this group are all organizers. Their work re-
quires that they teach other village women about health and economic sub-
jects related to the bari and family. In contrast to the teachers, the work
pattern of the organizers is that they go from bari to bari in the village
working and socializing with the wo men. The mode of instruction is by
demonstration and interpretation given by the mediator in terms that
are meaningful to other village women. Most of the baris in which work
is being done are of comparable condition to those of the mediators before
they began working for the Academy. The organizers tend to seek out wo-
men of the same economic base and social status. The majority of thEir
work therefore is focused on the lower strata of the village population.

There are four women whose adjustments to the role of mediator

are such that theLfit none of the categories discussed above. Two of these

 

women are Hindus, which sets them apart from the majority of the popula-
tion in Comilla. Many of their adjustments to the role of mediator are
made in terms of being minorities in a society. One of the Hindu women
is the woman whose husband's family has some status in the village, yet
she is uneducated. She also has worked with many di fferent types of
families in her village, and has not just sought her own equals to work
with. The other Hindu woman comes from a particularly conservative
family, in which the husband is only irregularly employed. Although
educated, the economic conditon of the husband's family is poor. Their
status in the village is not high. The former Hindu woman is an organi-

zer, the latter is a teacher.

103

The two remaining women are Muslim. Both are married. Both
seemingly have made relatively disadvantageous marriages from the
prior status of their respective father's. That is, both are married to
day laborers, of little education and economic means, while their fathers
were clerks, educated. The two mediators themselves are educated.
Both of these women are organizers, and live in or fairly close to the town.
One of the women is somewhat unreliable in her interpretation of events
as there seems to be an attempt going on of trying unsuccessfully to match
the experience in her father's bari to what she is experiencing now in her
husband's. For the other mediator, a generally unhappy home life gives
a certain impetus to work for the Academy as a way of seeking some

security that is otherwise lacking.

CHAPTER 4.

The Identity of Mediators: In Relation to the Academy

Recruitment

 

The initial selection of women to represent a village at the Academy
was left up to the local cooperative society in each village. In the begin-
ning of the women's program it had been decided to work only within
those villages having an already established cooperative program. A co-
operative society, being a new phenomena itself, was thought to already
include villagers with a certain propensity to change. Hence it was deemed
expedient to capitalize on this interest in establishing a women's program.
Throughout the existence of the program this association and linkage
between the local cooperative men's society and the women's program
has been maintained. In a few cases, women's work began in villages
where there was great interest among the women for the program before
a men's cooperative was established. It is within the local cooperative
society that village women are making some of the first attempts at
mutual participation with men. As discussed later, this is not without
problems, and it offers an illuminating backdrop in which to observe new
patterns being created, modified, and maintained.

Within the traditional society of Pakistan, religious, institutional,
social and economic factors tend to coalesce in what manifests itself in
a largely heterosocial world. That is, there are such few areas outside of

the home in which men and women have legitimate interacting roles, that

104

105

the men's world is quite exclusive of the women's. This separation is
enhanced by the system of purdha, by the agricultural basis of the eco-
nomy, by the illiteracy, poor health and low levels of living. For ex-
ample, village women do not work in the field helping to cultivate and
care for rice; unless of low social status, or advanced age, they do not
go to bring water from a distant tube well, nor do they tend goats, or
bring leaves for the cooking fires. It has already been pointed out that
few girls go to school. After puberty they are to remain in the bari. As
the women observe, "the young girl that gets into trouble is the responsi-
bility of the village. The wife that gets into trouble is the reaponsibility
of her husband and family. " This is one reason why, upon marriage,
whatever freedom that was enjoyed in the father's bari is further cur-
tailed. The young wife is to remain in the bari, and not go in the village.
The mediators mention that it is only after having two or three children
that the restrictions lessen regarding a woman's movements in her hus-
band's bari. By breaking social convention a woman may damage her
reputation, but more seriously may lessen the family name of her hus-
band.

(In terms of the village and larger society, village women have
little active part. They do not go to market, or engage in business. They
hold no official posts, nor have official functions to perform. The only
exception is the village midwife, a role usually filled by a destitute woman

who has no other means of livelihood. In regard to the larger social

106

world, it is truly a man's world. For village women other than the media-
tors, the cooperative society is perhaps the first possibility for them to join
in what is primarily a man's organization. For the majority of the vil-
lages, there has been no village-based institution such as the cooperative
society attempted before. For the women, the cooperative offers an op-
portunity to save regularly. and to reap dividends from saving in the form
of small capital loans, and food loans. Part of the difficulty in the woman's
association with the cooperative society is that there are no precedents

to follow in determining how the women should be treated. There is a
tendency on the part of some of the village men to allow the women to

get loans in return for becoming members, and buying shares. Other
villages however, have difficulty in taking the participation of the women
seriously; and are willing to allow the women to save through the coopera-
tive society, but not to reap the benefits of membership. On the women's
side, the lack of previous experience in such a situation makes them
hesitant and reluctant to stand up for their rights, if only because they

are not sure just what exactly their rights are. There are virtually no
women who have had the previous experience in talking or working with
men. It is one of the functions that the mediators are having to learn, and
it is presenting difficulties. However, it is in just this type of situation
where diverse interests come together that new patterns of behavior, and

social norms will develop.

107

Within the confines of the bari and in matters relating directly to
the family, women do have a part to play. As mentioned in connection
with the centrality of a woman in her family, a woman has considerable
influence particularly as she advances in age, and becomes more respon-
sible for the decisions made regarding the women's concerns. Also with
age and children a woman increases in prestige within the family, and
acquires the right to speak in some decisions. In families where there
are few people, the woman plays a greater role in everyday concerns, sim-
ply because there is no one else.

In this context, it is not surprising to find that much of the initial
impetus for the recruitment of village women for the women's program
came from men. In asking the mediator's how they first heard about the
Academy, thirteen of them indicated that it was through a male contact,
either father, husband, cooperative manager or school master. In some
cases, the contact was also a relative; a husband, uncle, or father who was
the manager of the cooperative society, or an uncle who was the village
leader. For the mediators who are teachers, three of their main con-
tacts were through the local school master. These mediators indicated
that because they had had some education the school master contacted
the mediator's guardian in an attempt to enlist the woman in work. Five
of the educated mediators were contacted by the cooperative manager, or
some other village man. The contact is not a direct one, but through the

guardians of these women. None of the uneducated women were contacted

108

by school masters. However, five of them rep orted being approached by
the cooperative manager or a village man.

Other sources of information about the Academy came from village
women who were already associated with the Academy in some way, i. e. .
as midwives, or family planning agents. Generally speaking, those who
were first to join the women's program were most often contacted by men.
However, those who joined later heard about the Academy through other
women. For nine of the mediators, this was the source of their con-
tact. Two Of the mediators first heard about the Academy from a member
of the women's program staff. One other woman reported that she came
on her own to the Academy, that no one told her to come.

The only criteria given by the Academy for the selection of women
was that they be intelligent and educable. Some of the main factors at
work on the village level for the selection of women were based on economic
need and a certain degree of marginality. As perceived by the women
themselves, the most often stated reason for their selection was that
they were in great economic need. Six women who reported being se-
lected because of economic need were also of low social status as well;
three of them being widows, two with sick husbands, one mediator separa-
ted. Three other of the economically disadvantaged mediators asked the
manager of their local society for work. That is, two were widows,
the sole support of their families, the other an extremely poor woman.

One of the mediators was simply told to go by her husband who was the

109

cooperative manager. One woman came because no one else in the vil-
lage would, and her husband allowed her to come.

Again the factor of relative marginality comes in, as women of
families who can maintain themselves, although not well, would many
times not allow a woman to participate in such a program because it was
unheard of for women to behave in such a manner, also because such
participation, being non-traditional, could cause a loss of family prestige
and status. On the other hand, these are not entirely marginal women
as they have to med: the Academy's criteria. That is, being intelligent
and educable excluded village "expendables" of the aged and defective
from being sent. Also as already mentioned, the women are still within
the general framework of the village society in terms of observing vil-
lage purdha, having and living within a family context, and being within
the more active, responsibility bearing age-grades within the village.

For the educated mediators the nature of their function in the
Academy's program means they represent a different stratum of village
society. Their perceptions of why they were chosen emphasized more
the factor of being qualified, that is educated. This was particularly
the case of the six higher status teachers (not including the widow of
lower economic condition). Their families or guardians were asked by
school masters or guardians to send them. Three of the women thereupon
were told to go and see what it was like; three were asked by a village

official to go. Four others of the educated mediators, of lower socio-

110

economic status, asked for work and were themselves interested in
joining the program. One mediator said that she was chosen because
she was poor and because no other educated woman would go from her
village. For only one of the educated mediators was poor economic con-
dition the reason for selection. One teaching mediator reported being
selected because she was a relative of the cooperative manager.

Attendent upon going was having the permission of the guardians
of the family involved. Besides the factor of a woman's selection not
being self-selection in most cases, going for a visit depended on the per-
mission of the men in her family, father-in-law, uncle, brother, hus-
band, son or step-son. Nineteen of the mediators reported having to
gain the permission of the guardians in their family. In at least half
of these cases there was disagreement among the men of the family about
the woman's going. In cases where father and sons disagreed, the greater
status of the father decided the issue. In general, the decision was made
in terms of the status hierarchy of the family, i. e. , .if the head of the
household gave his permission, the women could go, even if the husband
disagreed.

Three of the women took the permission of their mother and then
came. Two came on their own. One said, "There is no father, husband,
or father-in-law. So I came on my own. " In another instance, a woman

came in spite of the disapproval of many of the men in her family.

111

"First I came out of my own from the bari. All were
against it. I came anyway. . . (only) husband's younger brother
said to go and see. The older brother of my husband said
not to go. He said, 'It is not necessary for you to go to the
Academy. ' My husband didn't want me to go. "

Self- Orientation

 

For the majority of the women, their personal interest in coming
was larely related to economic concerns. Three-quarters of the media-
tors said they came in order to make money, get a salary, have some
profit, or receive economic aid. Only six indicated non-economic con-
cerns; two of the teachers were interested in teaching, two in "fame, "
one teacher wanted to learn sewing and one woman came "just to see. "

In general, the mediators did not come to the Academy with the
ostensible purpose of themselves undergoing, or causing in others, sig-
nificant changes. The purpose in coming was in response to the possi-
bility of this being an alternative that had not existed before, that might
make a difference to them. It is only through continued experience that
the Academy has come to have personal meaning to the mediators, be-
yond familial concerns. Their attachment to the Academyfis the case in
point. So is the fact that as the mediators work for the Academy they
build or maintain family rank, but at the same time they are creating
for themselves their own prestige, which may equal 01' surpass that of
their husband's family. The association with the Academy has given
the mediators a new dimension of self which is individually based,

which is outside the village structure and patterns in terms of a refer-

112

ence base, yet which is dependent on village ties for its contimed deve-
lopment and support. That is, the new dimension of self is that of the
processes and elements involved in being a mediator; the experience with
other women at the Academy, the learning of new techniques and ideas,
and the translation of this experience and knowledge into usable commodi-
ties in the villages, not only within the confines of the mediator's bari,
but as extended to other village women, in other village baris. In terms
of personal orientation the mediators were originally looking for ways to
improve the condition of their families. Only gradually has this desire
expanded to become something more, the commitment of the mediator
as an individual, to a continued association with the Academy. When
commitment becomes a personal desire arrl interest, the individual
involved becomes quite open to the teaching and thinking of the institu-
tion involved, and change becomes more rapid and possible.
Reaction to Mediator's GoBig to the Academy

When the women first began going to the Academy, the reaction
in their baris was predominantly one of disapproval. No matter what the
economic need, no family wanted a member to be the one to break stan-
dard conventions. Sixteen mediators reported there was disapproval
to their going for a variety of reasons: that is was "sinful" to do so;
that "purdha would be ruined and the women would go bad"; that it was
not "done that women work with men. " Some of the disapproving villagers

felt that the Academy was a "bad place. " One mediator mentioned that

113

her family told her the "foreign. shaebs at the Academy would carry her
off to America or Japan." On the other hand, three mediators said their
bari people did not disapprove about their going as they were poor and in
need. Five women said there was approval of their going.

Adjustment of Mediators to the Academy

 

Although economic need was mainly the structural factor bringing
women out of the villages, it was not done easily or without fear and
trepidation on the part of the mediators. That is, they were enough a
part of the village society to feel acutely the peculiarity of their actions.
'For the teaching mediators, economic need was offset by a reluctance
to "only be at home and do nothing." Four of them mentioned an interest
in using their education as an additional reason for coming. When the
mediators came for the first time to the Academy, sixteen said they
liked it; six said they were afraid and shy; two said they did not like it at
all. Two of the mediators made no response to this question. Many of
the women also mentioned working at the Academy as a way of making
money that could be used for their children, either for their food or for
education. Whatever their initial response the mediators returned to
the Academy for training. One of the major ways of circumventing
family opposition to their continued participation was by using the
Academy as a "scapegoat." For example, sixteen of the mediators al-
lege saying to families, "The Apas have told me to come every Wednesday

for training. They will give rickshaw fare. I will come and go in one.

114

It would go right to the door where there are no men." However, the
actual coming to the Academy on a regular basis found the majority of
the mediators fearful, nervous and shy. As one woman said, "When I
first came I did not like it much because I had never seen any place like
this before. I did not understand it. I was afraid. I could not speak.
Gradually I learned. My courage increased and I began to like it more."
Only eight of the mediators maintained they were not afraid in coming.
This fear and nervousness extended from the mediators to the staff as
well, "the Apas. " Many of the women reported feeling like the woman
who said, "With the Apas I sat quietly and did not say anything. If
they asked me, sometimes I would give an answer. But I was afraid

I would make a mistake in speaking."

This is one of the more interesting observable changes in the self
that occurred in regard to the mediators. For the vast majority of the
women, when they first came to the Academy, they were painfully shy
and afraid. As they mentioned they were hesitant to speak more than a
few words. In the beginning, the women's response to the Academy was
best exemplified by their behavior. That is, at one time it was thought
that the women came early to the meetings not to maximize their time,
but because the early arrivals got the corners of the room to crouch in,
and from this protected vantage point could then hunker behind their
burkhas, hoping no one would talk to them. In these early times, not

only would the women not talk to the staff, they would not talk to the wo-

115

man next to them, unless their neighbor happened to be from the same
village. Gradually however, over the course of time, this changed. At
first the tentative approaches were to the staff, asking them about who
they were, making sure they were really Bengalis, finding out about the
families of the staff, and about the foreigners. The village women gra-
dually began to talk to one another, asking the same kinds of questions
about children, family, village. Over a period of time the social bonds
linking these women become so strong that it is for this reason perhaps
more than any other that the women enjoy coming to the Academy so much.
Without exception the mediators all commented on how attached they were
to the Academy, the other village women, and to the staff of the women's
program.

Part of the changes in the mediators that has been quite observable
is that occuring in their style of dress and deportment. Where once they
wore the only saris they had, which were usually dirty and ragged, this
has been replaced with clean new cotton saris and blouses and petticoats.
The burkha is no longer borrowed, but the mediator has bought her own.
The mediators now walk around the gr ounds of the Academy going in pairs,
singly, or small groups to the bank, the cafeteria, dairy, or to one of
the government Offices. They now can, and do, answer questions put
to them by the staff, visitors, or even men. Their poise is ample proof
of the increase in their own confidence. As the woman said, their fear

has greatly decreased.

116

Gradually with the continued coming to the Academy, the associ-
ation with the staff is less fearful, and more close. The mediators ob-
served that the Apas taught them manners, correct speech, etiquette,
good behavior, how to wear clothes, keep themselves clean and neat.
From the association with the Apas, the mediators said their "fear
and shyness decreased, " "intelligence, " "courage," and "good quali-
ties" increased. They learned "by seeing and being trained. " One
mediator aptly summed up this relationship by saying, "First I stayed
separate from them. I did not know them, there was no attachment be-
tween us. Slowly the attachment grew. I began to feel closer to them.
Now I have learned unity from here. "

Contemporaneous to the development of the relationship with the
staff, came the association and interaction with other mediators. Sixteen
of the women had not known any of the other mediators before coming to
the Academy. "I was a village wife. I had not gone out of the bari.

I did not know which village was which. Now I know. " Nine of the lit-
erate and seven of the illiterate mediators came in this category. For
the eight remaining mediators, two had known women in near-by vil-
lages, the remainder knew only the women in their own villages.

Upon investigation it was found that all but four of the mediators
have particular women with whom they associate while at the Academy.
By and large, women of relatively the same age-grade and socio-economic

level tend to associate together. For the four remaining women, one

117

aptly summed up her position by stating, "It is not right to have prefer-
ences. I am the same with everyone." One is a teacher who has just
recently joined the program, the other two feeling this way are older
women.

In an attempt to trace the extension of this relationship among
mediators outside of the Academy situation, the mediators were asked
which villagesof other mediators they have visited. Among the educated
mediators, five have not been to any of the other mediators' baris. Four
have gone as supervisors or have been taken by the Apas to see the work
in some of the villages. Three commented they have been to other vil-
lages by invitation or in the course of traveling back and forth to the
Academy. It seems that over a period of time the women have found out
who lives near them, form "rickshaw pools, " and come together to the
Academy, thereby saving extra money. There is no response to this
question by one woman. Among the non-educated women the pattern is
about the same, only three mediators have not been to any other village.
Five have gone on Academy work or have been taken by the staff to see
other women's work. Two women have gone. another has only been to
the same village in which she previously had been employed.

As mentioned before, the attachment of the mediators to the Aca-
demy is quite great. In contrast to their initial fear or shyness, all
twenty-four of the women said that if they could not come to the Academy

they are upset, and dislike having to stay home. They observed that

118

they would "come even when sick because the children bother me when

I am home." Others report being in "bad moods" if they cannot come.

"If I come I have peace. If it is closed I cannot see all the women and

the apas; there is no one to talk to. " Or as another woman said, "I

don't like to stay in the bari. I think when will I be able to leave the house.
I don't like to eat rice. If my husband says anything when I can't go, I

get angry inside but I don't say anything to him as he would also get
angry."

As much as the economic and health facilities available and the
training the mediators receive, the social factors are significant in the
attachment of the women to the Academy. This is expressed by the fact
that all twenty-four of them gave social reasons for disliking having to
stay away from the Academy or why they would miss it if it were perma-
nently closed. This is in contrast to the largely economic impetus ori-
ginally encouraging their coming. Also in terms of the restrictions on
their mobility and associative patterns in the villages, the Academy of-
fered to the mediators the heretofore unexperienced freedom and oppor-
tunity to socialize. Given the narrowness of their world and the limited
opportunities within it, the relationship with the Academy becomes under-
standably important, if for no other reason than it is the only alternative
pattern of behavior available. Also this continual and close association
with the Academy, as discussed later, is crucial in not only instituting
change, but in providing the atmosphere necessary for continual support

and encouragement for those who change.

119

Socialization

 

Through the training classes given at the Academy, the meetings
and the association with the Apas, and by meeting the criteria necessary
for qualifying for loans and economic aid, the mediators are gradually
socialized into new ways of behaving and thinking. As mentioned before,
the basic instruction dealt with fundamental elements of health, grooming,
behavior, personal care besides the more formal subjects taught in classes.

To supplement that which is taught at the Academy, the staff also
regularly visits the villages to see the work of the mediator, help with
problems, and talk with other village women. The supportive element
for the mediator is in this way carried into the villages.

That is, in the process of a mediator's building a new position for
herself in the village, her ability to bring high status people into the vil-
lage to see her, to be concerned with her work, and to take tea in her
bari are also ways by which the local mediator increases her status and
influence. Before the advent of the women's program, it was unheard of
for a village woman to have recourse to any outside facility. Through the
association with the Academy, this is gradually changing as the media-
tors become resource people for loans, injections and medicine for
chickens, spray, machines, cloth, and a variety of other facilities avail-
able to them because of their association with the Academy. It is even
happening that village men are also beginning to approach mediators

asking for possible jobs at the Academy, or for money, or for some

120

technical aid. This functional link to the facilities at the Academy where
none other are available to the village, is one of the ways by which the
mediators are creating new roles for themselves in the villages.

The ability of the mediators to qualify for economic loans and
facilities for themselves and for other village women also adds to their
status and position of strength in terms of their work in their villages, and
in meeting opposition in these villages. For example, the mediators
were asked what the reaction was in their village when they began to go
and work on a regular basis for the Academy. In the majority of the cases
there was strong elements of disapproval in the villages to the women leav-
ing the villages. In general, the greatest objections came from the para
(neighborhood) people. The most support came from the bari people.

The results as reported by individual mediators are summarized in the
following table.

Table 6: REACTION OF BARI, PARA, VILLAGE PEOPLE
TO MEDIATOR'S WORKING FOR THE ACADEMY

 

 

 

 

Bari Para Village
No objection ll 5 6
Objection ll 14 12
Mixed Reaction 2 5 4
No response - - 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the initial period of disapproval and sometimes strong op-

position, twenty-one of the mediators said that the objections have become

121

less as the villagers saw changes occuring in the mediator and in her eco-
nomic condition. The mediators began to earn a regular income, secure
loans at low interest rates, grow gardens and fruit trees, raise chickens
and goats, buy and wear new clothes, even buy land or send a son to school.
Not as was feared, the mediators did not "misbehave" but continued to act
within the range of acceptable behavior within the village, except for some
differences: such as leaving the village regularly to go to the Academy,
and as going regularly around in the village. However, these movements
are legitimized to a large extent by the salary the mediators receive and
by the money they earn from their own labor in their baris. As the media-
tors improve their own condition, and as this is spread to other village
women with similar results, the opposition in the village gradually sub-
sides. It would appear that tradition can be modified as long as the re-
sults of change make significant contributions to the most pressing prob-
lems in the village situations. It is not only a matter of introducing new
alternatives into the village milieu, but also that of justifying them in
terms of pressing problems in the village that leads to more permanent
change. If change can be shown to be effective without being at high

cost, the chances of its being accepted is greatly enhamced.

The exceptions to these women are three of the mediators who say
that opposition remains and that a hard core of resistance will never disap-
pear. As one woman put it, "Twelve annas (worth of the people) approve
of my work or will come around, but. the four annas remaining will always

be there. "

CHAPTER 5.

Village Work Experience

Types of Villages

 

As mentioned in Chapter 1, a combined element of "accessibility"
was developed and used as a means by which to categorize the types of
villages in the women's program. The criteria of accessibility included

"distance from the town, " and types of communication link with the out-

 

 

side world. Within each category variables of occupation, per cent
literacy, presence or absence of primary schools, and maddrassa (re-
ligious schools), and numbers of children in school were used to capture
the variation within each category.

Upon reappraisal, it was found that while differences' in ‘Villages
do in fact exist, the criteria is not sufficient or significant in explaining
it. On the "hunch level" the distinction of accessibility seemed to make
sense, and perhaps could be empirically verified with data other than that
on hand. One possible explanation for this is related to the general diffi-
culty in relating causal explanations to specific variables. In the case of
Comilla, those villages in the cooperative association are, by fact of
membership, different from the majority of the villages in the thana.
There are roughly 435 villages in total in the thana with approximately
150 of them in the cooperative movement at the time the study was done.
The relative comparability of these cooperative villages with the remain-

der is not known. Also it is not known how the villages allowing a women's

122

123

program to develop are different from other cooperative villages. There-
fore given the information available, it is difficult to know the range of
villages types that the forty-three program villages represent.

As mentioned earlier as well, before the Academy's program be-
gan, the villages were not static entities. Therefore, it is difficult to
select out and assess the most significant variables producing change, as
there is nox way of knowing the full range of previous events and influences
working on the village situation. The relation of this to the study of media-
tors is that there is not available now the knowledge sufficient to yield
indications of village propensities to change, particularly in regard to
the mediation process. One cannot predict given the typ e of village, the
relative efficiency of a mediator in the mediation process.

A further test was done using a simple chi-square technique in
attempting to assess the relationship of education of mediators to types
of villages. That is, because education is thought to be one way of dis-
tinguishing types of mediators, a test was done to see if education also was
relevant in relation to educated mediators in types of villages. The ques-
tion is whether or not there is a relationship between types of villages
and the distribution of educated women by types of village. Due to the
smallness of the total N and following another "hunch" the end categories
were collapsed and considered as one, as were the middle two categories.
The same test was done then to determine the expected value assuming

equal proportions of educated mediators in each cell. The results were

124

nonsignificant. That is, while education is important in determining types
of mediators, it is not significant in indicating educated women in rela-
tion to types of villages.

Part of the idea behind collapsing the first category of town vil-
lages with villages ten miles or more away, is also related to the general
idea of there being types of village even though not explainable given the
present data. In a traditional, developing society a number of factors are
at work providing impetus to change. One is the factor of communication,
both the media and transport. The impact of new roads or the absence of
them, greatly influences the flow of information, techniques and knowledge
to and from the distant villages. Also the factors of decreasing amounts
of land, increasing population and growing numbers of landless, unem-
ployed encourage a certain amount of migration from the villages to the
town. It could be argued that those people forced to leave the village for
the town are by and large from lower socio-economic village levels.

They leave the village most often because they have to; there being no
alternative ways of maintaining life other than agriculture. In the town,
these dispossessed villagers tend to re-establish village type settlement
and behavior patterns. They live much the same as in the village only
on less land, huddled together on the edges of the town. The menfolk
take on daily-wage earning jobs of low status and low pay-—such as
rickshaw pullers, day laborers, carpenters or mason's helpers, shop

helpers, cigarette makers. These are typically nontraditional and low

125

status jobs, which means that exvillagers remain marginal people, mar-
ginal from the pattern of agriculturally based village life. Only over a
period of time and association do new patterns and traditions develop
that would be different from village patterns. That is, a man may become
quite sophisticated about the town but take home or apply little of this
new knowledge in his own bari. Or in terms of: .maintaining security
where there is little in the occupational world, his wife may still be ex-
pected to observe a village type purdha, hence limiting the influence of
the town on her and her children. Also the imbibment of town values and
patterns may be limited by a lack of funds, and differential perceptions
and usage. That is, gambling and tea drinking may become habitualtto

a man and not some of the other values represented by the town.

In distance villages a different set of circumstances yield basically
similar results. That is, poor communication, both roads and the mass
media isolate a villager, and conspire to keep him traditionally conserva-
tive. The old ways are best because there is little information about
new possibilities. In these villages there are fewer villagers who go out
to the town. Those who go, go more infrequently than those who live
closer to an urban center. Not only do villagers go out less, fewer
people travel from the town to the village. There is less communication
also as carried by mail and newspapers. This has only been slightly
changed with the advent of transistor radios. The adherence to tradi-

tional patterns extends over into the bari and women's world as well.

126

That is, in the distant villages, the women are rigorously controlled.
Purdha is more strictly observed, and women have fewer chances to

get out, and fewer sources of information. Because of distance, women
leave the village only at irregular intervals, perhaps only once a year

to visit their father's bari. For these reasons there seems a certain
sense in considering the end categories more similar to one another than
similar to the two middle categories.

The middle categories, represent villages more accessible to the
towns in terms of distance, and more open to and possibly selective about
communication of techniques, knowledge and change. These are villages
in which there remains a certain degree of economic support and ad-
vantage from traditional life styles fashioned around agriculture. How-
ever the data shows that men who leave these villages for work outside,
go for employment in relatively high status occupations such as clerks,
military men, police men or officials and so on. This means that the
links of these men back to their villages are of a different nature than
what exists for the town exvillager of lower socio-economic condition.
The clerk or policeman brings new ideas back into the village of a
different type than does the town poor. Also, and perhaps more impor-
tant this type of "man on the outside" provides direct links from the town
to the village which encourage a whole range of things, from the educa-

tion of girls, to the introduction of the burkha, or the radio.

127

In summary, the village categories as developed did not contain the
most important or differentiating criteria by which to substantiate the
categorization as designed. However, there are differences in villages
on an observable basis, but further study is necessary before the signi-
ficant factors delineating these differences are known. Out of all the ele-
ments used, that of distance from the town in miles is perhaps a basic
criteria for differences, but what is missing are the discriminating ele-
ments within the village to manifest these differences.

Functions of Mediators

 

As mentioned earlier there are two main functions of mediators.
One is a position as literacy teacher. After a training period at the
Academy these women are then to organize and teach basic Bengali
in their villages; working with wives, young girls, or older women. There
are six of the women in the sample who are teachers and two women who
function both as teacher and organizer in their villages. These represen-
ted eight of the thirteen educated women in the sample.

The other position for the mediators is that of organizer. Except
for five of the eleven organizers these were illiterate women as repre-
sented in the sample. The job of organizer included taking training at
the Academy in basic skills and subjects such as gardening, poultry,
home sanitation, child and mother's health, handicrafts. On a village
level the organizers were then to carry their knowledge back to their

own villages and teach interested village women. The staff at the Academy

128

went to the villages regularly to help the mediators with their work, and
often the local cooperative manager lent his support as well.

In this way the mediators are engaged in a two-ended process, both
complementary and linked, i. e. , they are given specific formal training
at the Academy and are supposed to pass this knowledge on in their vil-
lages. They are regularly and continually brought out of the traditional
village milieu as a way of encouraging and reinforcing their association
with change. They are paid for their efforts which serves as compensa-
tion for their efforts at the Academy, and takes partial pressure off their
financial need, yet provides legitimation also for their work in the village.
Receiving a salary for their work provides the mediators with a certain
status that was nonexistant before. Of course, they are earning salaries
for positions that heretofore were also nonexistant, and the salary has
the effect of assuaging the dire predictions of those who disapprove of
women leaving the village and working. That is, the opposition engen-
dered by women leaving the village for training is balanced by the fact
of their getting paid for going.

This is the formal aspect of the mediating process; the women
leave the villages and go regularly to the Academy for training and meet-
ings; in their own villages they utilize that which they have learned in
their own baris and are also responsible for teaching however they can,
other women as well. In exchange for the work done in the village, the

mediator is paid a regular salary if she meets the standards for the

129

work as established by the Academy. The mediators have to account for
their activities to the staff of the women's program each week. They have
to come each week, give a report, turn in the savings of the women, and
attend class. The mediators are given responsibility and are expected

to follow through in their villages. The salaries are earned, in other
words, and are not handouts. Besides a monthly salary, the mediators
are given a transportation allowance to help meet the cost of transporta-
tion into the Academy and back to the village. A number of mediators work
in other areas of the women's program either as Family Planning agents,
midwives, or hand spinners. During the course of time they have es-
tablished more than one tie to the Academy, as a partial means of pro-
tection in case one part of the program closed, they will still have some
employment at the Academy.

In the village, on the formal level of theémediation process, the
mediators are respcnsible for encouraging and teaching other village women
the same sort of things that they themselves have learned-~health, home
sanitation, gardening, poultry, sewing. Besides this, the mediators are
supposed to be resource people for items and facilities available through
the Academy. This includes things like the child and mother's health
clinic, family planning information and contraceptives, sprays, fertili-
zers, seeds, and loans available from the Academy or from the local
village cooperative society. If a woman joins the village society, saves

regularly, and buys at least one share in the cooperative, she is then

130

supposed to be qualified to receive a loan from the cooperative if her plan
for the utilization of the money is approved. In relations with the coopera-
tive society, the mediator is to represent the women and take any grie-
vances to the cooperative manager, or to the staff of the women's pro-
gram in cases where the matter is serious.

Besides the more formal aspects of the function of mediators, there
is the whole range of covert influences and developing informal patterns
as well. One notices from the data that much of the most crucial deve-
lopments in the mediation process comes on the informal level. For ex-
ample, not only are formal classes organized and taught in the villages.
but visiting patterns are being established resulting in some increase in
mobility for all women in the villages. Not only are the mediators. estab-
lishing a new formal role by their work either as teacher or organizer with-
in the village and between village and Academy, they are also establish-
ing informal linkages and channels of influence and communication within
the village situation as well. Within the women's world, the first begin-
nings are being made at some organization beyond that found justin the
bari unit.

Innovative Proce ss: Organizers

 

The initial form of organization most used in the villages was
class situations for teachers, or meetings for organizers. However, the
two followed different patterns of organization varying with time, village

situation, and the mediator involved. In and of itself the process of ini-

131

tiating action among village women by a village woman is unique. As the
mediators were originally shy and reluctant in leaving their villages, so
were they also reluctant in moving initially in their villages. Ten of
the sixteen organizers observed that they were frightened and shy in
going in the village. One woman summarized this feeling quite well by
saying:

"When it first started I thought it was difficult. I was a wife.

I had not done this before. I had to walk from door to door. I

had difficulty in getting women to join. I didn't like it. When

I heard the people talk, I didn't like it. They would say, "She

goes to town and comes back. If she comes to you then lock

the doors, because if you talk with her or see her it will be a

sin for you.' Some also said, 'R. has gone to Hell and wants to

send others there. "'

Two of the organizers registered having no problems in initiating their
work. Four commented they liked it and were happy.

The procedure for initiating contact by the organizers in their
villages was by first doing the work in their own baris, as a model for
other women to see or hear about. Seven mediators worked in their
baris from anywhere from a few days, weeks, or for many months. Then
they went to a near-by bari and began to encourage other women to also
work. Eight women used a more joint approach of both meetings and work
in their own baris. Only one mediator went to another bari first to begin
work. It happened to be her father's bari as her husband's family in the
‘ neighboring village were against her working.

The reaction of the village women was not always positive or open

to suggested changes. Their reaction many times was, "Why are you doing

132

this? If we don't do this then what? Inthe old days we didn't do this, now
we have to do it?" Local village men such as the cooperative manager, or
an interested villager sometimes helped the organizers. One mediator re-
ported going to a particular bari because it was a respected family. If
they listened, she thought, others would as well. Also the we men's staff
from the Academy came to village organized meetings and explained to

the women about the program. Perhaps most important however in the

le gitimatization of the work of the mediator in the village was the ob-
served benefits and improvements of the women involved. Most of the
organizers mentioned that support for their work developed as people

saw the "improvement in their condition. " This was crucial particularly
for the organizers. Coming from economic conditions involving great
need, and from generally lower social status positions in the village,

any change in the conditions of these women was quite apparent. At first
many of the women saved part of their travel allowance and with the extra
money bought more rice for the family. Gradually through persistent
savings, they saved enough to buy a goat. From the sale of the kids of
that one goat, more food was purchased; such items as meat, fish, eggs,
vegetables besides the main staple rice. Chickens were acquired, and
from the sale of eggs and chicks, more goats were purchased, or a cow.
Small gardens near the bari were planted, or as women become more am-
bitious, potatoes are grown in rice fields lying fallow. The income from

the gardens or potatoes goes for additional items for the bari, usually food,

133

then livestock, clothes, and finally the entering of a child in school, and
the first down payment on land. Also part of the produce is kept for home
consumption. When a woman, largely by her own actions can bring this
much improvement to her family, it is no surprise that opposition to her
work diminishes in the village. This has been the experience for all of
the organizers, not just an exceptional few. Some of the organizers have
not been reluctant to display some of their new found affluence. One woman
neatly summarized her position by saying, "I am no longer the recipient
of village donations. Now I contribute to the "pieta" for others. " Another
wOman spent Rs 250/000 on the circumcision of her sons, and had a big
feast inviting many of the villagers. When she was asked why she spent
so much money, she replied, "I may have spent Rs 250/000 ($50. 00) but
my sons received Rs 300/000 ($60. 00) in. gifts. "

Of the organizers, five noted that village women have been most
interested in poultry. Eight reported gardening as capturing the main in-
terests of the women. Only three said home sanitation. It seems to be
the practical, short term, income-producing subjects and skills-that have
most interested the majority of the village women, and the mediators them-
selves. Given the nature of the economic problems faced by the majority
of the mediators, which are shared in varying degrees by other village wo-
men, the greatest chances for lasting innovation are in those areas of great-
est need. Also this related to how and what women learn. That is, those

skills that are thought to be the most useful in meeting current problems

134

are more sought out than others. Also if the experience of the majority
of the village women has been in physical tasks and not those requiring
high degrees of intellectual endeavor, what they are most likely to learn
will be techniques and skills most related to their previous experience.

In effect this would find them experientially equipped to assimilate infor-
mation regarding manually-oriented subjects such as gardening and poul-
try rather than more "theoretically"-centered subjects such as child

care or home sanitation. These latter subjects will be utilized more as
the village women develOp the frame of reference for their use. It so
happens that in terms of the initial interests expressed by the village
women, child care and mother's health were recognized as being crucial
problems. However, there is a difference in cognizance of a problem and
utilization of its solution, and it seems that while the women "recognized"
health as being of central concern, it has been only after a period of time
that this recognition has been followed through by implementation.

After the initial stage of village meetings. of the women andworking
in their own baris, the mediators work gradually evolved to another stage.
From meetings, the work pattern changed to bari visits by the organizers
to help and assist women in the work in their own baris, showing and intro-
ducing new techniques and methods that the mediators had used themselves
in their baris. Commensurate with this stage in the development of the
village work went greater degrees of organization and planning by the

organizers for the coverage of the village. Most of the organizers go at

135

least once a week to other baris. The average is two or three times a
week that the organizer goes to different baris in their villages to help
other women. Only one organizer does not go with any great regularity.
Another organizer, who has been in the program only for six months,
works only in her own bari and still is not going out to other baris.

Besides establishing a regular routine of village work, the organi-
zers have also expanded the limits of their mobility in the village, besides
outside of it. Nine organizers report being able to go "everywhere in the
village," to other villages, or as one woman put it, "I could go even to Dacca
if the Apas told me to." Three of the organizers have limited mobility,
that is, going to some paras and not to others; because of distance, be-

. cause of there "being new people there"; because "peqale don't want to
listen"; and perhaps for reasons not covered in the data. Four organizers
said they went to some areas more than to others because of insufficient
time to go everywhere; or because of wishing to finish in some areas
before starting in other paras.

In general, the organizers have followed a pattern of beginning the
work in their own baris, both out of need and as a way of diminishing op-
position of others to their work. Once proving to themselves and to other 3
that that which they have learned is useful, the organizers then began go-
ing to other baris in the village to help other women. The baris selected
for visiting were generally of the same strata as the mediator, chosen

perhaps because the same forces were present in these families as had

136

been working on the mediator. This was not always the case, however, as
a few women mentioned going to prestigeful families first because if they
listened to the mediator other villagers would also. To date, this phase
of the organization of and working with other women is just catching hold.
This varies of course with the length of time the mediator has been in the
program. Some of the mediators have organized their villages except for
a para or two. Other newer women have just begun to venture out into
other paras.

Innovative Proces 8: Teachers

 

In the sample there were eight mediators whose primary function
was teaching. The mode of village organization focuses on centers in
which classes are held are regular times. Of the eight teachers, five of
them have two centers, one center usually in her own bari. the other in
some other area of the village. One teacher reports having four centers,
one has three centers, one teacher has only one center.

In asking the mediators who are teaching how the places were se-
lected for the classes a variety of answers were given:

1. one teacher had the cooperative manager, village leader and
one other man to dinner and enlisted their aid and support in organizing
classes;

2. one went around in the village convincing men and women;

3. one teacher talked with the female organizer and got her to help;

4. some villagers asked the teacher to open a center in their baris;

137

5. the teacher asked permission to teach in some baris of some-
what prestigeful families, or where she had some previous connection,
usually kinship;

6. three teachers reported choosing centrally located baris for
centers where all women could come together.

The reaction of the teachers to their first going around in the village
found that they also found it difficult as had the organizers. The reactions
of these mediators varied from three teachers who said it was difficult
because they were unused to it; to two women who mentioned they were
shy in the beginning; to another who found it difficult in getting women to
join. the classes; and to another who did not like the small number of girls
in the class. The eighth teacher said she just did not like the work but
gradually has come to enjoy it more.

Support for the teacher's work has come in six out of eight cases
from the Manager, or members of the cooperative society, or from the
Village leader. Two teachers allege having no help but have done the work
on their own. A

The general pattern is that class is held twodays a week depend-
ing on the work season. In addition to class meetings, three of the teachers
also visit the students in their homes one day a week. Two of the media-
tors report going more often; three mentioned gaing only when called, at

night: or seeing their students only in class situations.

138

In terms of the interests of the village women, the subjects of
poultry and gardening, home sanitation, and goats have been the most
sought after. The teachers, although not specifically designated by the
Academy as responsible for economic subjects, have this included in their
training. However, the class situation is the context in which the teachers
pass (11 new information, not the same pattern as that used by the organi-
zers. One can perhaps infer that since the teachers go less often in the
village, theirs is a more indirect mode of instruction, based less on
direct demonstration and more on the formal classroom situation. Also
one might say that this mode of instruction is more in keeping with the sta-
tus of the teachers, as they are expected to and do observe purdha, and
therefore have a certain number of restrictions built into their role as
teachers.

Coming from generally better placed, and economically better off
than the organizers, the teachers are working to provide depth or addi-
tional items to an already established life style. For the organizers, their
work is a way of building or increasing their level of living, making sub-
stantive additions in areas where items had been missing before. For
example, in the case of food, the organizers report that the money they
earn from their jobs goes first of all for the purchase of basic staples.
More rice, dhal, vegetables, staples in the Bengali diet were purchased,
and families began eating twice a day rather than every other day as was

the case for many of the organizers before they began working for the Aca-

139

demy. Other kinds of changes have been that organizers grow gardens,
raise chickens, and take loans which were not available or possible before.
In this sense, the money that they earn from their endeavors for the Aca-
demy represents the difference between total absence and possible owner-
ship. These are necessities of life that have been out of reach of many

of the organizers before working for the Academy, but which become
possible as they continue to make regullar salaries. For most families,

it is a rare occurrence when a woman contributes to the income of her
family. It is partially for this reason of an additional source of income,
that the families of the women have rallied around and support them finally
in their work.

For all the mediators, organizers and teachers, the village repre-
sentative to whom they turned in case of difficulty is the cooperative mana-
ger. Not only was he instrumental in bringing the women to the Academy
in the first place, the manager continues to be a resource person for the
mediators in village affairs.

Whatever the initial response of the mediators to their work, they
are now all favorably impressed by it. All twenty-four of the-m remarked
that they like the work, but with a number of qualifications. Eight women
mention liking their work now but had been shy and afraid at first. Two
of the mediators observe that if they "Didn't like it they would not be doing
the work now. " One mediator liked the work, but thought it took "lots of

effort. " Three mediators thought that by doing this work they "are making

140

names" for themselves. Three mediators like their work because "they
are learning." Another mediator said specifically there was less "need"
now than previously in her bari. Three of the women like the work be-
cause it makes them "happy" even though it was difficult in the beginning.
One woman's reaction was that now things are "nice and pretty" where
they had not been this way before. This is why she likes her work. Two
of the women observed they "don't like it if women don't listen to us. ”

In summarizing, the general feeling of the mediators about their work,
one woman nicely stated it in this way: "I: used to sit dumb in the corner
of my house, but now I have learned many things."

For the majority of the mediators, that which they learned was
first utilized in their own baris, either by design or change. That is,
whether the Apas told them to begin their work this way or not, the media-
tors captured the attention and interest of other village men and women
by demonstrating supporting proof for the new ideas, techniques and know-
ledge they had learned. By establishing the work first in their own baris,
the mediators accomplished a number of things. 1) They gave visible
proof that new techniques, if correctly utilized, could yield positive
changgc 2) They demonstrated that their own economic condition was
improved. 3) They set a precedent for village women in that they devi-
ated from the tradition concept of "officer" by working and utilizing them-
selves what they were telling other women to use. 4) They were putting

into practice what they had learned, thereby taking risks themselves in

141

deviating from traditional methods. 5) By not using their positions at the
Academy to flaunt village norms, the mediators began to establish new
patterns of behavior for women within the village structure that differs

quite significantly from traditional patterns. Mediators are proving, in
effect, that village women can be educated in Bengali and practical sub-
jects without being "corrupted," or becoming un-Islamic. 6) In regard to
the mediators themselves, working in their own baris was a means for
further testing and consolidating that which they learn from the Academy,
before advocating such things in the village. 7) Mention was made earlier
of the non-programmed but essential background learning that occured

when the mediators first began coming to the Academy. This included
learning such things as "manners, correct speech, etiquette, good behavior,
how to wear clothes, sit in chairs, use flush toilets, keep clean and neat. "
The mediators talk about this learning as some of the most important
knowledge they have acquired from the Academy, along with attendant
changes in personality characteristics; "increase in courage," "less fear,"
"my good qualities have increased." This is their way of describing the
changes in self they have undergone. The changes in themselves serve

as a foundation or frame of reference for them in their village work.

Interpersonal Relations

 

As discussed in Chapter 3, the traditional patterns of interaction for
village women is contingent upon purdha, kinship, age-grade, and socio-

economic condition. The purdha system defines the ideal model of what

142

a "good Islamic woman" should be. As it is observed in the villages, pur-
dha is the context in which women's activities are defined and restricted
mainly to the bari. Purdha also sets the consequences for those who, for
one reason or another, defies standard norms.

Variations in the purdha system and consequent patterns of inter-
action are found to depend on whether the woman is in her father's bari, a
daughter of the village, or in her husband's village, a daughter-in-law. It’was
noticed that for many of the mediators, friendships occured or are maintained -
with childhood acquaintances in their father's bari, but only rarely in their
husband's village. The relevance of age-grade is apparent also within a
traditional context, as with restricted movement within the village, the
women are largely dependent upon the women of the household for inter-
action. As one vo man put it, "When women have free time they talk with
their husband's brothers' wives. They can't go to other baris, or talk
with the mother-in-law. Because of purdha they can't do these things. "

The observance of purdha and the interplay of these other items of
kinship and age-grade are influenced also by socio-economic conditions.
A family that is fairly well-off economically can afford to emphasize the
social accoutrements of equivalent social status. One of the more obvious
ways of doing this in the village milieu is the relegation of women to a
strict observance of purdha. For destitute families or widowed women
there is not this option, and necessity requires an obviation of observing

the general norms of purdha.

143

Before coming to the Academy most of the mediators reported
scant association with or knowledge of other women in their villages. Ex-
ceptions were the low socio-economic women. Even these women, however,
had few or no friendships. With the development of the Academy and the
mediator's role, the women have gradually become more mobile and
knowledgeable within the village situation.

Contributing factors to the greater interaction among village women
now is the position of the organizer or teacher, created solely for the
dissemination of knowledge and techniques, the fact that this position is
legitimized by village support of the cooperative society, and by salaries
for the mediators from the Academy.

The mediator's position represents a break from traditional patterns
but is seemingly considered by the village men as a non-cons‘equential,
although salaried position within the women's social world, and hence not
a threat to traditional patterns of heterosocial organization. It seems that
reluctance of the men to cooperate with the women occurs in areas of the
cooperative society itself, where women are coming forward to join the
society, making savings, and demanding the equal rights of membership.
In this area of the society, patterns of heterosocial organization are being
called into question. For one thing, to allow women to apply for and re-
ceive loans, to receive dividerds and to enjoy other rights or membership
means the public recognition of women as individuals, not in the tradi-

tional pattern of someone's mother, or daughter. In the larger social con-

144

text, there are not the patterns for interaction between the men's and the
women's world, and tle context of the cooperative society is one of the
first areas where this will. be worked out.

The gradual lessening of opposition from extreme disapproval of
a woman's going to the Academy to gradual acceptance was noted in the
mediator's comments. As the women themselves benefitted and prospered,
others became interested. As was also noted above, under the guise of
classes or bari visits, the mediators have established a pattern of regu-
lar contact with and among other village women. This is the beginning of
more and stronger channels of possible communication, utilizing already
present bu: uncoale-sced elements of change in the village. Not only have
the mediators served to open up, to some extent, patterns of communica-
tion and interaction in the village, they have also expanded their own social
worlds to include the Academy and the women there. Mention has already
been made of the mediators reaction to the Academy and the women gath-
ered there, both initially and now. The point to be emphasized is that
this expanded extra-village social world of the mediators serves as a source
of attachment, support, and confidence for them in ways that have not
existed before. On the one hand, it stimulates their own learning and
development; on the other, it serves as a source of support for village work.

Personal Influence

 

Within the process of teaching formal classes, or specific subject

techniques, an informal system of communication is developing in the vil-

145

lages. That is, all the mediators report that other women have begun
coming to them for things other than class or subject relevant informa-
tion. That this has not been the usual procedure is summarized by one
mediator who said, "Before, I was just a housewife and no one came to
me. Now they do." Most of the mediators have taken on and expanded
this element of their position, as well as the formal level. That is, they
accept money from various women and purchase cloth, saris, jewelry,
and other items for them from the town. In some instances, mediators
take items with them to the Academy to sell there for the village women.
The mediators also become resource persons for health problems, infor-
mation and advice. They are called for emergencies or where there are
problems in other baris. In regard to the more formal aspects of their
positions, the mediators are called upon to bring seeds, spray, fertili-
zers, clothes, eggs, and vegetables for the village women from the Aca-
demy. As mediators they also become recipients of small short-term
loans, not only for themselves but for other women as well.

In this way, new patterns of “communication Var'e gradually be-
coming patterns of leadership as well, as mediators begin having access
to scarce resources and thereby elements of power. This is also re-
flected in comments that three or four of the mediators made that "if
the people wouldn't work or save then I dismissed them," or "I get angry
if the women don't keep things nicely as they should." This is in contrast
to the earlier stated desire to "speak softly and nicely with the women

otherwise they will become angry and not come again."

Coverage of the Village

146

Due to the variance in the size of the villages and in the women's

limited knowledge of the actual size of their village, an attempt was made

to assess the kinds of contacts the mediators had in villages in terms of

the families involved in their work. That is, the women were asked to

describe the kinds of families they worked with mostly; those who were

"poor'," i. e. , didn't have enough food, those who had food but had to pur-

chase some during the year, and those who had food in sufficient quantities

to sell some.

The teaching mediators conveyed the following: Four of them ob-

served they work with families that are poor or laborers mostly. Three

teachers remarked that their classes are composed of women from fami-

lies having food, with few poor families represented. One did not re-

spond.

Table 7: NUMBER OF CENTERS, STUDENTS, RELATIVES OF
TEACHERS AND LOCATION OF BARIS OF STUDENTS

 

 

 

Number Number Location of
Teachers No. of Centers of Students of Relatives Students' Baris
#12 2 16 wives, 14 girls 6 or 7 10 from bari
4 young, (15- 15 from para
35 years old rest
from 12-16)
total: 35
#22 2 8-25 years, -16 5 4 baris, 2 para
30-40 years - 9 wives from 2
31 total=z47 baris
2 8-12 years -10 0 1 para most from

 

#23

 

15-30 years -

 

4 total: 14

 

 

l bari

 

 

- continued-

147

Table 7: continued--

 

 

 

 

 

Number of Number of Location of
Teachers No. of Centers Students Relatives Students' Baris
#10 No response
#16 4 8-14 years -44; some 3 paras
40-50 - 2:
20-35: 6
total: 52
#24 l ' 7 wives, 13 girls 11 bari 8: near-
tota1= 20 by Villages
#ll 3 V 40 wives, 25 girls 2 or 3 3 paras
total: 65
#15 2 .' most 9-15 years some 3 paras
old 7 or 8 wives
total: 25

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the table it is possible to get a general idea of the trend in
class composition. That is, in comparison with the total number of students,
only one teacher is working with students over half of whom are her relatives.
Students oome fro m the immediate bari or from the same para in which the
classes are held. Only one teacher mentions students coming from other
villages.

In three of the classes one notices that half or more than half of the
enrollment is composed of wives. However, on an overall basis there are
more young girls (under twenty, non-wife) in the classes than wives or
older women.

In regard to the organizers, one finds that the locus of their move-
ment in the village is more diffuse, and because it is not formally organ-

ized in classes as is the teachers, more difficult to pin-point. The pattern

148

of work for the organizers was to go from bari to bari, in one para and then
on to other baris in other paras, or to go from selected baris in a number
of paras.

For the organizers the focus of their work seems to be concentrated
on families that are poor, as reported by five of them or on a combination
of poor, some with food, some in good conditions. Six reported this
position. Only one organizer said she is not working with any poor families.
This may represent the mediators own relative standing. That is, teachers,
being of higher socio-economic status tend to draw on families from the same
relative stratum in the village. The organizers, being of lower socio-eco—
nomic status, also tend to seek out and work within families of nearly the
same socio-economic condition. Also, this is in part due to the nature of
the subject matter as well. People who have enough to eat, or are on more
than a starvation level can consider the education of their girls or women
folk, and utilize the opportunity when it presents itself. In many other
cases, however, the overwhelming necessity of food and great economic
need, makes lower socio-economic status families less able, and perhaps
less anxious to have their girls and women fold educated.

Homosociality - Heterosociality

 

As has already been mentioned, the cooperative manager, satiety
members, schoolmaster, and village leader all played important parts in
initially contacting the women about the Academy, and in encouraging

their families to let them work. After once deciding to have a women's

149

program in the village, these same men were instrumental in helping the
women begin their work. For the majority of the teachers, as mentioned
before, the schoolmaster played a part that he didn't for the organizers.
For the latter women, the cooperative manager, headmaster or sardar
(village leader) for help. Eight of the organizers said they handle dif-
ficulties themselves without help, or would call on some other women

in the village, either a friend or another woman working for the Academy.
Still others of these women observe that they would ask the "apas" for help.
One woman said she had no difficulties.

In regard to the patterns of influence in the village, it was men-
tioned by six women that men also came to them seeking loans, seeds, or
information. While relatively an infrequent occurence, it nonetheless points
to a possible trend whereby the mediator will become a resource person for
the men as well, in regard to facilities available at the Academy.

Reaction of Villagers to the Mediator and Her Work

 

As mentioned before, for most of the mediators, the reaction to
their going to the Academy and to workin g in the village initially was one
of strong disapproval and pressure against it. Opposition centered on the
Academy as a bad place "where men and women go together. " The Aca-
demy was part of the "ses zemina" (end of the age). "It will ‘destroy the
Islamic relig‘ion. " It was a place where there are "foreign sahibs. "
Another object of disapproval are the women themselves. Some people
said, "This woman goes without purdha. How can this girl have class with

men? Purdha will be ruined. " Para neighbors made comments such as. . .

150

"Those who go to the Academy are prostitues. All who work

at the Academy are prostitutes. Other bad women go there. What

they teach she has learned. . . . If other women talk with her it

would be a sin. "

Or as some of the village women said, "You get a salary. I f we take this
class what profit is there for us?" Or as a mother-in-law of one family
remarked, "From all this village wives don't go out of their baris, and here
this wife is going around in different paras teaching. This is not good. Her
daughters won't be married. "

An indication of the degree of opposition in the villages is shown by
two threats frequently made to the women going to the Academy. One is
expulsion from the village itself-ma harsh threat for women who have few
other sources of security and support. The second is in regard to burial
after death. In Islam it is mandatory that all dead be buried within twenty-
four hours after death. The me diators were told that they would not be
buried until three or four days after their deaths.

A third kind of attitude that was manifest was in regard to learning
in general. The village people said, "they (women) have gotten old. If
they are educated, what profit will there be?" "Old. people educated, what
will that be? In azshort while they will die. After four days they will be-
come dust, after that what?" Others said, "We are farmers. Why should
we have centers? What will we do with reading and writing?"

But, as also mentioned earlier, this kind of disapproval gradually

subsided for twenty-one of the twenty-four women as the mediators main-

151

tained "their character," developed positions of resources and leadership,
and made observable improvements in their own economic conditions. As
reported by the mediators, village opinion swung to a more positive orien-
tation in the following instances: "profit was shown," "because of visible
progress; now children are being educated"; "educated women make better
wives, " "because they know a little education at least," "because she is
working for people's benefit, " "her condition has improved, " "she has
learned and is teaching others."

Some ambivalence remains, however, in the families. For one
mediator, her husband's younger brother refuses to eat in or visit her
bari. For another woman her husband's older brother "did not like my
going to the Academy, but about my work he said it was good. " But, by
and large, there was a gradual » denouement. of oppozsiition.

Another indication of this changing village situation is manifested in
the fact that the mediators are beginning to be called by job-related titles,
such as "master," "doctor," "officer, " "manager. " This is an indication
perhaps not only, of the previous isolation of these women, but also of the
changing esteem in which mediators are now held.

In this chapter an effort has been made to make evident some of the
elements of the mediator's role as it developed, particularly in the village
situation. Of special interest is the increase in mobility and social boun-
daries of the mediators. That is, some of the most important influences of

the. mediation process came from the ability of mediators to transcend both

152

social and physical space. As a mediator, a village woman is encouraged,
helped, and required to move in heretofore unprecedented ways through
physical space, i. e. , around and out of the village. Contingent upon this
moving also is the transcendence of social space. By assuming salaried
positions of responsibility, and by learning and becoming resource people,
the mediators are breaking standard patterns of behavior but in such a

way as to not antagonize or totally disrupt the village. Some of the reaction
of the village to the mediators going to the Academy and to their working
in villages has been mentioned. From this, one gains some insight into

the strength of the opposition and initial reactions of the village. Opposi-
tion declined as mediators proved able to balance the demands of tradi-
tional village norms and the alternatives presented by the Academy. Close-
ly linked with all this is the heightened mobility and accessibility of media-

tors.

 

CHAPTER 6.

Summary and Implications for Wider Theoretical Concerns

The primary interest of the study is how new patterns of behavior,-
influence and communication develop and are maintained in new situations
which bring together heretofore unrelated social units. The units in ques-
tion are Bengali villages and a development institution: The Academy for
Rural Development, Comilla, East Pakistan. The situation bringing these
disparate units together was the opening of a we men's program by the Aca-
demy for training village women in subjects and techniques closely related
to health, economics, and education.

The focal point is on a sample of village women, called "mediators"
who represent their villages at the Academy and the Academy in their vil-
lages. They are considered to be mediators as the nature of their work
requires relating two systems; one, the village with its traditional patterns
and norms, and second, the Academy with its techniques and organization
which represents change ard modernity. In order to perform these func-
tions, they must bridge both systems in such a way as to mediate between
the expectations and patterns of tradition and the pressures for change.
This study is concerned with the development and maintenance of the media-
tion patterns and the new modes it represents.

During the empirical field study, the mediator was examined in
relation to her identity and behavior with respect to the Academy, to the

various segments of the village, to her family, and lastly in relation to

153

 

154

changes in self. The last two areas of family and self are not explicitly
depicted in this thesis.

At the time of the field work (1966), the women's program was working
in forty-three villages with cooperative societies. Within these villages,
fifty-seven women function in some mediating capacity, either as literacy
teachers or as organizers. Twenty-four of the total fifty-seven mediators
were sampled. The sample was proportionally drawn from the varied types
of villages manifest in the women's program. Distance from the town was
used as the primary basis for the categorization of the villages into types.
It was found to be of little significance in the analysis of the mediation pro-
cess.

General limitations of the study which prevent over generalization
are that there is no comparison of the villages used in the sample with vil-
lages in which there is a cooperative society but no women's program. It
is not known whether the comments made regarding women in the sample
villages would apply to women in other cooperative villages. Also there
is nommparison of mediators from sample villages with women from vil-
lages in which either the cooperative society, or the women's program was
dis continued.

The mediators differ from some of the prevailing norms and values
of their villages. While fifteen of the twenty-four women have marital situa-
tions which do not correspond to the predominant mode, all of them have

full adult woman's status accrued through marriage. All except two of them

 

155

meet the additional traditional requirement of adult status by having chil-
dren. Also, the mediators fall within the age range in which women tra-
ditionally have the greatest amou nt of responsibility and work in their
families.

The factors creating the marginality of the mediators prior to their
entering the Academy's program were structurally derived, and were not
the results of personal behavior stemming from deviance from standard
norms. Life chances, in the sense of forces over which they have no con- .
trol, have made mediators s omewhat marginal. Their husbands are dead
or worsening socio-economic conditions in their families have precipitated
these elements of marginality.

Three patterns of behavior and adjustment seem to have been created
by these women in response to shared characteristics and conditions. Twen-
ty of the women fall in one or another of these patterns. A fourth category
contains four women wl'n have created individualistic and unique adjust-
ments to the mediation process. Although they share similar character-
istics and conditions to the others, they do not exemplify similar types
of behavior found in the other nascent patterns.

Factors which are significant in precipitating t he patterns are:
social status of the husband's family, (or father's familywif women are
widowed or divorced); education; and the "centrality" of their position in
their husband's family. "Centrality" of position of a woman in her hus-

band's family refers to the amount of responsibility carried by the media-

156

tor for family members. In families having more advantaged socio-eco-
nomic status there are more family women members, who share respon-
sibility for the household affairs. In larger families the duties are shared
and each woman has less to do. The oldest woman has the greatest and
more centralized authority over the actions of other women. In small,
nuclear type families there are fewer extended kin ties, and there is
greater necessity for each family member, including women to contri-
bute to the family subsistence. For example, families in which the
husband is unemployed and the family is nuclear in type, the woman of
the family supports the entire small gm up. In contrast, for larger more
economically advantaged families, the illness of a husbani can collec—
tively be absorbed by other male family members or kin, rather than
having the full brunt of household duties carried by the wife.

Inherent in centrality also is the idea that 'those who are poor eco-
nomically in comparison with other villagers, are poor also in terms of
kin and kinship ties which provide security and help in times of crises,
and share also in the obligations connected with ceremonies and other
social occasions. Degree of centrality provides some indication of the
general economic condition of a family, and gives insight into the possi-
ble influence of a mediator in her family. Centrality is one way of ex-
plaining the differential impact of the mediator in their families. In
families in which women have higher centrality, their chances of influ-

encing or creating change is greater than in families in which the media-

 

157

tor is one of many women who share responsibility under the direction of
the oldest woman of the family.
The first type of mediator consists of five women who have low

centrality of position in their husband's families. All five of these women

 

are educated. Their husband's families have relativethigh prestige in

 

comparison to other families in the sample. The husbands are employed
out of the village in high prestige occupations, or remain in the village
as landlords. One woman is divorced, but her father's status and posi-
tion isl high enough in the village so that her loss of status is absorbed by
her father's. Four of the women are teachers. One is an organizer, who
comes from a conservative village that refuses to establish Bengali in-
struction for its girls. In general, the work of these mediators is a
way of maintaining an already established position of their husband's or.
father's family.

A second type that appears is composed of five mediators who al—

though educated and from families having status in the villages, have posi-

 

tions of high centrality in their families. This is due to the employment of

 

husbands out of the village, and to somewhat smaller families, which places
greater responsibility on the woman. For two of the women in this group,
the death of their husbands precipitated their high centrality in their
families. There are extended kinship ties in these families. However,

the economic condition of these families is not as advantaged as those

families of the first type. Three mediators are teachers, two work as

158

both teacher and organizer. For mediators of this type, the work in the
village is primarily a way of building a position or contributing to that
which the family has already.

The third and largest grouping are of those mediators who are un-

 

educated and who have high centrality in their families. Before joining the

 

Academy's program the economic condition of their families was poor. That
is, they could be defined as being poor by the village as they are landless,
or with only very little land. There is no regular income, and few re-
sources. There are ten mediators who come in this grouping. Six of them
are widows, one woman is separated from her husband. Of the husbands of
the remaining three women, one is working, the other two are unemployed.
Lack of economic resources is matched by a dearth of kin folk as well.
There are few extra-nuclear family ties. The women in these families
carry a great deal of the responsibility, if not the total support for their
families. Before joining the Academy's program, four of the women worked
in other baris. All the women in this group function in the mediating pro-
cess as organizers. Their work in the villages is a way for them to re-
gain lost status for their families, and or build a new position.

There are four women whose adjustments to the position of media-

 

tor are such that they fit none of the categories mentioned above. A combi-

nation of unique factors in their identities have resulted in individualized

 

responses to different situations. For example, one woman has married

into a family having some status in the village, but she is uneducated. She

159

also has high centrality of position within the family, as there are few
family members. Three of the other women are somewhat educated, but
have married into economically disadvantaged and low prestige families.
They have highly central positions in their families. For these three wo-
men, their father's family is of higher prestige and better economic con-
dition than their husband's. Three of the women are organizers, one is
a teacher.

In their interaction with the Academy, the mediators were initially
fearful and extremely anxious both in coming to the Academy and in as soci-
ating with the staff and women from other villages present at the Academy.
They entered the program primarily because of the pressures of economic
need, and because the Academy offered a possible alternative for economic
privation. During the course of their association with the Academy the
ties among the village women themselves and between the women and the
Academy's staff have strenthened and deepened. These social bonds are
primary in keeping mediators attached to the Academy and working in their
villages. For most of the mediators, it has been an opportunity for be-
coming friends of and associating with nm-kin women. For the first time,
they have positions which enable them to have regular and continuing con-
tacts outside of the village. They are earning salaries through their own
efforts, contributing to the family income. Without fulfilling this aspect of
the mediationprocess, i. e. , of expanding the family income, there would

have been nothing to offset the opposition to the activities of the mediators

160

in their villages, and hence no opportunity to explore other facets of the
mediation process. An entirely new dimension is being added to village
life in that the women, by establishing their work in the village have cre-
ated new village positions and attendant role behavior for women, separ-
ate and apart from the reflected status which they gain from their father's
or husband's family.

In establishing work patterns in the villages, all mediators reported
great opposition to them from all segments of the village. For many of the
women, both family members and bari people were against their going to
the Academy as this deviation from the predominant pattern threatened to
weaken the family position and status in the village. For families that have
only small operating margins in terms of status and economic position, any
deviation looms large and there is little room for variation from a strict
interpretation of the norms and customs of the village milieu. In families
having minimal status and economic affluence there is no room for varia-
tion from predominant village patterns.

For women who are very poor, bari members u sually did not com-
plain nor did the para or other village people, as the great need in her fami-
ly was known and exempted her from having to observe the general customs
and norms. The opposition of the para (neighborhood) people, was encoun-
tered by mediators more than opposition from the bari or from the village
at large. A partial explanation is that the para is the immediate social

world in which a significant part of the lives of the mediators is spent. The

l6l

restricted mobility of the women has the para as the boundaries beyond
which they only rarely go. For the men, the para serves as a base for
informal organization and attachment (called the "rhei") and paras usually
develop around householders whose land is contiguously arranged. More
importantly, the para is he -basis for greater objection through the men to
the work of the mediators because the collective identity of the para resides
in the men, and is threatened by women venturing out. The opposition of
the village at large was centered on having a village member transgress the
customs of the village. The para people however, being more closely
associated with the women in question, reacted perhaps more vociferously
because of their increased knowledge and involvement with her. Any diffi-
culty that she caused would reflect on her family, and also on the para peo-
ple. The members of the para, as a structural unit of the village, used
general societal and cultural norms in voicing opposition to the mediators.
Opposition centered around the fact that it was un-Islamic for women to
leave their villages, and to- ' wbrk in the villages was considered to violate
the norms of purdha. Dire predictions were also made regarding the new
knowledge as having a corrupting influence on women.

The cooperative society in each village having a we men's program
played a major part in the establishment of the women's work in the village.
The local cooperatives society often served as the arena for the basic
conflict regarding women ard the possibilities of their working in and

regularly leaving the village. One of the reasons for requiring the prior

162

existence of a local cooperative society in villages before beginning a wo-
man's program was the need of having village based support for such an
undertaking. The assumption was that villages laving cooperative socie-
ties were already somewhat change oriented, at least among part of the
male population. The cooperative society itself underwent its own fight in
the villages in getting established, overcoming opposition, and legitimizing
new forms of social organization. The cooperative society was a model in
many ways for the women's work later. For example, one way that the
cooperative society legitimized its position was by offsetting village opposi-
tion with economic gains. Similar to the experience of the women later,

the men's cooperative was able to establish a position in the village and
gradually win the support of reluctant high prestige men, and conservative
religious leaders by creating their own links with the outside world which
yielded the techniques and knowledge necessary to increase rice production,
and introduce winter cropping and water facilities, and which established
pathways along which new information and ideas could come.

The establishment ofthe women's program WLhileL-occasioning acri-
mony among villagers was still somewhat anti-climatic. In the initial
stages of the women's work there was tremendous resistance, but this
gradually lessened as mediators evidenced economic gains which captured
the interests of other villagers. After the gradual amelioration of much
of the opposition, the mediators increasingly enjoyed high access and

easy entree into village baris. However there remains remnants of resis-

163

tance in. the villages which are either hostile to the mediator's work, or

just indifferent. The latent antagonism which exists among these segments
is not sufficient to be mobilized against the mediators unless they drasti-
cally transgress the limits of tolerance within their villages. Change in

the status of women does not threaten the power or control of the village
society which is in the hands of the men. The work that the women are doing
in the villages, and the changes they are making in their own conditions can
be tolerated or ignored by the village men until such time as the actions of
the women bring the name or honor of the village, or segments within the
village, into question.

Part of the limits existing for the women is their relation to the Aca-
demy. If the Academy closed, pressure from within the villages would be
for’the cessation Of the women's activities. As long as the mediators are
working within some observable context, with visible signs of legitimacy,
such as salaries, transportation cost, regular schedules, and a specific
known supporting institution, the work is tolerated, if not supported. The
mediator is gradually establishing the legitimacy of her position but it has
not been fully institutionalized as yet. The continuing structural support
of the Academy remains essential, as the mediation process has not as
yet, altered the basic role of women.

Extraneous to, yet closely associated with the specific functions of
the mediators position are various other consequences of tle mediation;

process. As mentioned earlier, the mediation process is essentially

164

the creation of pathways from the traditional village milieu to an outside
modernizing institution. The village woman who serves as the village
teacher and organizer is one of the contributors to the building of these
pathways. That is, by undertaking. activities that were previously not
connected with the women's world, the mediators are becoming part of '

the impetus for and the representatives of change in their villages. In the
process of going to and from the Academy regularly, the mediators bring
back into the villages new: ideas and techniques that were heretofore un-
known or unused. In the attempt to influence other village women about
new procedures or in the communication of new ideas, the mediators inter-
pret their new knowledge in light of village customs and norms. In this
sense, the mediation process is a selective interpretation of what the
mediators themselves have learned and what they think the village can assi-
milate.

Within their own baris the mediators first utilize that which the
Academy teaches them. The process of home experimentation makes the
mediators cognizant of some of the problems inherent in the utilization of
Academy knowledge. Based on their own experience the mediators can and
do speak with authority to other village women about how best to innovate.
In selecting other baris to- work in the mediators seem to;follow one of
two patterns. So me of the mediators seek out like-minded village women
of other baris to approach. These are women who live in families having

problems similar to the mediator before she began working for the Academy.

165

This pattern is such that the mediators go to any bari in the village in
which it might be possible to find a receptive audience. This can and
does transcend para lines. The other pattern followed is by mediators
who concentrate their work in one para, and then move on to other paras
upon covering receptive baris. This pattern is bounded by the ecology
of the village in following para lines. Within each para, the mediators
attempt to reach as many families as possible. In some cases, the most
prestigeful bari is approached first as it is thought that if they would
listen to the mediator then other baris would be more easily accessible.
Other mediators simply seek out relatives first, or baris having similar
economic conditions within a single para. It is in one of these two con-
texts that the mediator fulfills her role.

In the performance of their jobs, the literacy teachers are helping
to create a new awareness and acceptance of the education of girls and
women. Within the homosocial women's world in the village, the teachers
are giving expression to a new awareness of the need and utility of edu-
cation. Teachers through their classes, are also bu ilding new networks
among the women of the village who represent many different families
and paras. The organizers in their work role as demonstration agents
for economic and health techniques, interprets that which they are learn-
ing from the ~Academy in light of their own knowledge of their villages in
order to encourage women to listen and accept what they are teaching.

Because of the great economic need present in most families of organi-

 

166

zers before they joined the Academy's program, the improvements which
the organizers encourage in their own baris are tremendously influential
in encouraging others to change. For the organizers in particular, the
association with the Academy has resulted in dramatic observable changes
in the economic condition of the families of these mediators, and in the
organizers themselves. This graphic representation of the possibilities
of change serves as a basis for giving authority to women who never had
it before on a village level, and also summarizes in observable whysthat
which some of the organizers have difficulty‘"verbalizi'ng.

Taken as a ‘whole,’ the changes in the mediators themselves, 'and
their families along with their work in the village with other women, gives
to the women of the village an example of possible changes and is the first
embodiment of a new perspective. The mediators are new sources of
action and knowledge. . They bring into the village, new alternatives to
traditional problems and to the techniques of coping with them. In this
sense, mediators are creating the awareness among other women that
there are alternatives to the possibility of total failure in life and that
this is beyond their internal control. That is, that the inability of women
to manage or have direction of so much of what happens to them is now
being gradually ameliorated as the rme'diatbrzs. show. howohange is possi-
ble. Mediators are themselves embodying alternatives to the system that
bebre was assumed to be without any. The mediators also exemplify

another element of change in assuming the responsibilities and rewards

167

inherent in the belief in the prerogatives of choice. With the increase in
alternatives in a system there develops also the possibilities of choice.
Part of the willingness to make choices is the willingness to assume re-
sponsibility for the results. That is, where there are no alternative ways
of action within a fixed environment, there is no choice, nor is the
individual bound to feel responsible for the outcome of a situation as it

is determined in ways over which she has no control.

Part of the new perspective that mediators signify is the increase
in aspiration and ability to empathize with their children and the younger
generation. That which was never thought of in the context of their own
lives is now being projected for the future life of their children. Indica-
tive of this are the increased efforts and interest in educating at leaSt one
child from every family. It is inherent in the belief that some knowledge
of Bengali is now essential in arranging good marriages for daughters.
A daughter or son who is educated is thought able to "be happy, eat well,
wear good clothes, and live in a good house."

The experiences of the mediators and the changes in themselves
represents a deepening and extension of a position already established in
the village. That is, the mediators are not becoming "new women" in
the sense of embodying that which is foreign or not heretofore present in
the villages. Rather, mediators are using the traditional concept of
"good Muslim women" and are enlarging and building 611 it. The media-

0

tion process is actually the balancing of the new within the larger context

 

168

of traditional village society. The legitimation for new behavior is not
based on the image of the modern woman, but rather on the ideal Muslim
woman.

The visibility of the mediation process in contrast to the estab-
lishment of the enterprise, is anchored in the family rather than in the
cooperative society or village. The cooperative and village are impor-
tant in initiating the program, but notin sustaining it. The family is es-
sential because it is the basic unit of village social organization in setting
life styles and changes, and in handling the major aspects of life. There
are differences in the families represented by the mediators. Some are
regaining a lost position through the work of the mediator. Other fami-
lies are simply reinforcing their established status in the villages through
the work of their mediators. It is not known if the families represented,
or the patterns of response that are evolving are the result of this gener-
ation's life chances. The question must remain open-ended whether or
not this pattern will be passed on to other generations. As yet, the media-
tion process is achieving legitimacy in the villages, but has not become
an institutionalized role for women.

On a theoretical level, the study focuses on a minute aspect of a
larger world process of commiinication and exchange. The concern of
national developmental institutions of modernizing countries for their
own village people, and the attempts made to bring about change are re-

presentative of the final denouement of world-wide cultural, societal, and

169

institutional linkages and exchanges. On a national scale, the products
of technology and science are being used to assist nations in their own
development and in the development of each other. The linkages of
nations and societies, one with another, on a variety of different levels,
requires new commensurate forms of behavior and communication pat-
terns, which are representative of neither nation or society in question,
but which stand as new aggregations in themselves.

The mediation process is one aspect and a miniature representation
of this process of the development of patterns of behavior and communica-
tion which are new to the parties involved. The maintenance of pathways
and the continuing functioning of the mediation process depends on the
continued existence of links with an outside institution. If the Academy
closed, bringing to an end the women's program and the work of the media-
tors, that which has been well internalized by the mediators such as eco-
nomically oriented practical skills, or technical knowledge will probably
continue to be used in the villages. However, the status and position
that the mediators have and are creating in the villages would cease as
the external validating force for their work disappears. The position of
mediator depends on not only internal village support, but on continuing
external contacts as well. There can not be mediators without there
being pathways that link two or more functioning units. The women now
involved as mediators would probably continue to be known as "those

women who used to go to the Academy. " But the status attendent and

170

deriving from such activity would no longer be given to the women in ques-
tion. "Balancing" in thi 8 sense of being dependent on and working between
both village and an outside institution is embodied in the mediators them-
selves. The women actually function in this way. Hence the necessity

for viable and continuing base institutions. There is nothing within the
village structure that can continue to support such a position as mediator.
This is.‘ not to say that something could not be established to continue the
work of the women, but this would be a position other than that known as
mediator.

The careful balancing on a village level of tradition and modern
change is a small replica of that which occurs on the larger world scene.
This process of balance and change is happening not only within all levels
of societies, nations, or villages, but is occuring between and among
levels as well. The feedback from small gains on a village level work
back to higher institutional levels, making future exchanges easier, quick-
er, and more productive. It is through such a process of the development
of bridges and articulation points between different social units that
social change occurs.

This study is an attempt at exploring such a societal process within
the context of villages and: a single outside institution. The development
and maintenance of a mediating process joins with 0th: r factors of change
in the villages. That is, the villages are not static and the mediators

in many instances have acted as catalysts for coalescing previous ele-

i :41!!!

l7l

ments of change into a new social pattern for women. Indicative of pre-
vious change in the villages is embodied in the increased numbers of
children that are being sent to school. Another example is the forma-
tion of the village cooperative society which stresses the development of
new forms of group action, and new leadership. While the work of the
village :mediators has specific meaning for village women it also has
meaning for village men. Change within the women's world adds a new
dimension to the conception of men of what is possible within the village
context. While considered a threat by some, the ability of women to con-
tribute to the economic earning of the family encourages men to evalu-
ate change within the larger context of the total family, not just in the
context of agricultural concerns.

Women are the particular concern of the study as they do not seem
to be the focus of much development planning, which stresses work with
men in the vital concerns of raising agriculture production, the building
of national infrastructure, tapping and harnessing natural resources.
However, development work is two way, not simply an emphasis on the
world of men. Within the area of family and child rearing the role of the
woman is essential in providing motivation and aspiration for children.
This study endeavors to explore the female mediating roles which are part
of the network of mediating functions which are coming into being in vil-
lages in developing societies. If we are to understand the total process
of change and development, we must take into account both gender roles and
their consequences within their own respective worlds, and in connection

with each other .

apa

alim

bari

basuer
bou

burkha

chula

dhal

dower

ghor

haj

maddras sa

memshaeb

mis shaeb

mo rhana

pan

APPENDIX I

Glossary of Bengali Terms

 

Older sister; used by the village women as a mode of ad-
dress for the staff members of the women's program.

A village person who prepares bodies for burial.

A living unit of a single kinship group, including dwell-

ings, kitchens, cow sheds, trees, gardens, and ponds.

A bari contains four to ten houses built around a central
rectangular compound.

Husband's older brother.

New or young wife, with none or only infant children.

The veil worn by Bengali women, flowing materialbove‘r- .

ing head to knee with a pieCe covering the face that can be

raised.

Sunken earthern cooking stove.

Pulses, such as green peas, a primary element in the vil-
lage diet.

Husband's younger brothe r.

Individual living unit, combinied with other buildings to form
a bari.

Name for the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Religious school, teaching the precepts of Islam, Arabic,
and other subjects of a religious nature.

Married foreign Caucasian woman.

Unmarried foreign Caucasian woman.

Bride price settled at the time of marriage negotiations,
paid by girl's family to groom, to be returned in case of

the dissolution of the marriage.

Betel nut and leaf.

 

para -
peon -
pieta -
pafld -
purdha -
sardar -
sari -
sasur -
sasuri -

868 zemena '-

shaeb -
tank -
thana -

173

Geographically distinct unit within a village, similar to
a neighborhood in a Western context. A para is composed
of baris.

Office functionary messenger and handy man.

Collection of money by villagers for their village destitute.
A covered wooden box, large enough for a woman, carried
by four to six men. One of the means of conveyance before

roads made the rickshaw or bus possible.

A cultural pattern, the observance of which excludes women
from extra-familial social roles.

Traditional village leader.
The main garment of Bengali women; four to six yards of

material wrapped around the waist, with one end draped
over the left shoulder.

Fathe r -in- law .
Mother-in-law.
The end of an age, or the end of the world. Family plan—

ning, the education of girls, and the lessening of purdha
are thought by older village women to be indicative of an

end Of an age in the villages.

Foreign Caucasian male.

A man-made pond, located close to a bari; the source of
water for cooking, washing clothes, dishes, livestock,

and people .

A governmental administrative unit, similar to a county
in the United States.

APPE NDIX II

QUESTIONNAIRE

 

Numbe r

 

I. General
G-l. Father's house.

G-Z. Family: (Include number of members of a) woman's family, their
education, occupation; Also as regarding b) her father's family,
brothers and sisters, their education and occupation; and ask re-
garding the c) family of her husband, his brothers and sisters, .his
parents, their education and occupation. a), b), c).)

 

 

G-3. Before beginning your work at the Academy, what was your condi- >-
tion like in your family? (economic and general)

G-4. Before your going to the Academy, about what things did your
husband ask you?
a) daily bazaar
b) giving sari to sasuri
c) husband's geing to town
(1) buying land
e) taking loan
f) "hat" marketing
g) buying cloth for children
h) buying goats or cows

G-5. If you wanted to visit your father's house how was it arranged?

G-6. If your children went to school, how was it decided? Who discussed
it? Who decided to send your children to school?

G-7. When children were naughty how were they disciplined?

G-8. What things did you and your husband discuss? (about land, bari,
farming, children?)

G-9. Before going to the Academy how was it possible for you to save
money?

G-lO. How often did you go to Comilla town? a) For what things? b)
Who went from your family? c) How often did someone go?

175

G-ll. Who were your friends in the village at that time? a) Where did she
live? b) How often did you see her? c) What are the qualities of
friends? (for each one).

G-lZ. How did you behave with other village women? How did they behave
to you?

G-l3. Where could you go in the village at that time, before going to the
Academy?

II. Academy

A-l. How did you first hear about the Academy? What were you told about
it?

A-Z. Why were you chosen/told to go and not someone else?

A-3. To go to the Academy the first time, whose permission did you have
to get?

A-4. When you went to the Academy for the first time, what did the sasuri
and other bari people say about your going there? (what else? etc)

A-5. When you first went to the Academy how did you like it? a) What did
you do there that day? b) What do you remember most about that
visit?

A-6. When you returned from your first visit to the Academy who did you
tell about your visit there? a) Who else?

A-7. How was it decided that you should go regularly to the Academy?
(be gin working).

A-8. Who in your family did you gain permission from in order to 'work?
a) husband, b) sasuri, c) basuer, d) chacha, e) sasur.

 

A-9. Who in the villag did you get permission from in order to go?

 

A-lO. When you first started going regularly to the Academy what did your
bari people say? a) What objections were there? What did they say?

A-ll. What did your para people say about your going to the Academy?

A-lZ. What did other villagers say about your going?

 

176

A-l3. What do they say now? a) What brought about this change? (why
less)

A-l4. How did you feel when you first started going to the Academy?

 

A-15. When you first came for the be ginning of your training at the Aca-
demy what did you think of the apas ? How did you decide what to call
them?

 

A-l6. How has your department towards them changed since you first be-
gan going there?

A-l7. What training have you taken?

A-l8. When you go to the Academy which women do you gpend most time
with, (friends?) a) What do you talk abOut with these friends?

A-l9. Which of these women did you know before? (How? relatives, neigh-
bors, etc.) a) How often had you seen them?

A-ZO. Which other villages of your friends have you visited? On what
occasion?

A-Zl. What are the qualities of a good teacher/organizer? What else?
a) Who is a good teacher/organizer among the women you know?

A-ZZ. When you need help to whom do you go at the Academy?

A-23. What difficulties do you have now in your work? a) What can you do
about them?

A-24. When the Academy is closed and you can't come how do you feel?
III. Village Work

A. For Organizers:

VWO-l. How did you be gin your work in the village? a) Which bari did you
go to first? b) Who helped you? c) Whose permission did you ask
in order to work in the village?

 

 

VWO-Z. What did your bari people say about your doing this work in the
village?

VWO-3. What did your para people say? a) other villagers?

177
VWO-4. How do you do your work in the village? a) teabh class, b) go to
bari, c) go to women? (Systematically or not)
VWO-5. Where can you go in the village? a) Where can you not go?

VWO-6. How did you feel when you first started going around in the vil-
lage?

 

VWO-7. How many women have you given training to?

.VWO-B. From what kinds of families do they come from? a) laborers,
b) land and food, c) land, food and profit?

VWO-9. What have the women been most interested in?
VWO-lO. What kind bf profit has there been for them?

VWO-ll. If a woman's husband is not willing to have her learn, what do you
tell him?

VWO-lZ. How many women are there in the cooperative society?

B. For Teachers:

 

VWT-l. In the village how many centers do you have? Where are they?
VWT-Z. How were the places for these centers selected?
VWT-3. How did you start/organize your classes?

VWT-4. What did the village people say when you began this work in the
village? a) family? b) para people?

VWT-S. How did you feel when you first started going around in the village?
VWT-6. Who helped you organize the centers? Who else?

VWT-7. Who did you get permission from in the village in order to open
the classes?

VWT-8. When you first started your classes what difficulties were there?
What did you do about these difficulties?

VWT-9. How many students are there? Of which type: a) girls, b) wives,
c) older women?

 

178

VWT-lO. Where in the village do the women live who are your students?
a) same bari? b) another bari, same para? c) another para?
d) another village?

VWT-ll. What kinds of families do they come from? a) laborer/poor,
b) enough land to support family, c) enough land to support family
with profit besides.

VWT-lZ. How were the women selected for the centers? Did they ask to
join, or did you tell them to come? How many?

VWT-l3. How many of your students are relatives of yours? Name them.
Where do they live? a) same bari? b) same para, different bari,
c) different para, d) different village.

VWT-l4. How many of the women in your centers are society members?

VWT-lS. Which of the women in your centers did you know b efore the
classes began? a) when did you see them before classes began?

b) Are they relative, neighbor, or friend of yours?

VWT-l6. To which paras in the village can you go to now? Where can't
you go? Why?

Relationship with village women for both Teacher and Organizer.
Those parts of the questions marked with (T) are for teachers only, those

with (O) for organizers.

VW-l. What else do you talk about in your classes besides the Academy
material?

VW-Z. How should one teach a class? a) talk to women who come to
you for advice?

VW-3. How often do you visit (T) students (0) women in their homes?

VW-4. Out of all the things that you have taught, what have the women
used the most? What has been the most profitable for them?

VW-S. How do you like this work?
VW-6. What benefit has it been to you to do this work? (economic and self)

VW-7. For what things do women come to you now that they didn't before?
(e. g. , for buying things for them from the town markets?)

 

179

k
I.’

VW-8. Among these women/student‘smthat you have worked with, what

changes have you seen in them? (the women themselves) What
changes have you seen in their baris?

VW—9. How does this make you feel, when you see someone profit from

what she has learned from you?

VW-lO. What do the pegale of your bari say now about your work in the

 

village ? Para?

VW-ll. If you have trouble in your work to whom do you ask for help in

village ?

VW-lZ. By what name do the village peOple call you?

IV. Family
F-l. On days that you go to the Academy how do you manage your housework?

F-4.

F-6.

a) Who helps you? b) Who looks after things while you are gone?

On days that you have (T) classes/ (O) work in the village, how do

.you manage your household work? a) What work do you do before you

go out? b) At what time is it necessary to be back?

In going around the village when are the women most likely to be sitting
together talking, have some free time?

Since going to the Academy what changes have you made in the food you
feed your family?
a) How is this a change from what you ate before?
b) When you first made some changes what did your family members
say?
c) ' .What do they say now? (Go by family member, husband, sasuri,
etc)

In what ways are you taking better care of your children's health?
What else? a) When a child is sick how is it decided to bring a doctor?

How has learning to sew been of benefit to your family? (If she knows
sewing) a) How has this influenced what is purchased for the family?
(before and after) b) Are you asked now about what is to be pur-
chased, more than before? How so?

What profit has there been for your family from the gardening you
have done?

 

F-8.
F-9.
F-lO.
F-ll.
F-lZ.
F—l3.

F-14.

F-lS.

F-l6.

F-l7.

F-18.

F-190
F-ZO.

F-Zl.

 

180

What do you do with the cr0ps from the garden; a) sell, b) eat,
c) give away?

From the money you have earned from gardening how ha's‘it been spent?
a) Who decides how it should be spent? -

Did you take a loan for the garden? Yes, No.
a) How was it decided in the family that you wou‘ld’take the loan?
Who discussed it?

What other loans have you taken from the Academy?

How have you earned the money to repay the loans that you have taken?
a) How long were loans given?

 

How do you keep your chickens? a) How is this different from before?

When the chickens need injections how is it arranged? a) Who deci--
des? b) Who goes and brings whatever medicine or help that it '.
necessary? '

In what ways do you keep your ghor/bari neat and clean- now that you
didn't before? a) What did you have to do to make these changes ?
Whose permission did you have to ask? What reasoning do you give
when asked?

(For newly literate women) How was it before not to be able to read
and write? a) What profit/benefit is there for you in knowing this?

Which para women have come to you about learning about chickens,
sewing, coil, things like this? a) Who has come? (name) Where
does she live? b) How have you helped her? c) What did she come
for? d) How many times has she come to you?

Who in your family praises your work? What do they say? Who -
else?

Wl'at do family members not like about your work?

 

Who decides how the money that you earn should be spent?

About what things are your words more listened to now in your
family than before? What else? a) How does this make yod feel?

181

 

 

F-ZZ. What things do you discuss with your husband now that you didn't
before? (economic, about the children, family affairs, general
topics, society)

F-23. What has been the most difficult part of your work? a) getting
permission to go to the Academy, b) going around in the village,
c) teaching other women, or d) making changes in your own bari?
e) other?

F-24. What does your husband say to you about your work now? How does
this make you feel?

V. Self

S-l. Whenyou first began your work when did you think that perhaps this
work would lessen your family name?

S-Z. In what ways has you work in the village improved your family name?

S-3. If your sasuri was talking about you, how would she describe you?

S-4. What is purdha? Have you always thought this way about purdha or
have your ideas changed? If so, how have ideas changed? a) Have
you spoken to others about this or not?

S-5. Which is best, the past or the present times? Why do you say that?

S-6. Which do you think plays a more important part in life, a) education,
b) luck, or c) hard work? Why do you say that?

S-7. How will the lives that your daughters live be different from your own?
How else?

S-8. Is it better for a girl to a) stay at home and help her mother, b) go
to the school and learn Bengali, or c) go to the maddressa and learn
to read the Koran? Why do you say that?

S-9. What advice would you give to someone who wanted to know how to
handle opposition in their village to their moving about and going to
the Academy? (i. e. how to handle opposition to doing the Academy's
work?)

S-lO. What foreign countries do you know of? a) Who is the leader/king

of Pakistan now?