Against High-Caste Polygamy

ISBN-13: 9780197675908 / Angielski / Twarda / 2023 / 144 str.

Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar

Recenzje

A daunting task indeed-to make relevant a late-nineteenth century text on the plight of high-caste Hindu women, subject to, as Vidyasagar writes 'the practice of this hideous and cruel custom' of serial polygamy. Hatcher's seamless introduction and extremely readable translation successfully highlights Vidyasagar's fundamental ethical commitment to women's dignity. He neatly contextualizes the author's Brahmanical heritage that could have predicated an inherently patriarchal viewpoint.

O autorze

Brian A. Hatcher is Professor of Religion at Tufts University. He is the author of Idioms of Improvement: Vidyasagar and Cultural Encounter in Bengal and Hinduism Before Reform and the translator of Hindu Widow Marriage by Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar. He earned his PhD from Harvard University in the Comparative Study of Religion in 1992, specializing in the transformation of religion and intellectual life in colonial South Asia.