92 SOCIAL SCIENTIST affluent sections of the rural population have taken over the externals of 'urban culture' in a big way. The change has not helped women in any positive manner and in fact it has tended to intensify its more negative effects for them. The newly acquired wealth spent on modem consumer durables has created yet greater nuclei of male control, confining women more and more in ghunghat. The growing urbanisation has similarly separated a section of Haryanavis from the socio-cultural collective of the villages. With their life styles and cultural patterns necessarily imitative and derivative of the consumerist culture in metropolitan cities, they are far removed from the ideals of a simple and austere life. Yet it has become incumbent, even upon them to keep the symbol of their 'village culture', that is their women, as 'safe' as the others do. These compulsions have in fact imposed an ideological barrier inhibiting the spread of certain influences beneficial to women. This is evident in the successful negation in this region of the often catalytic, even liberating effects of the partition of Punjab on its women. Moreover the apprehension generated in the wake of drastic changes in the politico-legal structure granting equal rights of inheritance, marriage and divorce, open defiance of the practice of levirate, remarriage of widows in the form of punar vivah, and increasing instances of runaway marriages have greatly contributed to male anxiety and increased the attempts to control women leading in part to the strengthening of the custom of ghunghat. The strength of this custom is ultimately based on social approval and its imposition lies in the hands of women themselves. Women of Haryana on their side too continue to support a 'rural culture' which is highly constrictive for them. Internal hierarchy among women has its own logic with senior women enforcing this custom which ultimately safeguards the hold of patriarchy as well as their own control. Ably supported by women, the patriarchal stakes in the cultural centrality of ghunghat will not allow this norm to be breached. EXIGENCIES OF WORK: REFASHIONING THE WEARING OF CHUNCHAT An ubiquitous sight in rural Haryana are the veiled women who cover either the whole face or just permit the eyes to show. This sight is somewhat incongruous set against the high visibility of women in Haryana involved in all sorts of field work, working alongside the men, from preparing the fields to irrigating and harvesting the crop. Visible too are women in processing agricultural produce at home, tending the animals, fetching and carrying water with heavy gharas (earthen water pots) on their heads, or involved in numerous other domestic chores. The few uncovered faces that may be seen are those of the daughters of the village, yet*to be married or visiting their natal homes, or those of older women, the exposure of whose face is socially