PROSTITUTION IN NINETEENTH CENTURY BENGAL 171 7. Meredith Borthwick, The Changing Role of Women in Bengal 1849-1905, (Princeton, N.J,: Princeton University Press, 1984); ch. 1, pp. 5-6; and Samita Sen, Women Workers, p. 60. 8. Anonymous, Stridiger Prati Upadesh, 1974 (Bengali). This is one among a number of moral tracts which constructs a binary distinction between the good wife and the prostitute. 9. Home Judicial, July 1873: An Abstract of Replies of Divisional Commissioners Consulted in 1873. 10. 'Indian Factories Act 1881: Employment of Women and Children', Parliamentary Papers 23rd October, (1884-1885), Vol. LX. 11. Samita Sen, Women Workers, p. 89. 12. 'Often these women labourers were given only manual jobs and according to an earlier source they were called jharoonis and also regarded as part time prostitutes,' Usha Chakravarty, Condition of Bengali Women around the second half of the nineteenth century, (Calcutta: Garcha Road, 1963), p. 28; see also Nirmala Banerjee, 'Working Women in Colonial Bengal' in Recasting Women, eds., Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, (New Delhi: Kali, 1989), p. 278. 13. In a poignant letter headed—'The application of a spinner from Shantipur Nadia', a brahmin widow from Shantipur describes her plight after weavers stopped coming to her house to collect the products of her spinning. She claims that before yarns began to be imported from England, she had after the death of her husband, who left her very little money, not only supported her family, married off her three daughter and even met the expenses of her father-in-law's funeral, so that the honour of her vamsa was maintained. But now with the yarns brought from England which country she had till now known to have been that of a prosperous nation, she finds herself ousted from her only means of livelihood. So she prays to the spinners of England to take pity on her and consider her case. (Samachar Darpan, 5th January 1828, quoted fully in Nadia llnish Satak, ed. Mohit Ray, (Calcutta: Amar Bharati 1988; Bengali). Nirmala Banerjee, points out that between 1812-13, 330,000 spinners were from Patna and Gay a alone, as compared to the 1881 census figures of 2,00,000 spinners from the whole of Bengal' ('Working Women', p. 253). 14. H. Beverly, Report of the Census of the Towns & Suburbs of Calcutta, (Calcutta: 1881). 15. From A. Mackenzy to H.L. Dampier Official Secretary to the Government of India, Home Judicial Proceedings No. 5829 dated Calcutta, 17th October, 1872. 16. Sumit Sarkar, The Women's question in Nineteenth Century Bengal' in A Critique of Colonial India, (Calcutta: Papyrus, 1983), pp. 71-72. 17. Tanika Sarkar, 'Nationalist Iconography: Images of Women in 19th Century Bengali Literature/ Economic and Political Weekly, (November 21), 1987. 18. Partha Chatterjee, 'The Nationalist Resolution of the Women's Question1 in Recasting Women p. 243. 19. A number of rich men had died but the houses of their rarhs (mistress) stand as monuments to their memory'. The word rarh is used for both widows and prostitutes in the text. Kaliprasanna Sinha, Hutum Pachar Naksha, (Bengali), ed., Arun Nag, (Calcutta: Suparnarekhazl991), p. 199. 20. Moti Chandra, The World of Courtesans, (New Delhi: Vikas, 1973), pp. 57-100. 21. Sukumari Bhattacharya, 'Prostitution in Ancient India', Social Scientist, No. 165. (February 1987), pp. 35-36. The author mentions kumbhadasi and paricharika indicating maid servants who could be enjoyed at will. 22. Nikhil Nath Ray, Murshidabad Kahini, (Calcutta: Puthipatra, 1983), (Bengali) also H.D. Sandeman, Selections from Calcutta, Gazettes of the Years 1506-15, Vol. IV, pp. 120-121. 23. Veena Talwar Oldenberg, The Making of Colonial Lucknow, 1856-1877, (New • Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 134-135.