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animal husbandry, poultry keeping and dairying, which coincided with their household work.
Chowdhry also shows in great detail how the inferior/supplementary status accorded to women's work determined the decision making powers of women in consumption and sharing of family produce, in land management and in their control over family expenditure. For instance, the denial of quality and quantity in food consumed by women had led to higher rate of female mortality in all age groups, high incidents of spontaneous abortions, frequent illnesses of women across castes and classes. Similarly, the male-oriented pattern of family expenditure included purchase of transistor radio, television, bicycle and wrist watch etc., which were also procured as part of dowry and kept beyond the reach of women within the house. The complicity of women with these specific discriminatory consumption practices was achieved by deploying self-denial as a necessary quality of women.
The book also documents how women do attempt to subvert this patriarchal order in insinuated ways through popular cultural activities like singing songs and dancing during festivals like Holi and Teej as well as during the family ceremonies. Through these activities they voice their criticisms, aspirations and self-awareness which were condemned as 'indecent* and 'immoral' by the caste sabhas, social reformers and by the colonial and post-colonial governments. However, such attempts to curb the counter-culture of women has, as the book shows, only met with failures.
In short, Prem Chowdhry's book with its well laid out arguments and richly textured evidence not only has analysed the material and structural conditions of peasant women's lives, but also, through oral evidences and folk sayings, offered us substantial insight into little known lives, experiences, and the struggle for dignity by the Haryana peasant women.
ANANDHI. S