STATUS OF WOMEN IN INDIAN HISTORY 117 survey should lead to an assessment of women's emancipation in such a society. Vedic Age: Education to Marriage Aryans enter Indian history as nomadic tribes with exceptional mobility given by the horse and the charriot. Their main source of food and mark of wealth was cattle. There is enough evidence particularly in the references to Gotra, literally meaning cow-pen but implying an exogamous clan unit to indicate that the cattle wealth was held in common.4 At this stage, the chronological limits of which can be laid roughly between 2000 BC and 700 BC, the Aryans had already developed a patriarchal family system with certain amount of male dominance. The overwhelming number of male gods in the early Aryan pantheon indicates such an order of precedence. The emergence of patriarchal family and male dominance should indicate at least a rudimentary form of family or private property as against the general rule of tribal property-holding. Nevertheless it cannot be overlooked that private and commodity production could not have developed very much. Master-slave relationship in its classical form is absent. If private property and commodity production have not developed to the extent of creating objective conditions for greater control of the surplus by either of the sexes, then it should warrant a state of simple division of labour between the sexes with bilateral functions having equal importance. Here the division of labour could have been between women in charge of domestic responsibilities and men engaged in hunting and food gathering. Such a state of affairs would have guaranteed plenty of freedom and respect for the woman. She has not yet lost her crucial role in the production process. Neither has she lost out to man completely in the matter of control of tools and means of production. The simple division of labour between sexes implies that both groups own their own tools of production: women in domestic production and men in hunting. The position of women in early Vcdic age was fairly satisfactory. Child marriage and sati came much later and co-education of boys and girls (going through Upanayana and Bramacharya) was the rule. Women could perform sacrifices independently and they were not regarded as impediments in rituals. The concept of ideal marriage in Vedic period was that of a religious sacrament which made the couple joint owners of the household.6 Along with prayers for a son are found those for the gift of a beautiful and intelligent daughter. Girls' education passes through the stages ofUpanayana and Brahmacharya leading to the marital state. Among the scholars of the period are ladies such as Lopamudra, Visbvavara, Sikata Nivavari and Gosha. Sarvanukramnika lists as many as twenty women among the "seers^ or authors of the Rig Veda9 showing that possibilities