38 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
limits of Tamil society and its conscious adoption of roles. With such categories in existence, it is not surprising that women were expected to play a particular role.
In Tamil literature a woman is mentioned only in relation to a man, either a lover or husband, or to her children. Her early life prepared her to enter marriage and her later life trained her to be in it. The only exceptions were poets like Avvaiyar, Kakai Patini and Adhi Mandhi. The one and only code that governed the lives of Tamil women was embodied in karpu, the concept of chastity. Seminars held to discuss the comparative chastity of Kannagi the wife of Kovalan, and Madhavi his mistress in Silappadhikaram are not uncommon even today. Thirukkural, the bible of the Tamils, referred to women in three roles-wives, mothers and distractors of men from doing their ^manly" duties. As wives, they were the home-makers and husband-worshippers. A woman guarded the honour of her family, took care of her husbands kept her word and tirelessly rendered these services.l A wife worshipped not God, but her husband every morning and she could command the rains to come.2 Contrary to the general belief that Tamil women were treated like goddesses, they were straightjacketed into domestication with assurances that the role would confer on them divine powers. One is not overlooking the fact that there was an essential division of duties in which men were expected to be the protectors and providers. But it is clear that the special restrictions on women were to be retained intact.
Chastity Above All
Any tendency to place woman on a pedestal was carefully countered by warnings that it was not "manly" to do so. Even the shy, coy woman was better than a man who took orders from a woman, said Thirukkural. A man who could think rationally never attached himself to a woman, it added.8
The concept of chastity which was the norm for judging women has been glorified and justified in Kamba Ramayanam by the famous poet Kambar. The story of Ahalya and the incident of Sita entering the fire to prove her chastity have long been bedtime stories for little girls.as models to emulate and warnings to remember. It is against this cultural background that one should understand the evolution of the twcntietli-century Tamil woman and her attitudes as expressed by the writers.
With westernization began the movement for women's education. Fiction writers in Tamil started out in the late ninteenth and early twentieth century. They also wrote essays and articles on women. Veda-nayagam Pillai, B R Rajamayyar, A M^dhavayya and Thiru Vi Ka are names to conjure with. It is essential to follow the portrayal of women by these authors in order to understand the attitudes of the women writers who came a little later. Vedanayagam Pillai and Thiru Vi Ka in particular, were powerful advocates of women's education.
Vedanayagam Pillars book on women's education came out in