To understand India’s frictions during the late 19th century regarding the age of consent, it becomes essential to perceive where the social psyche of Indian society lay. Being exposed to colonial culture and understandings of the virtuous and vice, the domestic was forced to acquire a public space.
With the intervention of colonial and nationalist reformers, majorly dominated by men, the critical questions on agency, will, power, individuality, and women’s equality had taken off. It will be a shallow statement to say that such liberal ideas of falling in the domain of equality and justice were fully realized.
However, it becomes imperative for us to acknowledge the beginning of when women of the Indian society were given space either as “objects” or “subjects” to participate in the narratives of social justice and moral rectitude. If we look at the reforms through the prism of today’s age, they sure look to me no less barbarian.
Nonetheless, the age of consent highlights the beginning of the long journey that continues in women’s liberation from the shackles of traditional, Indian patriarchal roles and the universal misogynist narratives.
The cases in the public discourses highlighted the horrendous violence women went through in marriages and family, primarily by men. For instance, their husbands or agents of violence, ‘the structure of family’ as an exploitative institution perpetuating the violent behaviour through moral and traditional validation.
Such a public exposure to the darkness of the family could no longer be seen as spiritual or pious. The entire narrative of decorating the injustices by an elaborate set up of defining the DHARMA of wives faced a challenge; a setback.
The social psyche which had been floating unhindered and unchallenged was disturbed. The momentum of the perpetuation of maintaining power amongst men and the subjugation of women got disturbed.
Although being in the traditional system, women had received some tangible ground to voice or became objects of the representatives of reformers for the first time. They were the subjects of discussions on JUSTICE and MORAL RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Such integration also played as a catalyst in making regular the involvement of women in the discourse on national freedom and against colonial oppression. The age of consent can be seen as a founding block in constructing a thought, a lesson integrating women as passive and active agents in bringing about justice and equality.