Abstract
This chapter analyzes and interprets the experiences of Odia Hindu women in the temple town as they journey through life. It discusses their future-oriented attitudes of active acceptance and engagement as well as their culturally distinctive notions of maturity and personal growth. It also presents the various cultural conceptions of the self that prevail among women in the temple town, in particular the “emergent” interdependent self of young adulthood, the “encompassing” interdependent self of mature adulthood, and the non-interdependent self of old age. With respect to these women’s notion of maturity, the chapter notes that it is best described as a self-maximizing altruism, and it characterizes the “encompassing” interdependent self of mature adulthood.
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Notes
- 1.
See Chap. 6, p. 130–131, for a detailed discussion of the kind of behavior thought appropriate for a junior wife.
- 2.
Here, I am conforming to the Hindu body image, according to which, the human body is a collection of channels through which fluids run smoothly in and out and sometimes collect (Zimmermann 1979). Hindus ascribe many diseases to the excessive flowing out of bodily fluids or the unnatural blocking of such flows.
- 3.
She is referring to the absence of antagonism in her mind and heart, to her feelings of inclusiveness and expansiveness as signs of her maturity, as indications of her successful development as a married woman, the manager of her household.
- 4.
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Menon, U. (2013). Managing Life and Its Processes. In: Women, Wellbeing, and the Ethics of Domesticity in an Odia Hindu Temple Town. Springer, India. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-0885-3_8
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