Mapping the Domestic Domain

Abstract

Constructions of sexuality, educational reform, thrift, child care and household management were of grave social concern and scientific investigation in UP in the late-nineteenth and early- twentieth centuries. The reforming endeavour included attempts to forge an ideology of respectable middle-class and upper-caste Hindu domesticity. ~ecenstt udies stress that the real battle for an ideal womanhood during colonialism was waged within the home. The domestic domain was the inner core of national culture, a private and separate sphere where it was possible for the Hindu male to impose his power and control. This was in contrast with the world outside, the material or public world, where the West had proved its superiority and made the colonised acknowledge it.