“Like how, in a male dominant society, a man has the right to own his wife, a woman too should be provided the same right to own her husband. As said in the couplet of Thirukural, if a woman is ordered to adore her husband, a man too should be ordered to adore his wife. This is a simple example of equality between man and woman” says Periyar in the book.
If the rationalist leader Periyar E.V.Ramasamy had been alive today, he would not have worried or turned angry at the cowardly act of the miscreants who garlanded his statue with a pair of slippers at Vellalore on the city outskirts recently. He would rather have been happy about it, as he had known that such 'disgrace' would never deter persons like him from working towards the uplift of society.
A few lily-livered men did a similar act even during his lifetime.
On one occasion, Periyar was returning home in a hand-pulled rickshaw after addressing a meeting. A man, hiding in the dark, hurled a slipper at him. But Periyar asked him to hurl the remaining one too so that he couldwear them as another pair of slippers!
Of all the social reformers who worked for the emancipation of women, Periyar stands the most important, as he daringly questioned the dogma prescribed by God, religion, and caste. In particular, his researches on discrimination against women deserve importance forever in time.
His insightful analyses on the bondage of women are found in his Pen Ean Adimaiyaanaal? ( How were women enslaved?)- a book that has transcended generations since it was written in 1942. His research into the still-existing bondage of women needs to be read, not just by women, but by men too, as he questions why the concepts ‘chastity’ and ‘prostitution' apply only to women in society.
“In English, the word ‘chastity’ has a narrow meaning of ‘virginity’. But, the more or less equivalent Tamil term Karppu’ connotes several ideas as Sol Thavaraamai ( Keeping one’s word), Naanayam (Honesty), and so on. However, as the word Karppu is applied just to women, it indicates that only women have to be chaste, honest, and obedient to their husbands. So I cannot help wondering why the concept of chastity does not apply to men in our country” asks Periyar in Pen Ean Adimai Aanal.
The champion of women's rights who pioneered researching every social factor behind the bondage of women says that prostitution, as a crime, should bind both men and women.
“Histories say that only women have been accused of prostitution, ostracized from society, and sometimes murdered for the crime. It shows how a woman was considered a mere object for enjoyment. On the other hand, men who indulge in prostitution take their actions as matters of pride” says Periyar.
The nonagenarian, who was unbiased in his criticism of society, did not spare even the didactic pieces of Tamil literature as Thirukural and Aathisoodi, which discriminated against women.
Citing the 55th couplet
“Her spouse before God who adores,
Is like rain that at request pours”
If the author of Thirukuaral had been a ‘woman’, she would not have written so. At the same time, the woman poet Avvayar too, in her work Aathisoodi, says ‘Do not trust girls’ words’. Though a few maxims in the two didactic works Thirukural and Aathisoodi are objectionable, the rest, doubtless, propagate great moral values. The controversial anti-women sentiments in the two works can be estimated from a historical perspective that they were written when the Tamil country was infested with the Aryan theories of discrimination by birth” says Periyar.
Critically evaluating the couplet in Thirukural, the leader says:
“ Like how, in a male dominant society, a man has the right to own his wife, a woman too should be provided the same right to own her husband. As said in the couplet of Thirukural, if a woman is ordered to adore her husband, a man too should be ordered to adore his wife. This is a simple example of equality between man and woman” says Periyar in the book.