The ideas of marriage and roles of women are very dosely linked. Compare the portrayal of marriage and representation of women in the three texts studied.

I am going to discuss, in this essay, the idea’s of marriage and the roles of women at the times the three texts were set in, I shall also talk about how these marriages and roles are similar in the texts. To compare the portrayal of marriage and representation of women the three texts that were studied Stench of Kerosene, which was a short story written by Amrita Pritam. Stench of Kerosene was about a young Sikh married woman, called Guleri, who could not bear children and how society viewed and dealt with her due to this. It is a story of how she is seen as an outcast to the family so much so that the mother then brings a new wife into the household; to try to replace the old one; this then leads Guleri to suicide. The other texts studied were a short story in epistolary form called The Three Sisters and a novel called Pride and Prejudice. These two stories were both written by Jane Austen and both have very similar storylines. The Three Sisters is about a girl called Mary who receives a proposal from a very wealthy man, Mr Watts. Mary however finds Mr Watts to be ‘extremely disagreeable’ and does not know whether to marry him or not. Similarly Pride and Prejudice is about a mother, Mrs Bennet, and her struggles of getting her children married to wealthy men. They both show society’s views of women and how women themselves view marriage and their roles. All three texts show a good indication of how society portrayed women at that time.

Stench of Kerosene was written in 1927 and was set in a small rural village in Punjab. It was originally written in Punjabi but was only translated in the 1960’s. This story was more tragic that the other two stories as one of the main characters, Guleri, commit suicide. The way that Guleri kills herself is very tragic and shocking, as she seemed like a very happy and loved character. She kills herself by soaking herself in kerosene and setting herself alit. The reason behind Pritam putting this in is because she wanted to change how society viewed and treated women. In the story the society Guleri lived in and their expectations of her were strongly to blame for the outcome of the story.

In the Sikh religion both men and women are seen as equal in the religious scriptures. However although Sikh women have right within the scriptures many of the scriptures are up to individual interpretation. Most men see the women are their possessions and therefore many men see it acceptable to have more than one wife, as Manak’s mother did, regardless of what their present wife may think. There are many reasons to why men may take a second wife, the most common among the Sikh community at that time was because having more than one wife would increase the wealth of a man due to the bride’s family giving the husband a ‘gift’ when the marriage was secure. This was known as a dowry. Men also married a second wife to produce an heir if their first wife was unable as it was the case in Stench of Kerosene. The story hints that the main reason behind Guleri committing suicide and the mother wanting Manak to have a second wife was that Guleri could not have children. Manak’s mother role in society then was to bring up her children well and then to find a good daughter in law who could have children and carry on the family name. She was very narrow-minded and did what society expected of her. She felt that her decision for bringing a new wife into the family was justified, as that was what society expected her to do. She had fulfilled her role and the expectation that society had put upon her and now she wanted a daughter in law who would do the same. The mother was brought up and guided by the expectations of society and she felt that if she had gone against what society had expected of her then she would have ultimately become an outcast as society would have seen it as her not fulfilling her role as a mother. Guleri on the other hand, did not see it as Manak’s mother fulfilling her role, but saw her interference as a punishment for not being able to fulfil expectations put on her by society. In the Sikh religion babies are of great importance and their birth is rejoiced by the family. The birth of a baby is seen as strengthening the stability of the marriage and ensuring the continuance of the family line. If a woman in the Sikh religion is unable to have children then she is unable to inherit land or money from her husband when he dies. They are seen as outcasts as they are not able to produce an heir. This meant that bearing children was an essential role of a Sikh woman and Guleri was unable to fulfil the role she was expected to and as a result Guleri was made to feel like a complete outcast by society. A wife in the Sikh religion has two main roles they are to have children and to look after her family. Guleri could not fulfil all of her duties and was disregarded and seen as an outcast by her family and society, she was seen as damaged. The new wife probably made Guleri feel as though she was ‘damaged goods’ and so she was replaced by a new and ‘working model’. When Guleri heard of the second wife she felt let down by her husband and like he had abandoned her because she could not have a child. She felt as though she was ‘indebted to suffer for her inadequacies’. She felt lonely and unloved as if she was impure and saw the only way out as death. The symbolism behind Guleri’s death highlights the violence of it compared to the Sikh idea of death as being like ‘sleep’. The way that Guleri chose to kill herself created a dramatic and shocking effect and was seen as primal and more painful. It symbolised how much pain emotionally that Guleri was in.

When Manak heard what had happened to Guleri he was ‘mute with pain’. Manak could be seen as a coward and a fool for not being stronger and for not standing up to his mother when she told him about getting a new wife, but it can be seen as not all being Manak’s fault as he was brought up traditionally. He new his role as a man and a husband that was to be a loyal husband and to find a wife who would produce an heir to the family. He was taught to respect and obey his parents.

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‘Manak wanted to retort, ‘you are a woman; why don’t you cry like

one for a change!’ But he remained silent.’

However if Manak had gone against what his mother wanted then he too would have become an outcast to society for going against his elders and not fulfilling his role as a man.

The new wife however was probably made to feel like an outcast by Manak, as he knew that no one could ever replace Guleri. But by his mother the new wife fit in with the family, as she got pregnant quickly. The mother said at one point that she had spent ‘five hundred rupees’ on the new wife, and this was probably a lot of money in those days, which suggests that some women married for money. This is similar in Pride and Prejudice as charlotte Lucas married Mr Collins because of his money. And also in The Three Sisters, Mary chooses to marry Mr Watts because he is a very wealthy man. This shows that the societies these stories are in are completely materialistic.

Prtiam shows that the roles of women are completely dominated by men and society. It would be correct to say that if society’s beliefs had not been so enforced upon women then Manak and Guleri’s marriage would have survived. I believe this as Sikh women have only three main concerns in life and they are to get married and have children, to look their families well and to get their children married off to good and wealthy families. This circle would therefore be enforced on many more generations to come and the main reason being is to have children.

Stench of Kerosene had political reasons for it being published. Pritam saw that society needed to be changed and this story showed why and how women felt about was a stereotypical role of a Sikh woman was. The tone in which Pritam wrote this story was very serious and is not humorous at all, unlike Pride and Prejudice. She made it a serious story as Pritam felt very strongly about how women were portrayed and how they were rejected by society if they were unable to perform the roles that were expected of them. She wrote the story as a narrative and because of this we can see how Pritam feels about certain the roles of women. She uses objects to symbolise the characters emotions. She used the flute to tell us how Manak felt about Guleri leaving.

‘Then putting the flute to his lips, blew a strange anguished wail.’

He expresses how he feels through the way he plays his flute, as he is unable to say it in words. Pritam gives us a more visual and better understanding of the point that she wants to put across, by using emotive language, for example:

‘Manak, mute with pain, could only stare and feel his own life

burning out.’

It gives us a more realistic feeling of the story and allows us to see just how devastated Manak is. We can tell that he is completely destroyed and will never get over what Guleri did. This is put across more clearly at the end when Manak’s child is born and when he holds him for the first time, he is not the happy and joyous father that one would expect but instead he,

‘he shrieked hysterically, ‘Take him away! He stinks of kerosene.’

His reaction to his new child seems as though he feel guilty and somewhat responsible about what happened to Guleri. We can tell that what to Guleri did not only affect Manak but also the whole family, as the new wife will never be loved by Manak and nor will the new child as he will always be a constant reminder to Manak of something that he could never have with Guleri and the reason for her death. He will also always be very resentful towards his mother as she took away the one person he loved in the whole world with no thought to the consequences, and most of all Manak will probably never be able to forgive himself.

There was a lot of pressure on women in those days to have children if they did not have children the women would be rejected by society and most just wanted to fit in. If Guleri had tolerated Manak having a second wife and gone back to live with the family despite this she would probably have been rejected.

The Three Sisters was not published until quite awhile after it was written, in 1792. This story was set in London. The Three Sisters show that marriage was one of the only concerns of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. In Jane Austen’s time marriage was more or less then only way out of the parental house. There was no real way for women to be on their own or to have independence in those days. There were no professional jobs open to women and the few that there were, such as being a governess, were not very highly regarded, and either did not pay well or had very poor working conditions. Pride and Prejudice and the Three Sisters show this well as both Mrs Bennet, the mother in Pride and Prejudice, and Mrs Stanhope, the mother in The Three Sisters, main concern was to get all their children married.

‘ “how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking

of his marrying one of them.”’

‘ For I am determined not to let such an opportunity escape of settling

one of my Daughters do advantageously.’

In The Three Sisters the arrangement of marriage is portrayed like ‘prostitution’, in that the way Mrs Stanhope is haggling over the price for Mary, and tries to get as much pin money for Mary from Mr Watts as she can.

‘ “Remember the pin money: two hundred a year.”

“A hundred and seventy five madam.”

“Two hundred indeed, Sir.” Said my mother.’

Mrs Stanhope also seems as though she is ‘pimping’ her other daughter in case Mr Watt does not like or want Mary.

In The Three Sisters the only factor Mrs Stanhope takes into account and uses to form her opinion of Mr Watts is how wealthy he is. In this way Mrs Stanhope and Mrs Bennet are very similar as she too forms an opinion by how wealthy a man is.

‘ “A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year.

What a fine thing for our girls!”’

She is determined to have Mr Watts as part of her family as he was a good man to know. In Mrs Stanhope’s opinion the reason that Mr Watts wanted to marry Mary was ‘because he wishes to be allied to the family’ and the way for a man to become allied with a family was to marry one of the daughters. This applied very much in Mr Watt’s case he did not care which daughter he married. Mrs Stanhope also wanted to be allied to Mr Watts as he had a higher status in society than she did and if one of her daughters married him then their family’s status would also go higher. This is a similar situation to Pride and Prejudice as Mrs Bennet wanted Mr Collins to be allied with the family as he was quite a wealthy man and when Mr Collins proposed to Elizabeth Mrs Bennet put a lot of pressure on her to say yes by telling Elizabeth:

‘ “Yes, or I will never see her again.”’

Mrs Stanhope’s main role as a mother and in story was to have children, make sure they are taken care of well, look after their husbands and run the home. Mrs Stanhope has a lot of power in this story as she is the one who decides which daughter shall get married and to whom. She could force one of her daughters to get married and they could not say no as it would be disrespectful to their mother. She exercises her power over her daughters when Mary is still trying to make up her mind over marry Mr Watts, by telling Mary that if she does not marry Mr Watts then ‘Georgiana must’.

Mary is shown as I very materialistic and indecisive young girl. She marries Mr Watts because he is a very wealthy man. In letter one Mary tells us that she says Mr Watts is:

‘ He is extremely disagreeable and I hate him more than any body

else in the world.’

Mary chooses to marry Mr Watts as sees it as a way of getting a higher status in society than the rest of her family. Which shows that she is similar to Lydia in Pride and Prejudice, as it seems as though she only married Mr Wickham to get a higher status than her family. Mrs Stanhope could easily push Mary into marring Mr Watts as Mary had made it very clear that she had wanted to get married before any of her sisters.

‘ I could not bear to have either of them married before me.’

Mary’s main role in society is to look after her husband and to have children to carry on the family. This is very similar to the society and the expectation of women in Stench of Kerosene. It is very clear that Mary has a one-track mind in that she is very unidealistic and feels as though Mr Watts should be grateful that she has accepted his proposal. She does not believe in marrying for love and thinks that if one of the couple loves the other then there is no need for the other to love them back.

‘ when there is so much love on one side, there is no occasion for

it on the other.’

The Three Sisters is serious, formal and shows a harsher portrayal of women. However it is quite humorous in places compared to Stench of Kerosene. It was written when Austen was only a teenager when she wrote it and she was probably entering the ‘marriage market’ herself. The characters in the story were probably someone that Austen could relate to as she herself was a teenager and was having similar problems as her characters were. Austen could relate to her characters and she often hid her views and thoughts behind her characters humour and fictional style writing. The story was quite controversial as it told us what women were like and how they really felt about issues then, but society was not interested about these things. Society looked down on anyone that was seen to speak up for women and were thought of and seen as abnormal, and their name and reputation was often destroyed.

Austen wrote the story in a letter form as it allows us to see the reaction of characters better as it is they who are describing how they feel and what they think. It also allows us to get to know the characters better however not as well as in Pride and Prejudice. The main difference between these two stories is that Pride and Prejudice focus’s more the reasons for getting married and the consequences of actions that women took.

`Pride and Prejudice was written in 1813 and was set in Longbourne in Hertfordshire. Mrs Bennet is a stereotypical middle class woman in those days. She is materialistic, over dramatic and a gossip. These characteristics are portrayed in an exaggerated way. When we first meet Mrs Bennet we can see that she is a gossip.

‘ “My dear, you must know, Mrs long says that Netherfield is taken

by a young man of large fortune from north of England;”’

Mrs Bennet appears to be a similar character to Mrs Stanhope, all she wants is for all her daughters to be married and taken care of. Her main role is to take care of her family and make she that her children get married. In Pride and Prejudice the men hold most of the power and this is shown many occasions in the Bennet household by Mr Bennet.

‘ “An unhappy alterative is before you, Elizabeth. From this you

must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never

see you again if you do not marry Mr Collins, and I will never see

you again if you do.”’

It is clear that Mr Bennet did not marry Mrs Bennet for love. We can assume that Mr Bennet probably only proposed to Mrs Bennet because as a young lady she was very pretty and that he probably never knew what she was like. He puts up with by not taking her seriously. Because of the way that Mr Bennet treats his wife their children have grown up not taking their mother seriously and not having much respect for her. This shows most of all in Elizabeth by the way she acts around her mother. Elizabeth is strong minded and a very opinionative young lady. She is also her father’s favourite daughter and often gives him advice, which he rarely takes. Elizabeth does not believe in getting married for love and does not think she would get married. Lydia on the other hand was exactly like her mother. She was emotional, immature, she does not think but acts on impulses, which nearly brings her to ruins. Lydia would cross all the boundaries and broke all the codes that society had set for women, this was shown when Lydia runs off with Mr Wickham and she does not think of the affect it would have on her family or the distress it may cause them. As it was not expectable behaviour to run off and elope. Society looked down on it and it suggested that she had bad upbringing as she was disrespecting her parents by eloping. However in those days it was very important for a woman to get married, as that is what society expected of them. Unmarried women were a great burden to their families as they would have to live with their families or with family approved protectors, as it was unheard of for an unmarried woman to live by herself. Jane Austen, herself was a ‘dependant’ as she was unmarried and was forced to live with relatives. Mary in Pride and Prejudice knew she would not get married as she was not as pretty as her other sisters so she concentrated on music and learning.

Marriage to women then was not all about getting away from their parents but was one of the only ways in which women could gain financial security. By marring, women were entitled to an allotment of money each year, called ‘pin money’. This money was to be spent as she wished but not for household necessities. However an unmarried woman would and could only inherit money form her family if she had no brothers as they lived on a patriarchy society, in which men hold the power and women were largely excluded from. In Pride and Prejudice and The Three Sisters, they both seem to be set in a patriarchy society as the men hold the power in both the stories. However in Stench of Kerosene the mother holds the most power in the story, which is unusual.

The women that Austen wrote about were showed as foolish, materialistic, gossips and were only concerned about how other family’s saw them and who the would get married to. These characteristics are different to the way that Pritam portrays women in her story she shows them as innocent, loving, obedient, and respectful to their family and husband, as Guleri shows when she fell in love with Manak.

‘ “If you want me go and ask my father for my hand.” ’

Pride and Prejudice was more humorous than The Three Sisters was, it took a more satirical approach rather than political one to get its points across. Austen blamed the traditions of society through the humour of her characters.

All three stories allow us to see that the roles of women have been the same over the centuries and that they are not changing very much in a hurry. They allow us to that men have always held a very powerful role in the home and the way in which a woman is brought is depending on how society expects them to act.

Society have always judged women and enforced their rules and boundaries upon them. If those rules are broken they are looked down upon and would be ultimately be outcast them.