Overall, this book is a valuable addition in the list of historical research works on the issues of women, community politics and colonial legislative ventures in southern India. The research related strength of the book is that it draws information from a variety of primary sources, ranging from archives of court cases, women's narratives and women's writings in the magazines. ... Read moreThe author, in a very articulate manner, simplifies the complex history of family, politics, caste, class and economic pressures in Tamil Nadu.2009
Human Rights and Human Welfare
Rather than settling on one conception of the family, Sreenivas tracks how ideals changed over time through very public debates in Tamil society. She does not settle for quick or easy answers about family values and demonstrates how different social groups engaged the question to advance their interests in political and economic spheres.Vol. 21.2 August 2009
DURBA GHOSH
Cornell University, USA
Scholarly and eminently readable, this book commends itself to both scholars and non-scholars across disciplines. While analysing the debates about `family' that proliferated in the Tamil region of India during the late 19th century and the mid-20th century, it examines the claims about the family - its appropriate membership, its role in buttressing `culture' and `tradition', and the property relations of its members - that, according to the author, became critical to the formulation and contestation of Tamil social relations.Dec. 22, 2009
The Hindu
Sreenivas's discussion points to the importance for feminist scholarship of exploring the links among conjugality, kinship, and capitalisms both historically and today.
Feminist Formations
This volume about the changing family in colonial South India is a welcome addition to the literature on marriage and family.Volume 69/1, February 2010
The Journal of Asian Studies
Sreenivas's study is, without a doubt, a `must read' for scholars interested in the history of the family, women and gender, as well as the development of anti-colonial nationalist politics. Her careful historicization of the `family' as an equally powerful force alongside the `nation,' and the many qualifications to Chatterjee's influential work that this approach pulls into the foreground makes 'Widows, Wives and Concubines' an invaluable addition to both Indian social history and colonial studies. Vol. 10.3 Winter 20009
Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History
This is . . . a well-researched, theoretically informed and stylistically refined study of the articulation of a new-the conjugal-family ideal in colonial India.Vol. 114. 4 Oct. 2009
SUDHIR CHANDRA
Mizoram University
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