Helena Wojtczak mentioned in her brief overview of Women’s Status in the 19^th century as such: “In 1890, Florence Fenwick Miller (1854-1935), a midwife turned journalist, described woman’s position succinctly: Under exclusively man-made laws women have been reduced to the most abject condition of legal slavery in which it is possible for human beings to be held…under the arbitrary domination of another’s will, and dependent for decent treatment exclusively on the goodness of heart of the individual master. (From a speech to the National Liberal Club” She went on to say that “most lived in a state little better than slavery.”

These were the extreme ways in which women were treated back in the 19^th century. It is very hard to imagine how life was back then for these women but the works and literatures of those times clearly showcases these traits. Men used to consider themselves superior to women and they were forced into whatever the man wanted off them, be it childbirth or any other labor according to their preference. I believe that women were treated worse in the East than in the West although the West was considerably worse too by all standards. In Charles Baudelaire’s poem ‘A Carcass’ and “Punishment” by Rabindranath Tagore, we find that women were shockingly treated and more so in the “Punishment” by Rabindranath Tagore.

‘A Carcass’ starts off with a beautiful and pleasant spring morning where the author mentions the man is walking with his lover. This poem was one of Baudelaire’s ‘corpse poems’ where he describes topics of death and decay vividly. The poem quickly turns into a horror story when they come across a carcass which is rotting away. The poem is extremely symbolic but these symbols and words were directly were used on the back of the women who were used as a tool to prove his point about humanity’s disregard for death. The poem necessarily was not written to degrade women but to consider them worthless was the norm and when anything negative was mentioned, the men did not hesitate to attribute it to the women. The rotten carcass was the body of a woman and the author termed it as a ‘lecherous whore’ and that it was ‘sweating out poisonous fumes’. This showed a gross disregard for the women and that the author could mention poisonous and attribute it to that carcass of the woman shows the prevailing mindset of the people regarding women in the 19^th century. Although the main theme of the poem was about death and how with life comes death and that humanity is supposedly heedless about this inevitable phenomenon, women were mistreated in the poem to prove this point. This is demonstrated when the author says, “From back in the rocks, a pitiful bitch, eyed us with angry distaste, awaiting the moment to snatch from the bones, the morsel she had dropped in her haste.” This disturbing verse of the poem shows how women were viewed and that men would use any metaphors or descriptions to address the women during the 19^th century.

Punishment, by Rabindranath Tagore, is an Indian short story depicting in extreme clarity how women were treated in the East, in this case in India. I was shocked to learn about the excessive amount of submission and oppression women faced and willingly accepted in the society back in the 19^th century. Indeed this makes me reflect on the initial quote on the first paragraph. Women in most cases were nothing but legalized slaves or a bit better. They are maybe at best slaves with some sort of minimal rights to be taken care of in terms of their food, clothes and shelter. In the story, there are two brothers Dukhiram and Chidam. Dukhiram murders his wife Radha out of anger because she says something sarcastic to him. Dukhiram lost his cool after a long and hard day of work and stabs Radha with a knife in her head and she dies. Now Dukhiram’s brother Chidam finds his brother moaning the death of his wife. Chidam and Ramlochan devise a plan to rescue Dukhiram from persecution. The simple solution was to ask Chidam’s wife Chandara to take the blame. This act itself shows the mentality of the people in the society. The culture clearly discriminates against men and women and Chidam’s and Ramlochan’s act were sufficient to prove that. Ramlochan was trusted with the legal matters of his village and even he discriminated and justice came second to discrimination. There were a few strong indications in the story that displayed women’s status and role in the 19^th century. Firstly, they stayed home and cooked and cleaned for their husbands. They were given the domestic roles to raise the children and take care of the household only. Also, men generally felt superior to their wives. Dukhiram came home and was demanding food from his wife. He gave a straight order and did not even have the decency to ask kindly for food. He felt he was the ruler of the house. Also, Chandara is seen to accept the blame when her husband asks her to do it. She showed no signs of revolt or concern but willingly accepted her husband’s orders. It could be either she was scared to go against her husband (because she feared the consequence) or the norm was that no one cared about a woman’s feelings. Also, society viewed women as inferior to men or even subhuman in some circumstances. Chidam says to Ramlochan,” If I lose my wife I can get another, but if my brother is hanged, how can I replace him?” This clearly was one of the most blatant and shocking thing for me to read. The men had absolutely NO concern for the lives of women in the East. It was as though her life was not worth that of a man. She was not even considered a full human because only when one considers someone subhuman that one is able to prefer one life over the other. This was the ultimate violation of justice and goodwill because what Chidam and the men in the village were advocating was the life of an innocent woman in exchange of that of a criminal.

In conclusion, 19^th century was a shocking and terrifying time for the womenfolk and both the texts clearly manifests our original claim that women were treated extremely poorly, with no equality, in some cases as sub-humans and utterly degrading forms. Men clearly felt they were superior to women and this ignorance was evident in society as large. This is what seemed to be the norm back then and quite frankly it is very disturbing and I am glad that we are living in the 21^st century. It is hard to imagine life and how it was to back then. I feel sorry for the women who had to go through all that but it gives us all the more reasons to fight for justice and be grateful for what we have today and keep working hard to maintain our basic human rights and rights of equality.