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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 5 page paper discusses the status of women in Buddhism and Hinduism and argues that women in Hinduism are dominated by the men in their lives, while in Buddhism they are very nearly equal. Bibliography lists 5 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVbudhin.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
with a look at Hinduism. The role of women in Hinduism, particularly in India, is a feminists nightmare. The woman is completely dependent upon and subservient to the "men in
her life: first her father, then her husband, and, upon her husbands death, her adult sons" (Harmon and Kaufman 32). However, women were not always so subservient. Some scholars think
that the Rig Veda, the great Sanskrit epic written in approximately 1500 B.C., discusses a time when "women had a higher status and were considered more on a par with
men" (Harmon and Kaufman 32). Apparently, Aryan women played a "prominent" role in their society; they were found "performing religious rites and participating in economic life" (Harmon and Kaufman 32).
These author say that no one is sure if this "golden age" was real or not, but it doesnt really matter, because there is "little disagreement that in the
two thousand years after the Aryan invasion, Indian women were subordinate to Indian men" (Harmon and Kaufman 32). Girls were married very young, and their only function was to produce
sons (Harmon and Kaufman). They were forbidden from getting an education, they were not economically independent, they could not move freely, and widows could not remarry (Harmon and Kaufman). Around
the "beginning of the common era, Manu ... wrote a seminal compilation of Hindu law" (Harmon and Kaufman 32). Ever since then, Manu has been cited as the authority every
time a woman is subjugated (Harmon and Kaufman). Manu characterized women as "weak, venal, untrustworthy and materialistic-a slave to her senses, her greed and her vanity" and having thus defined
women as subordinate beings, proceeded to treat them as such (Harmon and Kaufman 32). As a corollary to this, of course, men had to control these women by making them
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