Oppression of Women in Hinduism

Hindu scriptures, particularly texts like the Manusmriti, contain numerous injunctions that place women in subservient roles and impose harsh restrictions on their lives. From severe punishments for disobedience to denial of property rights, from restrictions on remarriage to advocating polygamy, these rules reflect a deeply patriarchal mindset. Women are often depicted as being morally and intellectually inferior, bound to unquestioning obedience to their husbands, and denied autonomy over their own lives. This section explores how these ancient texts institutionalized gender inequality and oppression.

1, Women and Punishment

📖Manusmriti 8.371
“If a woman, proud of relations and her qualities, passes over her husband, the king shall have her devoured by dogs in a place frequented by many.”
Why it’s bad: This is an extreme and barbaric punishment. It treats women as property whose disobedience deserves death by public execution, a gross violation of human rights.

📖Manusmriti 9.78
“If the wife disregards her husband who is mad, or intoxicated, or afflicted by disease, she should be deprived of ornaments and appurtenances and abandoned for three months.”
Why it’s bad: Women are punished for their husband’s behavior, even if the husband is incapable of proper conduct. It shifts all responsibility onto the wife and isolates her unjustly.

2. Property Rights

📖Manusmriti 8.416
“The wife, the son and the slave,—these three are declared to have no property; whatever they acquire is the property of him to whom they belong.”
Why it’s bad: Women are completely stripped of financial independence. Anything they earn or inherit belongs to their husband or male guardian. This institutionalizes economic oppression.

3. Polygamy

📖Manusmriti 3.13
“For the Śūdra, the Śūdra girl alone has been ordained to be the wife; for the Vaiśya, she as also the girl of his own caste; for the Kṣatriya, those two as also the girl of his own caste; and for the Brāhmaṇa those three as also the girl of his own caste.”
Why it’s bad: The verse explicitly permits polygamy for upper castes. It reinforces gender inequality by allowing men multiple wives while women have no similar privileges.

4. Replacing Wives

📖Manusmriti 9.80-81
“If the wife is a drunkard, or false in conduct, or rebellious, or diseased or mischievous, or wasteful,—she should be superseded. The barren wife shall be superseded in the eighth year; in the tenth she whose children die off; in the eleventh she who bears only daughters; but immediately she who talks harshly.”
Why it’s bad: Women are valued solely for obedience, chastity, and fertility. A woman is replaceable based on superficial criteria, reducing her life and identity to utility for her husband.

5. Women as Witnesses

📖Manusmriti 8.77
“A single man, free from covetousness, may be a witness, but not many women, even though pure,—because the understanding of women is not steady,—nor other men who are tainted with defects.”
Why it’s bad: Women are declared unreliable witnesses regardless of knowledge or moral integrity. This entrenches systemic legal discrimination and excludes women from justice.

6. Widow Remarriage Ban

📖Manusmriti 8.226
“The marriage-ritual texts are applicable to virgins only, and nowhere among men, to non-virgins; and this because these latter are excluded from religious acts.”
Why it’s bad: Widows are excluded from remarriage and religious ceremonies. This reinforces lifelong subjugation and denies widows personal freedom or spiritual participation.

📖Manusmriti 5.155-156
“Well might she macerate her body by means of pure flowers, roots and fruits; but she should not even mention the name of another man, after her husband is dead. Till her death, she should remain patient, self-controlled and chaste,—seeking that most excellent merit that accrues to women having a single husband.”
Why it’s bad: The verse forces widows into strict celibacy and total social isolation, denying them the right to remarry or live freely after their husband’s death.

📖Manusmriti 9.65
“Nowhere in the mantra-texts bearing upon marriage is ‘authorisation’ mentioned; nor again is the marriage of the widow mentioned in the injunction of marriage.”
Why it’s bad: This formally prohibits widow remarriage, ensuring women remain bound by patriarchal control even after their husband dies, erasing their autonomy.