Answer in 200 words
1. Describe briefly status of women during Chhatrapati Shivaji's period ?
Answers
Women's life in the Maratha period seems to be darkened by the strictness and conservativeness forced upon them in the name of religion.
Only the women who were born in royal families were given the freedom.
Women born in peasantry had to follow the rules laid down, and had no decision making power in their family affairs.
Eighty per cent of the Marathas struggled to get their daughters married, due to the huge dowry demanded by the grooms.
Widows had to go stay in an ashram or burn themselves on their husband’s pyres.
Marathi women, being Shudras, were always looked down upon and had no social standing.
Women didn’t even have freedom of worship and were not allowed to enter temples.
Under Maratha rule, the legal age of marriage had been reduced 10 years, and women had to marry before attaining puberty.