Question

Notes on print culture and spread to India

Answer 1

The spread of print culture in nineteenth-century India brought about educational reforms for women. Liberal husbands and fathers educated their womenfolk at home or sent them to schools for women. Women who had been restricted to a domestic life for generations, now found a new medium of entertainment. They also began to write articles for journals, in favour of women's education and literacy. Some even wrote books; Rashsundari Devi’s autobiography “Amar Jiban” was the first full-length autobiography, published in 1876. Conservatives believed that education and reading would make women widows, or corrupt them. Many women learnt to read and write in secret in such traditionalist environments.