Internalising Patriarchy: A Gender Analysis
of Eastrine Kire’s A Terrible Matriarchy
Nimu Sherpa,
Assistant
Professor,
Department of
English,
Mirik College,
Darjeeling, West
Bengal, India.
Abstract: The
proposed study will take recourse to the study of institutionalised patriarchy
in the garb of matriarchy in an Angami Naga society in the Northeast. The paper
takes A Terrible Matriarchy by Eastrine Kire in its account to foreground the
gender politics within the narrow domestic walls of home wherein women were caught
in the maze of gender bias. The underlying social prejudice against women are
manifested in different literary narratives from the region and the study will
look at the hypocritical nature of grandmother Vibano, who eventually becomes
an epitome of ‘terrible patriarchy’ in the novel. Her character poses some important
question regarding the predicament of women within the tribal Naga society. The
novel weaves around the narrative on how a matriarchal grandmother, Vibano,
works as an agent of patriarchy to sabotage her own granddaughter Delino and
tries to curtail her ‘individuality’. The internalisation of social taboos is
manifested in her, which testifies to her traumatic experience of being a woman
in Angami society herself. Vibano had been the victim of the patrilineal
society of which she paradoxically became the custodian of. The subjugation of
her granddaughter on her own hands eventually becomes an outlet for her own
pain and trauma. The study will thus contextualise the universality of women’s
subordination, taking recourse to feminist theory, and the study will be based
on the descriptive study of a novel.
Keywords: Women; Northeast; Patriarchy; Matriarchy; Gender roles
The literature emanating from Northeast India has been an important part of Indian writing in English, with the significant contribution of northeastern women writers since late 1990’s. These women writers hailing from different north-eastern states foreground the subdued women’s voices which are the testimonies to the gendered experiences of discrimination from the region. These women writers not only bring the experiences of the Northeast India into the pan Indian consciousness, but they also act as a catalyst to bring out women’s experiences as an important part of northeastern consciousness. Ostriker states ‘‘all writing by women from the Northeast is invariably marked by gender’’ (Ostriker 9). She further states that the women writers from the region invariably give vent to female sensibilities. They are in a pursuit of ‘writing back’ and recasting their stories, their perspectives, and their history, articulating women’s experiences to the centre. These Anglophone writings emerged out with a need to include female experiences as part of the region’s consciousness, which is crucial in context to the women in the region who are “doubly marginalised’’ (Ashcroft et al. 249-50), firstly by the patriarchal domination and secondly through the exclusionary measures from the centre.
The Northeast India is often been defined as a conflict-ridden area and the literature emanating from there is seen as conflict literature marked by disturbance, bloodshed and turbulence. However, the novel A Terrible Matriarchy can be perceived as different vortices in the female narratives from the region. Eastrine Kire and many other women writers depicted Northeast India from the nuanced lenses, which is catalytic for the appropriation of many preconceived notions about the region represented by the writings from the mainland. The women writers from the region can be perceived as the repositories of culture, tradition, and custom and all these faculties find a safer outlet in their narratives. The writers like Eastrine Kire have recorded the vivid reality and varied experiences, giving a window to the Naga ways of living. Kire used the glorious past of the Nagas and their lived experiences as the genesis for her writing. The novel under study, A Terrible Matriarchy, by Kire, captures the nuances of Nagarituals, which guide their way of life. The meticulous entries of different Naga customs and traditions within the narrative give us a convincing picture of the Naga household, the glimpses of community gathering, the birth and funeral services which bind women within a narrow fringe of social structure. The representation of the subordination of women in the patrilineal Naga society in the novel helps us to understand women’s predicament. The prevailing power dynamics within the Naga Angami society are highlighted in the novel, with the passive role of women hinting at their subordination.
Kire is one of the significant women
writers from Nagaland, who has contributed hugely to Northeast literature. She
is a fierce writer who boldly writes about violence, human atrocities, and the bloody
history of the region. She records the social unrest parallel with the social
evils within the Northeast society. A pioneering figure in the north-eastern
literary canon, who cast a significant role in the reiteration of Naga
folktales and oral narratives. The novels are the tapestry of oral narratives
and lived experiences with a fictional flavour which secures her unique place
in the north-eastern literary discourse. The women’s writings from the
northeast are a way of resisting the metanarratives by male writers, which
inadvertently leave women’s experiences at bay. The intersection of marginality
that northeastern women endure can be well cited in Easterine Kire statement,
“We have always lived on the periphery. This is my experience, I have been
marginalized simply because I am a Naga, twice marginalized because I am a
woman, and thrice-marginalised because I am a tribal, a member of an indigenous
community” (Kire 273).
The present study aims to critically
engage with Eastrine Kaie’s A Terrible Matriarchy, published in the year
2007. The novel revolves around Delino, a five-year-old girl, and the
challenges she faced growing up in an Angami patriarchal society in Nagaland.
Kire, through her evocative narrative, depicts the story of the confrontation of
the young protagonist with the rigid Angami culture and tradition to expose the
underlying gender discrimination, which highlights women’s predicament in a
patrilineal society of Nagas. The novel foregrounds the invisible forces
working against women within the conventional social structure. Ao, an
important Naga writer, notes that: “The socially constructed self of the [Naga]
woman in the past was so thoroughly subordinated to the male that in time she
too accepted it as the definition of her ontological selfhood” (Ao 129). Within
a society that has attributed men with power and poise restriction on women in
such circumstances, women are eternally subordinate to men. The social
convention of Angami society inflicts trauma upon women within the closed
doors. Kire’s A Terrible Matriarchy provides, detailed study about
‘gender dynamics ‘with the narrative where the woman is identified in her
relation to men as stated by Yano and Pande,
The history of women from the region
is difficult to trace because, as in all patriarchal societies, woman is only
seen, heard, and discussed in relation to the man. The linear representation of
the region’s history, with its selective subjects, denies the woman any
representation except in relation to the man. (Yano and Pande 67).
The story of Delino provides an
insight into the status of women in Angami Naga society. The identity of Delino
in juxtaposition to that of her brothers foregrounds the underlying bias within
a matriarchal household. The study also unfolds the story of the transmission
of gender roles in three subsequent generations of women, and the variation of
their reaction to the strict patriarchal norms. She observes from the initial
age that “Mother worked very hard to make the small four-roomed house look
nice. She planted flowers in boxes in front of the house…’’ (Kire 47) And
these gender performatives were etched in her sensibilities from an early age,
she realised as a keen observer that ‘Father did not help much. He would expect
Mother to clean the house and wash all the clothes and have cooked food ready
when he got home’’ (Kire 47).
This novel is set against the backdrop
of the conflict-ridden Northeast during 1970 to 1980, and it explores the
overarching ramifications in the lives of the characters. It is a bildungsroman,
a journey of Delino from girlhood to womanhood. The protagonist of the novel is
a five-year-old girl named Delino, meaning an errand girl living under the
aegis of her grandmother, who is a matriarch in her family. Grandmother Vibano
internalises strict Naga convention and custom, which stands on the pre-determined
gender roles wherein women have to “perform the role of wife, mother, child
bearer, food producer and household manager” (Shijoh). She, being a girl child,
has to adapt herself to a patriarchal domination. Delino engages herself with
household chores from dawn to dusk from the early age of five. She is expected
to surrender her individuality and to submit herself to the male authority presiding
over her. As Simone de Beauvoir states, “One is not born a woman, but becomes
one” (Beauvoir 295).
Delino, being the youngest of the four
brothers, is perceived as a mirror image of her mother, who has to take up the
ever-sacrificing role of ‘mother’. In this respect, Showalter states“... girl’s
core gender identity is positive and built upon sameness, continuity and
identification with the mother.”(Showalter 320). She has to survive on
old clothes of her brothers, and submit to her grandmother’s will, who believes
that a good piece of chicken meat with gravy is for male children, as she
insists on saying ‘‘that portion is always for boys. Girls must eat the other
portions’’ (Kire 1). This vindictive nature of Grandmother towards Delino
regarding her rights, ranging from the good piece of meat to a share in
parental property, foregrounds the inheritance of plight in her. Her
grandmother firmly believes, “family history could be furthered only through
men. The female members of the family were only temporary members in the
kinship map of the clan. (Dai 55)Moreover, the entire human civilization was
set on a basic premise where, as she writes, “physical strength was the most
important attribute for survival; the physically stronger person was more
likely to lead. And men in general are physically stronger.” (Adiche 6).
Delinois eventually shaping up as an alter ego of her grandmother, who is the
victim of patriarchy herself. Grandmother had reservations about her education because
she wanted to tame her to make her a good worker. She states that, “I don’t know
what it is your generation sees in school. Your children are not being taught
the skills of life because they are too busy studying. I was doing such a good
job of teaching the girl to work around the house.” (Kire35).
In her pursuit of being a good worker,
Delino has to run errands like fetching water, preparing her grandmother’s bed,
and collecting and counting chickens in the evening. She was taught to
be useful to male members around her and keep herself occupied with errands,
which marked her transition from girlhood to womanhood. According to Millet,
“The whole education of women ought to be relative to men. To please them, to
be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honoured by them…” (Millet74).
On the contrary, her brothers, who were older than her, were pampered, bribed
with sweets, and cherished. Grandmother loved her brothers; whenever they
visited her, she kept them on her lap, offered jaggery, and served delicious
foods. Delino couldn’t understand this disparity between her and her brothers.
She is disgusted by the fact and writes, “Each time they ignore me, I feel
invisible. I feel upset. I want to tell them that I am just as human as the
man, just as worthy of acknowledgment. (Adiche 6). Everyone around her made her
believe that whatever her grandmother did was her way of raising her into a
‘good woman’. The women around her, including her mother Nino and Grandmother
Neikuo, have been the custodians of patriarchal hypocrisy. Delino’s mother says
to her ‘‘Men don't like women who are aggressive and outspoken. They like their
wives to be good workers. You are a good worker, Lieno, but you must try to be
more docile” (Kire 249). Similarly, grandmother Neikuo disagreed about Delino’s
etiquette in the house and said, ‘‘Don’t rush around, dear, that is not the way
young girls should behave’’ (Kire48).
Delino is addressed as ‘girl’ by her
grandmother and she never been addressed by her name, as a way of limiting her
individuality. The boy/girl binary that grandmother stressed subsequently reduces
Delino’s subjective identity, which has its sole dependence on her binary
image. She has been identified in contradiction to the binary image of her
brother and father, and in similarity to her mother’s image. Other than that,
she has no ‘identity’ of herself. Grandmother strongly believed that a girl
child had to be married off, and she could keep her family happy only if she was
a good worker. Thus, Delino manages to attend school, for which she has to
start the household errands from the wee hours in the morning. She has to keep
her grandmother pleased with her duties so that she does not cause any problems
with her studies. Subsequently, Delino managed to pass her matriculation but
was asked by her grandmother to marry because men don’t like educated wives.
Grandmother thinks that‘‘... a woman’s role is to marry and bear children...
That is her most important role. Men don’t like to marry educated spouses’’
(Kire190).
She epitomises such social prejudice
and becomes the mechanism of patriarchy which emerges from her own experiences
of marginalisation in a patriarchal society. She and her mother suffered from
gender discrimination, though as a ‘terrible matriarch’ she manifests
patriarchal domination in her actions and her words. Nino unfolds the story of
the grandmother’s life and her fondness about male children through her
suffering, saying, “When she was young, she lived through a very hard time. In
their village, widows without sons lost all their husbands’ property to other
male relatives. So, she understood that it was very important for a married
woman to produce as many male offspring as she could….’’(Kire 250).She has a
deep-seated desire for a male child because she had seen her mother suffer for
not bearing a male child, and her property was seized by their male relatives.
The household with no male child was considered barren, and women during her
time devoted their lives to producing as many male heirs as possible. The
popular notion was that “people were unkind and mocked those who couldn’t
produce male children…” (Kire 37). Grandmother has internalized such gender
dichotomy in her mind and actions. Her hatred toward her granddaughter is her
hatred toward her own ‘womanhood’, which is a site of marginalization in
society. The continuation of the grandmother’s fear and hatred of her womanhood
is also reflected in Delino. Delino’s hardship is exacerbated because of the
constant intrusion upon her individuality by her grandmother. The irk of the
menstrual cycle and the discomfort of her growing limbs haunted her. She says
‘‘I was a girl and not a boy. I used to feel I was being punished for being
born as a girl. For many years, I hated it so much I wished that I was not a
girl.’’ (Kire 249)
The Northeast society is also known
for its matrilineal system which gives a very emancipatory worldview of
northeast India. It is often been considered progressive society
contextualising the visibility and engagement of women in the workforce. This
is largely because of the absence of social prejudices, such as dowry, purdah,
and a strict caste system. However, the reality stands in stark departure. A
subtle glance to certain folktales and oral narratives highlights deep seated
misogyny against women which are dominated by certain popular negative connotation
of womanhood which can be traced from the popular anecdotes underlying with
different Northeast societies. In Garo society, one of indigenous tribes of
Meghalaya, ridicules women with a saying “Just as a goat without teeth, so a
woman lacks brain” (Boungpui 74).Grandmother is a practitioner of staunch
patriarchy, and she is driven by fear because she knows that the ‘power’ and
‘authority’ she holds within her family circle are not a female domain. However
she becomes a guardian of Naga custom, which laid down certain subtle feminine
roles for Naga women to be submissive, docile, and timid. These are the dutiful
conformity and submission of Naga women towards the empowering manhood. The
male holds the crux of power and was been cherished as an heir and protector of
the clan. As grandmother Vibano says‘‘... a male child is to be brought up very
carefully. When he is grown, he will take care of all of us’’ (Kire 238). The
assumptions about gender disparity have been based on the fact that different
Naga clans are aboriginal. They often engage in controversies and battles with
other clans, and the male members are sword bearers and the protectors of the
families. Such belief system and the inheritance of age-old assumptions has
marginalised the Naga women has made them subordinate to men, “The socially
constructed self of the [Naga] woman in the past was so thoroughly subordinated
to the male that in time she too accepted it as the definition of her
ontological self-hood” (Ao 129). The subordination of women to men in social
and family circles also includes the inheritance law. Women have limitations
not only on basic rights of life, but they are also denied of inheritance of
any property after the death of their parents. An evocative tale about every
girl child growing up under customary social norms and her growth scaled down
by the male gaze. The subordination of women in the Northeast is deeply rooted
in its culture so K.B. Veio Pou says, “Besides the various socio-political and
cultural underpinnings…. the drawback of living in a patriarchal society where
men have the upper hand in most aspects of life, the women’s voices are only
stifled or not heard” (Pou xi).
The character portrayal of Delino has
a very deep personal resonance with the author’s personal experience of growing
up in a gender biased Naga society. She identifies the universality of such
discrimination through Delino. It is the story of each girl child growing up
under patriarchal society often bullied, and mishandled. The preponderance of
social convention and gender performance has tamed every girl child towards
their metamorphosis to a gendered subject; her feminine body becomes a site of
gender discrimination within a society. Grandmother Vibano is a matriarch who
has also been a victim of the same society that discriminates against women.
Thus, the characterisation of grandmother Vibano as a matriarch can also be
seen as an avatar of patriarchy. The Angami society of Northeast with popularity
to be matriarchal can be seen as a microcosm of all the Northeast society,
which has a pervasive patriarchal force working over it. “In a patrilineal
society, women’s names are often lost, even though it is women who are the
custodians and transmitters of culture through storytelling, food, clothing,
festival preparations, prayers, and rituals.” (Dai 8)
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