From begums and bibis to abandoned females and idle women

Sexual relationships, venereal disease and the redefinition of prostitution in early nineteenth-century India

Bibliographic Data

ID8961564
AuthorsErica Wald (0000-0003-4989-583X, University of Cambridge, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume46
Issue1
Pages5-25
Publication date2009-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Indian Economic & Social History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0019-4646 • E-ISSN: 0973-0893
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/001946460804600102
OpenAlexW2004327477
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited22

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw a proliferation of laws in colonial India which targeted women deemed to be prostitutes. As the number of laws grew, so too did the category of ‘prostitute’. Yet, before the nineteenth century, it would have been difficult to identify many of these women or their activities as criminal, or even immoral. This article examines how such legal boundaries and conceptualisations came to be formulated. It suggests that the ‘prostitute’ category in India was shaped by the repeated failure of the East India Company's surgeons and officers to control venereal disease among the European soldiery. Such attempts at disease control were experimented with from the late eighteenth century and, as this article argues, were keys in the later formulation of the Contagious Diseases Acts. This article traces the decline of long-term, monogamous relationships between European men and Indian women, and the corresponding rise in shorter-term sexual transactions in and around military cantonments. By grounding later legal shifts within the military medical context, we can clearly see the forces behind the social and moral changes surrounding this group of women in the early nineteenth century

Ancient history · Archaeology · Colonialism · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Economic history · Political science · Social control · Sociology · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Gender Studies · History · Law · Sex work and related issues

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