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206 THEMES IN NDIAN H ISTORY – P ART II advances or wages in cash, as did producers of commercial products like cotton, silk or indigo. Money in the village Theseventeenth-century French traveller Jean-Baptiste Tavernie➲ Discuss... found it remarkable that in In what ways do you think the panchayats “Indiaavillagemustbeverysmall described in this section were similar to or indeed if it has not a money- different from present-day gram panchayats? changer called a Shroff. (They) act as bankers to make remittances of money (and who) enhance the rupee as 3. Women in Agrarian Society they please for paisa and the As you may have observed in many different societies, paisa for these (cowrie) shells”the production process often involves men and women performing certain specified roles. In the contexts that we are exploring, women and men had to work shoulder to shoulder in the fields. Men tilled and ploughed, while women sowed, weeded, threshed and winnowed the harvest. With the growth of nucleated villages and expansion in individuated peasant farming, which characterised medieval Indian agriculture, the basis of production was the labour and resources of the entire household. Naturally, a gendered segregation between the home (for women) and the world (for men) was not possible in this context. Nonetheless biases related to women’s Fig. 8.6 biological functions did continue. Menstruating A shroff at work women, for instance, were not allowed to touch the plough or the potter’s wheel in western India, or enter the groves where betel-leaves (paan) were grown in Bengal. Artisanal tasks such as spinning yarn, sifting and kneading clay for pottery, and embroidery were among the many aspects of production dependent on female labour. The more commercialised the product, the greater the demand on women’s labour to produce it. In fact, peasant and artisan women worked not only in the fields, but even went to the houses of their employers or to the markets if necessary. Women were considered an important resource in agrarian society also because they were child bearers in a society dependent on labour. At the same time, high mortality rates among women – owing to malnutrition, frequent pregnancies, death during childbirth – often meant a shortage of wives. This led to the emergence of social customs in peasant Fig. 8.7 A woman spinning thread and artisan communities that were distinct from Reprint 2026-27