What was the condition of Indian women during the Gupta Empire? What important factors affected women's lives?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER:
Gupta literary works suggest that Indian women's standing had declined noticeably since the Vedic period. This decline was due in large part to the emergence of a nonagricultural middle class, which placed a high value on the acquisition and inheritance of property. As a result, women lost the right to own and inherit property. They were also barred from participating in many religious ceremonies. In addition, they were married at increasingly younger ages so that they could be trained in the husband's household a practice intended to ensure that a woman would behave according to her husband's wishes. Male relations first fathers, then husbands, and often sons as well dominated women's lives. The most extreme example of Indian women's position was the ritual of sati, in which a widow was expected to cremate herself on her husband's funeral pyre.