Abstract
This paper examines the shadow power of matriarchy as depicted in Easterine Iralu’s A Terrible Matriarchy. The novel explores gender discrimination through the experiences of the young protagonist Dielieno (Lieno), the only girl child among five siblings, who is subjected to harsh treatment by her grandmother based solely on her gender. The grandmother’s preferential treatment of male children and her rigid enforcement of traditional gender roles reveal the complexities of matriarchal power exercised within a patriarchal framework. The paper analyzes how the novel challenges simplistic feminist viewpoints by presenting multiple dimensions of matriarchal affirmation, ultimately tracing Lieno’s journey from resentment to understanding and forgiveness.
Keywords: gender discrimination, matriarchy, Easterine Iralu, Naga literature, girl-child, feminism
Introduction
The grounds of Matriarchy are maternal authority. From childhood males are taught to defer to maternal authority. Easterine Iralu has very realistically delineated matriarchal hegemony. The writer has accepted that the little girl protagonist is a combination of many little girls who have suffered mistreatment for being girl-children. Some of her own observations have also informed the tale, as she acknowledges putting together her experience of school and growing up to piece Lieno’s experience into a typical childhood experience.
Easterine’s narrative technique through the innocent perspective of Lieno is similar to that of Jhumpa Lahiri in her telling the tale of Hema and Kaushik in “Once in a Lifetime.” The story reveals the female protagonist at five years old, and the novelist examines the numerous aspects of matriarchal affirmation in manifold manners, challenging the simply held feminist point of view.
Gender Discrimination in the Household
The tale surrounds the five-year-old Dielieno, only girl and youngest of the five children. She sometimes felt herself unwanted, as her parents made her wear the discarded garments of her brothers. As Beauvoir states, “One is not born a woman, but one becomes one” (Beauvoir 295).
Though growing up as the darling of the family, at the tender age of four and a half, she understood that her grandmother did not like her when she refused to offer her a much-expected chicken leg. The grandmother always boasted of how she started to work when barely four and stated that the girl must be made to work at home, and that letting her run about with her brothers was not the way to bring up girl-children.
Lieno was always referred to as “the girl” by her grandmother, refusing her any individual identity. The grandmother literally treated her like an errand girl, as her given name Dielieno meant “errand girl” — a name the grandmother herself had offered, signifying her to be a non-entity in the midst of her brothers.
Education and Traditional Expectations
When her parents raised the topic of sending Lieno to school, grandmother told about her days when girls did not attend school but stayed at home to learn domestic works and visited fields. The family could not do anything without the grandmother’s final decision on the destiny of Lieno. However, Lieno was eventually allowed to attend school, though grandmother was never happy about her schooling.
When the father mentioned the poor performance of his sons, grandmother defended them, stating that in her father’s day, boys never did any work because they had to look after the village and engage enemy warriors in warfare, and that is why they loved their male children so much and gave them the best of food.
The Question of Marriage and Higher Education
Lieno passed her Matriculation examinations with a second division. Being the best student in the family, her brother Leto offered to sponsor her college education. When her father presented the matter to grandmother, she pointed out that a woman’s role is to marry and bear children, and that men do not like to marry literate spouses. But the tide moved in Lieno’s favour and she was allowed to follow her dream.
The grandmother’s concept of “bad blood” in families further revealed her discriminatory worldview. When Vimenuo was to marry Lieno’s brother Leto, grandmother exclaimed in wrath, believing Vimenuo came from a family of bad blood and refusing to attend their marriage.
Understanding and Forgiveness
Lieno’s mother eventually explained the crux of the matter: grandmother was the eldest of the children, grew up in the village, and lived through very hard times. In the village, widows without sons lost their husband’s property to other male relatives. The grandmother looked at her sons and grandsons as a kind of insurance and was inclined to take a very conservative attitude towards the boys by pampering them.
Slowly Lieno began to realize how a profound sense of insecurity had carried grandmother to maintain her opinions. Lieno’s fear changed into pity as she knew grandmother was attempting to purchase affection. When grandmother was bedridden, Lieno pronounced words of forgiveness, and the old woman’s motionless face beamed with tears before she passed away.
Conclusion
A Terrible Matriarchy poses scrutinizing questions to all, urging them to look after children irrespective of their gender identities, accepting their valuableness as gifts of God. The novel is a clarion voice to male and female to play their unmatched part in introducing social change, doing away with all forms of gender inequality. Grounds of women empowerment have been the grandmother’s power and stay throughout the narrative, built on maternal power through ethical strength, control of socialization order through indoctrination, and emotional influence through intimidation.
Works Cited
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- Easterine. E-mail to the author. 14 January, 2010.
- Iralu, Easterine. A Terrible Matriarchy. New Delhi: Zubaan, 2007.
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