Abstract
This essay seeks to analyse the nature and meaning of the family, household, marriage and the role of women in the 'country' life of the Mughal 'empire' in the sixteenth century. Focusing on the peripatetic lives of Babur and Humayun, and the instability of their political power, it tries to unearth the constraints and possibilities of 'domestic' life in such conditions. For this purpose, the various 'communities' that constituted the 'domestic world', the details of marriages, child birth, incidents of deaths, feasts, and love of various kinds, as well as the terms used for familial and kinship networks, are analysed. It is suggested that considerable changes came about in the 'domestic world', as in other aspects of life, as the Mughals consolidated their power.
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