Women's Time in the Havelis of North India

Abstract

Time in the havelis, as in other medieval habitats, was put to social use and shared by the family, though unequally, by its men, women and children. Since it was determined by patriarchy, the time of the havelis' women was distributed around the axis of men's concerns, and thus denied the former an autonomy over it. This was the structural reality; the existential level ex hibits women assuming control over their time. The control developed as they asserted themselves as conscious human beings in order to create space/ power against their confinement by patriarchy. Patriarchy homogenised wom en's time across class divisions, but it was the social culture of each class that differentiated it; time was stratified by the social culture of leisure identified with the class dwelling in these habitats.