Article Abstract index4

In Colonial Bengal the joint family functioned as a trans-generational institution that regulated gender norms, sexuality and labour. This paper reads Dr. Haimabati Sen’s autobiographical work Because I am a Woman as a testimony to the psychic costs of life within the Bengali joint family. While existing scholarship focuses mostly on Haimabati’s remarkable medical career, her early conjugal life, experiences as a child bride, and the emotional consequences of patriarchal familial norms remain criminally unexplored, especially from the lens of psychoanalytic historiography. We focus on her child marriage, abusive conjugal life, widowhood and the misery that followed in the form of domestic and social ostracism. Situating Sen’s memoir within the broader socio-political climate of 19th century Bengal we apply key Freudian concepts like, repression, anxiety as a failure of ego and the role of internalized authority (superego) to trace how Haimabati and countless women of her times experienced chronic emotional distress produced by domestic chaos. The study argues for a methodological reorientation that recognizes women’s voice and mental health as an integral part of social history.
Keywords: Psychology, Women, Domesticity, Joint Family, Colonial Bengal, Patriarchy