Law, Love and the Limits of Liberalism

The creation of Imperial Germany in 1871 sparked a nationwide debate about the nature of marriage and the family. Behind these discussions was a common assumption: families were anchored in monogamous marriage. The assumption was so widely held that it was, with few exceptions, unspoken. It was revealed only in exceptional instances, for example, in confrontation with colonial others, bigamists who were deemed criminals or life reformers living on the fringes of mainstream society. By tapping into a discourse about civilization and human progress, it also linked discussions about the homeland and its overseas Empire. Drawing on a matrix of jurisprudence, social-scientific writings, tracts by social reformers, missionaries and government discussions, this article suggests that Germans embraced monogamy as the tacit rule of marital life within the boundaries of the metropole. Nonetheless, monogamy as a marital standard did not apply consistently within Germany’s overseas colonies. Instead, understandings of racial and religious difference, couched in a specific logic of imperial liberalism, predominated and meant that indigenous people were of ten lef t to continue their own family practices.

All History and Policy

Social science originated in the study of history and the desire to inform collective decisions, with often contentious efforts by budding social scientists to separate themselves in organization and status from historians and social reformers. Despite active distancing from this inheritance, social scientists are still limited by both the variation available from human history and the usefulness of our findings in policy. We are all searching for patterns across the times we can observe and subject to the goals of our societies. Since the contemporary context affects our questions and interpretations, we can acknowledge our reformist impulses as well as learn from historians’ approaches to counteracting presentism. We erred in thinking of our enterprise as fundamentally distinct: social scientists should accept our role in systematizing history and informing policy debate, rather than seek to replace either.

Women Education in Colonial Bengal: Retrospection

Modern education came to Bengal though the East India Company. The missionaries also landed up for proselytising activities. They were perturbed by the backwardness of the Indian society especially the plights of women. The people of Bengal came in touch with the western ideas as Calcutta was made the capital of colonial India. The influence of liberalism and modern education brought in by the Britishers transformed a section of Bengal society. Bengal became the cradle of social reforms. The outcome of missionary’s activities and reforms brought by social reformers opened the gate of educational institution for the women. Though the conservative and orthodox Bengal society did not allow female education initially, gradually female education gained momentum and took steps in the right direction. Commissions constituted by the Britishers also facilitated the progress of female education. An attempt has been made to retrospect the situation of female education in colonial Bengal.

Caste Formation in India.

The purpose of this study is to look at how caste formation, a structural feature of Indian society and the changes that have taken place in caste formations over time, are used by caste in today’s society. The structure of Indian society is based on the caste system. But the caste system was only a product of the upper caste Brahmins of India. In fact, the upper castes enslaved the lower castes only for economic purposes. For that, they used caste as the first extreme. According to historians, the caste system in India was only part of a division of labor and was never caste-based. Because there is no mention in Manusmriti, Bhagavat Gita, Vedic and Later-Vedic literatues about a caste society that separates man from man on the basis of caste. That is why our social reformers proclaimed that caste evils should be eradicated from the society and they worked hard for it and succeeded to some extent. Thus, Independent India was able to build a casteless society as a result of the work of social reformers. But after independence we were able to see a caste politics. What we see today is that every political party is using caste as a tool for their vote bank during elections to consolidate their power. Therefore, caste politics is one of the major challenges facing India.

Introduction: Civilians, Lunacy and the First World War

Britain declared war against Germany on 4 August 1914. For the next four years military priorities over-rode those of civilians. The entire population faced hardships, but for people designated “pauper lunatics” in public asylums, life became very harsh. At the beginning of the war, the asylums were a story of good intentions gone awry, “vast warehouses for the chronically insane and demented,” the failed dreams of social reformers and psychiatrists. A substantial historiography exists on “shell shock”, the syndrome of mental disorder suffered by war-traumatised soldiers. By contrast, the historiography of First World War civilian asylums and their patients is meagre. This book tells the story of four asylums to the north of London at a time of national turmoil, when intense austerity, deprivation and competing priorities affected those within them.

Regionalism, Local Color, and the Settlement Schools

The writings in this section, which date from the mid-nineteenth and to the early twentieth centuries, demonstrate the development of the erroneous idea of Appalachia as a stunted frontier isolated from the rest of the United States and inhabited by mountaineers whose pioneer lifestyle was frozen in time. The texts reflect the rapidly changing nature of life in the region. The era’s local color fiction and nonfiction too often relied on quaintness, stereotype, and sentimentality; that Appalachian people were (and are) frozen in time is a literary conceit. By foisting unfamiliar values onto mountaineers, social reformers attempted to change the very culture that they claimed to be preserving. But the era was pivotal for female authors and educators.

The PPR, Systemic Transformation, and New Poland. Opportunity Structures in the Biographical Experience of Senior Social Reformers

The paper is based on preliminary results of the analysis of four pilot narrative autobiographical interviews conducted with members of the oldest generation of Polish social innovators (born in the 1930s—early 1950s) working in the human sector area CSOs. In this text, I use the concept of opportunity structures, reflecting over sets of structures which facilitate the professional and personal development of social reformers. I refer mainly to Institutional Opportunity Structures emerging in Poland under the socialist regime, during and post systemic transformation. The leading argument here is that the social innovator’s career interrelates with the use of opportunity structures available in a political and economic system regardless of its type and prevalent ideology.

Maternal Care and Global Public Health: Bombay and Manchester, 1900–1950

Summary In the nineteenth century, the British government at home and in the empire promoted the development of public health systems to contain epidemic diseases. By the early twentieth century, the government turned its focus increasingly to children’s physical fitness and, in turn, society’s capacity for both labour and military power. Given the role that women played in reproducing the nation’s prospective power, women were perceived to need intervention not only for their own sake but also for the well-being of the nation’s next generation. This essay considers the historical moment when government officials, social reformers and physicians realised that they needed mothers to live for their nations and states to survive. After reviewing discourses shared by social reformers and government officials in Bombay and Manchester, the essay considers the records of St. Mary’s Hospital and the Nowrosjee Wadia Maternity Hospital to explore the role of physicians in the medicalisation of maternal mortality.

Turbulent Times

As the East India Company’s trade expanded, so did their control, influence, and interference in Indian politics, society, and local laws. The Meerut Mutiny of 1857 was the turning point for Indians to earnestly begin clamouring for freedom. To achieve that, however, bringing Indians together was a paramount task. So, the social reformers systematically began asking Indians to set aside caste-based discrimination practices and unite together against the Raj. Laxmanshastri espoused a reasoned and rational dialog as the principal way to bring people with opposing views together. He drew on the historiography of the dharma-shastras, pointing to the wide-ranging and rich polemical debates in the literature that allowed diametrically opposite views and interpretation. He believed in the central Upanishadic idea that all humans are Brahman. It was from that principle that he kept the injustices against Untouchables squarely in his vision, never losing sight of the idea of making India more equitable for all her citizens. While his command of the shastras was never questioned, changing deeply held biases proved to be more challenging, but he did succeed in getting the more orthodox upper caste members of Indian society to consider his arguments and pay more attention to the plight of the Untouchables.