Revision summary
Patriarchy is ideology that naturalises male authority. Its material basis is land, inheritance, unpaid care, and cheap female labour. Dube’s Seed and Earth ties lineage to control of women’s bodies. Caste endogamy makes sexuality a property of the jati. Law can challenge the ideology; household title and labour often restore it.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Patriarchy is an ideological system that naturalises male rule. Its material basis is control of property, labour, and women’s reproductive power. Ideas of honour and seed do not float free of land and wages.
Body
Ideology and material base
- Ideology here means a set of beliefs that make male authority seem natural, as in Leela Dube’s Seed and Earth: the man names the line, the woman is the field.
- The material base is who owns land, who inherits, who commands unpaid domestic work, and who sells labour cheaply.
- Friedrich Engels linked the monogamous family to private property. Indian sociology must add caste endogamy, which Ambedkar saw as the engine of graded inequality.
Agrarian and household property
- Patrilineal joint family and village land records historically listed men. Daughters were sent out; widows were dependents.
- Land reform often titled male tillers. Operation Barga and similar records rarely put women first, so agrarian transformation could restabilise patriarchy.
- Even after Hindu succession amendments, practice in many regions keeps the natal field for brothers.
Labour
- Women’s farm work, home-based informal work, and care are systematically undercounted. The informal sector’s growth has feminised cheap labour without ending male control of the wage.
- Violence and seclusion cheapen women’s bargaining in the market. Ideology of protection is a labour regime.
Reproduction and caste
- Control of sexuality keeps jati boundaries. Honour is the police of that boundary.
- Dominant-caste patriarchy and Dalit women’s labour in the field show that patriarchy is not one experience; it is organised by class and caste.
Why call it ideological
- Schools, temples, and media repeat seed-earth and breadwinner stories so that unequal title looks like nature.
- Law can puncture ideology: domestic violence statutes, workplace sexual harassment law, and political reservation for women. Implementation still meets the material household.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD PR[Property inheritance] --> P[Patriarchy] LB[Unpaid and cheap labour] --> P RP[Control of reproduction] --> P ID[Seed and Earth honour] --> P
Conclusion
Patriarchy as ideology rests on property, unpaid and cheap labour, and the policing of reproduction for caste and lineage. Seed and Earth is the cultural skin. Land, wage, and law are the bones.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Discuss Law as an important instrument for women's empowerment.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2022 · Q5(a)). View answer →
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If women work, is patriarchy gone?
Work without title, equal wage, and control of sexuality can coexist with patriarchy.
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Is patriarchy only Hindu?
No. Many communities organise male property and honour. The seed-earth idiom is one powerful regional form.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2024 · Q1(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Is patriarchy a key to understanding different forms of inequalities in Indian society? Elaborate. -
2016 · Q1(e) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Patriarchy as a form of dominance. -
2023 · Q8(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Explain the thematic linkages between 'Patriarchy' and 'Honour killing' in India, citing some recent cases -
2019 · Q4(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Define patriarchy. Does it have bearings on women's entitlement in Indian family system ? Explain -
2018 · Q8(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 15 marks
Western patriarchy which surrenders feminine principles is the development project in India. Do you agree with this view? Why?
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