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Answer:

Explanation:

The status of women in any civilization shows the stage of

evolution at which, the civilization has arrived. The term ‘status’

includes not only personal and proprietary rights but also duties,

liabilities and disabilities. In the case of an Indian woman it

means her personal rights, proprietary right, her duties, liabilities

and disabilities vis-a-vis the society and her family members.  

Right from 19th century the English evolutionist, SIR Henry

Maine, and later American sociologists, Robert E. Park and

Frmost W. Burgess have contributed to the concept of status as

either from status to contract (Mains), or as relevant contrast

between status and completion (Park and Burgess). With the

development of modern sociology and social anthropology, all

culturally prescribed rights and duties inherent in social positions

have been encompassed in the term status. In the beginning the

status referred only to the ‘ascribed ‘status. But, of late, it has

been widened to ‘achieved’ status too. The status was

distinguished as ascribed and achieved by Ralph Linton, the

eminent American anthropologists. Broadly speaking, the

ascribed status refers to the inherited one. But the status

resulting from personal attainment of goals, set forth by the

culture, is treated as achieved one. Status is a very ambiguous word. It has both subjective and objective components. One might mean by status, “esteem” or the  subjective feeling of being respected. It may include many

symbolic contents veneration may however coexist with denial, deprivation of various SORTS. A great deal of the contents of

‘status’ today is evaluated in terms of development indicators –

income, property or opportunities and use of training in skill that

open up chances of employment, health levels, etc. These are

what have come to be known as quality of life indicators. There

are in most countries status reports that document how women

have lower incomes, lower employment, lower education, lower

health, etc. Status may also include CUSTOM and practices that

are restrictive, oppressive and damaging to the physical and

Psychological well–being of women–practices that control and

restrict movement, that restrict free choice in matters of everyday

life, that mutilate their bodies or even destroy their lives.

“Status” is correlated to the participatory right and obligations of

women in the managing of society; there studies examine the

“role” assigned to them by tradition, religion, ideology and the

stage of economic development. As the enhancement of status is

essentially the enlargement of scope of participatory rights in the

running of society, a review has been made of the trends

“emancipation” in different countries: the removal of constraints,

historical or constitutional, which impeded a more forth–coming

role on the part of the women.

The concept of status is related to the concept of role.

Linton, treats role as the more dynamic aspect of status.

Generally, the status assumes a problematic form when ROLES are

vaguely or ambiguously defined. The status is a collection of

rights and duties. The individual may occupy a status. For

Znamiecki, status chiefly refers to social status where stress

remains on social aspect of role. The actual treatment obtained,

legal status, opportunities for social participations and character.

As per Malinowaski, the status is included in equal opportunity for

work, types of taboos, contribution in the house economy for

tribal women.

The above explanations convince that various ideas

conceived in the explanation of status. When pooled together,

can be more used and use of single concept may not make the

position clear in the case of women. Another significant

dimension, with the above, is to take note of THREE important

stages, that is, of maidenhood, wifehood and motherhood, while

analyzing the status of women. Status has been like to the

moving equilibrium at various times and in the various parts of

the globe.

Thus, it is clear that the terms status refers to a position of

women as an individual in the social structure defined by her

designated rights and obligations. Each status or position is

explained in terms of a role, or the pattern of behavior expected

of the occupants of a status; role is, thus, the dynamic aspect of

status. In as much as the former can-notes a behavioral pattern,

the latter refers to the location in a system of social relationships.