Perhaps the saddest snippet of news I read in the newspapers in recent days was this-
“A four-year-old girl in a village near Bareilly was killed allegedly by her father, for failing to cover her head while having food. Uttar Pradesh police have said that the FIR filed by the girl’s mother said that this happened in front of the whole family and that when she tried to stop him, he beat her up. After the girl died he asked his wife to bury her inside the house, but she refused.”
At four, when she should be unrestrained and free, a girl child is expected to cover her head and be modest. At four, a child, girl or boy, should be running amok in play and laughing unrestrainedly because that is what childhood is, for laughter and play and for building memories that warm the cockles of one’s heart enough to have a dim fire burning during the grey winters of adulthood.
At four, she is expected to cover her head at all times, lest she be labelled as immodest and bringing shame to the family. This is when she has yet to learn what modesty is, and why it must be adhered to in the norms that society prescribes to the women inhabiting it. At four, when she is still far from the mantle of puberty, she is already the object of male gaze. Therefore, she must be covered.
The patriarchal dress code is nothing new. Women down the ages, across religions and cultures, have been a victim. Cover yourself, don’t let your ankles show, cover your head, show nothing of your skin, cover your bosom, be modest, don’t bring shame to your family.
The shame, we still have to realise, lies in the gaze, not in the dress. And this untrammelled gaze is what results in a four-year-old being bludgeoned to death in her own house, while eating a meal. A place she should have been safe and not weighed by the expectations of covering her head.
In this case, though, I do understand that it is not purely the patriarchy of the male gaze, but also the norms laid down by religion. It isn’t exclusive to the religion this father belonged to, though.
Hair is considered an essential attribute of a woman’s beauty and even orthodox Jews and nuns cover their hair. Assyrian legal texts dating back to the 13th Century BC tell us that noble women were expected to cover their heads, whereas women who were slaves, prostitutes or poor were forbidden from doing so. Perhaps, this was the earliest instance of the hair being covered as a symbol of a woman’s social standing.
Interestingly in the ancient Greek and Roman empires, women covered their hair during prayer and devotion, and respectable women were expected to cover their hair when out of their homes. Women were covering their hair back then, were not just a sign of modesty, chastity and respectability, but also piety.
It carries on to this day, across various religions. Far be it for me to state what norms of dress or behaviour folks should follow or not, given that I am as distanced from any religion as possibly could be. But that it should result in a child being killed by her own father is what makes me lose the little faith I had.
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