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V. Geetha provides a lucid overview of the origin of the term, patriarchy, its historical ‘evolution’, and, more importantly, the consolidation of patriarchy, over time, as a system impacting all aspects of women’s lives and lived ex periences whatever be the changes in material conditions, cultural practices, and sexual orientation — all of which may appear to challenge patriarchy but nevertheless fail to dislodge it.

The discussion on patriarchy in the book has been organised around three major areas: one, the debates generated by communists and communism on the subject along with specific insights provided by different disciplines; two, the influence of studies in history and culture in shaping our understanding of patriarchy; and three, the arguments produced by studies of sexuality and sexual cultures. The panoramic view of global debates on production and reproduction, in which the discussion on patriarchy is embedded, helps to contextualise the shifting priorities of feminists and of women’s studies, particularly of the West, as the state in these countries addressed some of the more pressing issues of poverty and inequality. The debate on patriarchy in countries such as India continues, not necessarily as arguments with Marxism or Marxists, but in terms of distinctive categories such as caste, religion, geographical location and sexual cultures.

Specifically, in the Indian context, the analysis of patriarchy, as Geetha notes, links the family and the economy, to demonstrate how economic power of men and their domination of production is crucially linked to and determined by the organisation of the family and the household. The sphere of reproduction, understood in terms of a sex-gender system, is identified with concrete social structures and relationships (read kinship networks). The caste system, with distinct caste patriarchies, is central to the spheres of both production and reproduction where exploitation of two sorts takes place, namely that of human labour and of the female reproductive capacity. Further, to add to the distinctiveness of the Indian discussion of patriarchy, “debates about capitalism and women’s subordination often became debates on development and the role of the modern state. This led to a theorizing of the state as both patriarchal and as a potential challenger of patriarchy.”

A significant point that comes through very forcefully from the section on Household, Kinship, Caste and the State, is the loss of women’s identity as a citizen because of the complex manner in which gender and kinship are interlinked in our social arrangements. “[Thus] women’s rights to equality are constantly undercut by perceptions of their femininity and sexuality… Household, kin and caste networks, rather than the spaces of the polity determine their life choices… The manner in which a democratic polity is underwritten by the logic of sexual and kinship contracts are particularly evident in the way crimes against women are understood and prosecuted. Rape or sexual assault is seldom viewed as a violation of woman’s bodily being and integrity. Instead, it is consistently linked to her chastity, rather her virginal or non-virginal status, as the case may be…”

The discussion on practices of culture and the engagement with questions such as: what practices of culture constitute a challenge to patriarchy? In what circumstances does such a challenge inspire rebellion and what social limits and boundaries are breached through this rebellion? — are thought provoking even while they provide a glimpse of the range of possibilities within which culture and cultural practices can be/have been interrogated, subverted, challenged and redefined.

While emphasising that heterosexuality and procreative sex are central to the construction, deployment and continued existence of patriarchal authority, Geetha, nevertheless underlines the need to locate sexuality in time and space to account for the multiplicity of sexual practices that actually exist and to also understand why practices celebrated in one era are derided in another. The chapter on Sexuality provides illuminating instances of questionings and rewritings of the norms of the realm of sexuality comprising intimacy, desire, bodily worth and, the social rules and institutions that underwrote these norms in certain fraught and exciting historical moments.

The book is no doubt a brilliant compendium and a skilful weaving together of the diverse social and cultural contexts in which patriarchy functions. An important observation in the book that needs to be brought to the centre stage for students of feminist studies desirous of carrying forward this ‘beginner’s text’ is the following: “knowledge about patriarchy cannot be easily separated from a feminist desire to produce and deploy such knowledge”, since, while we all ‘know’ that patriarchy exists it requires a feminist curiosity and perseverance to unravel its multifaceted existence in our everyday lives.

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