Indian reality
3. Adam dominance
Allegory into Reality
The foregoing creation story
maintains the conflict between Adam and Eve as an explanatory allegory.
The encounter between the infinite capacity of Eve's reproductive power
and the finite nature of the Earth is a central theme. Near the end of
the allegory, history comes into modern focus---allegories are no longer
sufficient for humans. The forgoing allegory was offered to explain the
laboratory of this analysis, India in the twentieth century. Three eras
in India's past were mentioned: (1) Eve dominance, (2) Gender equity, (3)
and Adam dominance
The end of the era of gender
equity in India may be located at the Aryan invasions of India, the Pan
Hinduism movement creating caste, or the development of commerce. More
likely, all three combined in the creation of the Adam dominated society
known in India today. This allegory is useful to show the shifts in authority
from females to males more than a thousand years ago. In those times, Kerala
was a backwater within India. The force of the change movements creating
the third era---movements of power toward Adam and away from Eve---were
largely spent by the time they had crossed the Western Ghats of South India
and into Kerala.
Accordingly a major explanatory
thesis of this analysis holds that the gender equity of Kerala family structure
remaining in Kerala was not a recent transformation from the Adam domination
of India---rather Kerala retains the basic family system of a more ancient
Indian civilization, gender equity. Adam domination is old but is itself
a most significant transformation of the second era Indian family structure
---a transformation from gender equity to patriarchy,
a transformation in India but not in Kerala.
Education and Science footnote
The infusion of public education
and science into India has significantly improved well-being
in twentieth century India. During this time more rapid improvements in
well-being happened in Kerala. This analysis is all about the rapid well-being
increase in Kerala in the latter half of the twentieth century contrasted
to the slow well-being increase in the rest of India. There is evidence
of a desirable synergistic interaction
between a background of gender equity and the infusion of education and
science. The combination of science with gender equity is more efficient
in the creation of well-being than female
suppression in combination with education and science.
(Explaining
Kerala) (Summary) (Directory)