The women of Punjab were generally fine-looking, tall, and graceful, and their figures in youth were well-rounded and supple. Still, they were inferior in physique to men, probably from early marriage, poor diet, and bad sanitary conditions. Their main function was to manage the house. They ground corn, milked the cows and buffalos, churned butter and cooked food, fetched water, spun cotton for home consumption, and attended to sewing family clothes, besides lending a hand to their husbands in the work of the field. The higher functions of the wife were, however, not unknown. She had a paramount influence in the household among the rich and the poor. It was she who decided what the family shall eat and how much the husband will spend. The marriages, too, were mainly settled by her, and the man had merely to consent.
In holiday times, the women's garments were gay with many colors, and a good deal of ostentation was displayed. A women's standing was greatly determined by her jewels in which the spare money of the family was invested, as the money could always be realized on the occasion of need. Great expenses were incurred on marriages. Private marriages were condemned and were but seldom contracted.
Women were generally treated as the inferior sex. When a husband and wife were walking together, she followed at a respectful distance behind. Women could not mention her husband's name or his agents older than her by generation, and she had to veil the face before them. The husband was her only hope and resource. If he ill-treated her, she could not get a divorce; if he died, she had to remain a window. Her only chance of happiness was to bear his son and keep out their rivals from his affection. The birth of a girl was never looked at with favor. Several high castes, such as the Rajputs, committed female infanticide.
No woman was allowed to enjoy independent status. When unmarried, she had to be under the strict supervision of her parents, after marriage, under that of her husband, and after her husband's death under sons' growth. It was, however, laid down that a husband must honor his wife and provide her gifts of ornaments and good food, and when he went abroad, he must provide for the maintenance of his wife during his absence. Even if he had to cast away his wife for some valid reasons, he must make her maintenance. A wife guilty of adultery too had to be provided for. On account of fear from the Muslims and other high-handedness, early marriage had become common. Girls were given away in marriage at the age of puberty was considered a bad marriage and a matter of sin for the parents.
Sati was practiced, though not compulsorily. A widow had to choose between two alternatives, viz.., remaining a widow all her life or burning herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband. Polygamy was permitted, and rulers and princes had a plurality of wives, but the common people were monogamous. Polyandry was confined to the spitting and Lahaul personas of Kangra, Chamba, and the highlands of Kulu and Mandi and some Jats in the plains. Among the Jats of Gurgaon, if one married brother were away, it would not, perhaps, give rise to scandal or ill-feeling if his wife, during his absence, extended her favor to the rest of the fraternity.
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