DQ #15
The Gupta Empire was ruled by members of the Gupta dynasty from around 320 to 550 C.E and covered most of Northern India, parts of eastern Pakistan and what is now western India and Bangladesh. The time of the Gupta Empire is referred to as Golden Age of India in science, mathematics, astronomy, religion and Indian philosophy.
The Gupta Empire was a powerful Indian state based, like its Mauryan predecessor, on a capital at Pataliputra in the Ganges Valley. It controlled most of the Indian subcontinent through a combination of military force and its prestige as a center of sophisticated culture. The Gupta Empire was a good example of a “theater-state” this is a state that acquires prestige and power by developing attractive cultural forms and staging elaborate public ceremonies to attract and bind subjects to the center; this could be seen as a form of persuasion (Bulliet, 162). The status of women declined during this period due to urbanization, the emergence of a nonagricultural middle class which placed high value on gaining and inheriting land led to the loss of women’s rights and an increase in the power of control for men over the women’s behavior. As time went on women in India loss the right to own or inherit land, barred from studying the sacred texts and joining in of sacrificial rituals. A woman was expected to obey first her father then her husband then lastly her sons. Indian girls were married off at a very early age at times they could be six or seven. By being married off at a young age such as six or seven the husband could be positive that his wife was a virgin and, by her being raised in his household he could mold train and shape her for his purposes. An extreme form of control over women in India was a ritual known as sati. In the ritual sati a widow was expected to cremate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre, this was seen as keeping the woman pure. If the woman refused to do this ritual she was forbidden to remarry,...