Clothing and Women's Status

Yesterday we arrived in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. Today, we visited another fort, and a block-printing museum. I found the block-printing museum interesting, because under the descriptions of the dresses and saris that the museum had, each had a tag saying either “Worn by widows”, or “Worn by married women.” I found this interesting, as the dresses/saris with less brighter colours were the ones that said “Worn by widows”. This illustrates my research that widows are forbidden to wear bright colours once their husband dies. Although I already knew this, it was interesting to see it so explicitly displayed.

Another thing I found that was interesting was that they separated the married women’s dresses from the divorced. I think it was an example even of women coming down on other women saying, “We’re better because we still have our husbands.”


Stamping fabric in the block-printing museum, Amber.