Abstract
The anthropological literature on spirit possession cults offers a distinction between voluntary possession or mediumship and involuntary possession or illness. Fieldwork was carried out in a Mahanubhav healing temple. Contradictory interpretations of trance and affliction were found to be held by the different temple inhabitants.
Beliefs about the nature of spiritual affliction, its epidemiology and aetiology vary according to gender, family structure and position within the family. One manifestation of affliction is thought to be madness. However, the experience of mental affliction is very varied, for example, the number of family members accompanying an afflicted person, the amount of money made available for treatment, the length of treatment, as well as the less tangible but equally important aspects of treatment such as the degree of empathy and concern felt, all vary according to the afflicted person's gender and status within the family. The inferiority of women's position in society and their precarious belonging in their husband's family comes to the fore in cases of mental illness. The greater shame attaching to women's mental illness means that more women seek temple treatment alone and that the level of family support and involvement is less for women. Recently married women and older childless women fare particularly badly in the division of concern and responsibility for the afflicted. In Maharashtra the recognition and experience of mental affliction varies according to the stage of family development and, most importantly, according to the gender of the patient.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
Bibliography
Ardener, Edwin 1975 Belief and the Problem of Women. In Perceiving Women. S. Ardener, ed. Pp. 1–17. London: Dent.
Bhattacharyya, Debaah P. 1986 Pagalmi Ethnopsychiatric Knowledge in Bengal Foreign and Comparative Studies/South Asia. Series II. Syracuse: Syracuse University.
Bhatti, Ranbir S., N. Janakiramaiah, and S.M. Channabasunna 1980 Family Psychiatric Ward Treatment in India. Family Process: 193–203.
Claus, Peter J. 1979 Spirit Possession and Spirit Mediumship from the Perspective of Tulu Oral Traditions. Culture Medicine and Psychiatry 3:29–52.
Dandekar, Hemelata 1986 Men to Bombay Women at Home. Urban Influence on Sugao Village. Deccan Maharashtra India 1942 — 1982. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Centre for South and South East Asian Studies.
Feldhous, Anne 1983 The Religious System of the Mahanubhav Sect. New Delhi: Manohar.
Irvine, Judith T. 1982 The Creation of Identity in Spirit Mediumship and Possession. In Semantic Anthropology. D. Paikia, ed. Pp. 241–260. London: Academic Press.
Kakar, Sudhir 1982 Shamans Mystics and Doctors. A Psychological Inquiry into India and Its Healing Traditions. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Karve, Irawati 1965 Kinship Organisation in India. 2nd ed. Bombay: Asia Publishing House.
Kynch, Jocelyn and Amartya Sen 1983 Indian Women Well-Being and Survival. Cambridge Journal of Economics 7:363–380.
Littlewood, Roland and Maurice Lipsedge 1982 Aliens and Alienists. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Macdonald, Michael 1981 Mystical Bedlam. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mandlebaum, David G. 1988 Women's Seclusion and Men's Honor. Sex Roles in North India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Moore, Henrietta 1988 Feminism and Anthropology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Obeyesekere, Gananath 1981 Medusa's Hair. An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Orenstein, Henry 1965 Gaon: Conflict and Cohesion in an Indian Village. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Pfleiderer, Beatrix 1988 Ritual Healing in a North Indian Muslim Shrine. Social Science and Medicine 27:415–424.
Raeside, Ian 1976 The Mahanubhavas. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 39(3):585–600.
Rogers, Susan Carol 1978 Women's Place: A Critical Review of Anthropological Theory. Comparative Studies in Society and History 20:123–162.
Sacks, Karen 1979 Sisters and Wives: The Past and Future of Sexual Equality. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
Singh, S., J.E. Gordon, and J.B. Wyon 1962 Medical Care in Fatal Illnesses of a Rural Punjab Population: Some Social Biological and Cultural Factors and Their Ecological Implication. Indian Journal of Medical Research 50(6):865–917.
Skultans, Vieda 1987 The Management of Mental Illness Among Maharashtrian Families: A Case Study of a Mahanubhav Healing Temple. Man (N.S.) 22:661–679.
Sontheimer, Gunther-Dietz 1982 God, Dharma and Society in the Yadava Kingdom of Devagiri According to the Litacaritra of Cakradhar. In Indology and Law. Sontheimer Gunther-Dietz and Aithal Parameswara, eds. Beitrage zur Sudasien-Forschung, Sudasien-Institut, Universität Heidelberg. N. 77.
Which, Helen E. 1988 Widows in a South Indian Society: Depression as an Appropriate Response to Cultural Factors. Sex Roles 19(3/4):169–188.
Vatuk, Sylvia 1980 The Ageing Woman in India. In Women in India and South Asia. A. de Souza, ed. Delhi: Manohar.
Weiss, Mitchell G. et al. 1988 Humoral Concepts of Mental Illness in India. Social Science and Medicine 27(5):471–477.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The material on which this paper is based was originally presented in Venice in September 1988 at the 10th European Conference for Modem South Asian Studies. An earlier version of this paper will be included in the Proceedings of that conference, “Gender, Caste, and Power in South Asia— Social Status and Mobility in Transitional Societies,” forthcoming, Manohar Publishers, New Delhi.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Skultans, V. Women and affliction in Maharashtra: A hydraulic model of health and illness. Cult Med Psych 15, 321–359 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00046542
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00046542