Paper short abstract:

This paper draws attention to the so far obscured letters of women who subsisted as concubines in the early modern royal household of Marwar (Western Rajasthan). Addressed to their masters, these letters of concubines help to reveal their perceptions about their ‘self’ and their structured surroundings.

Paper long abstract:

This paper draws attention to the so far obscured letters of women who subsisted as concubines in the early modern royal household of Marwar (Western Rajasthan). The letters of concubines, known as pardayat and paswan in Rajputana, are a gamut of formal and informal Marwari correspondences written by the concubines to their masters viz. the Rajput chieftains. Numbering more than twenty, the letters were written individually as well as collectively by two or more concubines and their efflorescence in 18th century reflects a new found concern with gender relations, norms of femininity, expression of feelings as also literary conventions. While the pre-modern tyranny of women's choice to conjugal status is well known, these letters are momentous sources revealing to us the responses of concubines' vis-à-vis their sexually defined ranks. Engaging with the intent, form of expression and the traditionally ignored metaphors in these messages, the present paper attempts to reveal the perception of concubines about their 'self' and their surroundings, in conjugal status and familial bonds. In this effort, the paper scrutinizes the lexicons representing the concubines-selves, the tone of their writings, and the obvious, if ulterior, motives in navigating particular information and specific emotions to the head of the household. Recovering these voices of concubines this paper maps the emotional worldview of concubines noticing these shaped by and actualised in the incessant interaction of these women with the wider socio-cultural forces, entangled relations between marginality and affect, and the recursive relationship between household and court.