The Inconvenient 'Public Women' of History

In 1809, a British official took great umbrage at the conduct of an Indian prince.

- Manu S Pillai

The ruler of Gwalior, the man reported, had "bestowed his affections" on a woman called Rus Kufoor. It was bad enough that the Rajah had taken up with this "common prostitute," but what was worse was his largesse. He had, allegedly, given the lady a vast landed estate; a palace "furnished in the most costly and magnificent manner"; elephants and camels, not to speak of an army of human servitors; and, worst of all, he was seen publicly riding with her, occasionally even fanning her. In no "European state," the white man declared, would such indecency be tolerated. Why, if a Western prince behaved this way, he would be thrown into "a mad house."

Our man was wrong, of course, for history has no shortage of European lords getting mixed up with the "wrong" sort of women. At the very moment he was writing, for example, the future William IV of Britain had spent nearly two decades with an Irish actress. No, the real problem was the discomfort of a certain type of man with the "whore"—or more precisely, women whose influence stemmed from unpoliced sexual access to other, more powerful males.

While in this case an element of racism was in play, brown men also, to be clear, shared such feelings. Over a century later, it was Indians themselves, for instance, who branded an ageing Jaipur Maharaja's reign "randi ka raj" ("harlot's rule") on account of the sway of a royal concubine.

In historical narratives, the "public woman" often seesaws between wicked designs and remorse for harboring such designs. One 19th-century story features the Arya Samaj founder, Dayananda Saraswati. Envious of this celibate's growing reputation and anxious to destroy it, his rivals hire a woman to seduce him. But when the lady arrives, she sees a "mystic light" all around her target; instead of disrobing, she sheds "tears of penitence."