Zenana missions

High caste women, Harkua, India, c. 1915[1]

The zenana missions were established in the mid 19th century to send women missionaries into the homes of Indian women with the aim of converting them to Christianity. These missions expanded from purely evangelical work to providing medical and education services. Hospitals and schools established by these missions are still active in India.

History

Lady missionaries in the court of the Zenana Mission House, Peshawar (above); The station class at Sa-yong, Fuhkien, China (below)

The Baptist Missionary Society inaugurated zenana missions in India in the mid 19th century. The first zenana mission resulted from a proposal by Thomas Smith in 1840, with the mission beginning in 1854, under the supervision of John Fordyce.[2]

Women in India at this time were segregated under the purdah system, being confined to a women's quarters known as a zenana, which men unrelated to them were forbidden to enter. The zenana missions were made up of female missionaries who could visit Indian women in their own homes with the aim of converting them to Christianity.

The purdah system made it impossible for many Indian women, especially high status women, to access health care, and many were needlessly dying and suffering. By training as doctors and nurses, the women of the zenana missions could be accepted by the women of India in a way that men would not have been.

By the 1880s, the "zenana missions" had expanded their ministry, opening schools to provide education for girls, including the principles of the Christian faith. This programme also included home visits, the establishment women's hospitals and the opening of segregated women's wards in general hospitals. One society, the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission, was involved in recruiting female doctors, both by persuading female doctors in Europe to come to India and by encouraging Indian women to study medicine in their pursuit of conversion. As a result, the Zenana missions helped break down the male bias against colonial medicine in India to a small extent.[3]

The work of the Baptists inspired the formation of a British Anglican missionary society, the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society (founded 1880), which was involved in sending missionaries to mission stations in countries such as India (19th and 20th centuries) and late Qing dynasty China, beginning in 1884.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Original caption: "High caste women in zenana at Harkua village in Gopalganj." A zenana (literally meaning "pertaining to women") was the part of the household reserved for women in Muslim south Asian households. These zenanas would be visited by the wives of missionaries as part of mission work.
  2. ↑ "When he [Thomas Smith] went to India, it was impossible for male missionaries to reach the women, all of whom above the very lowest class were shut off from the society of men. Smith's proposal in the 'Christian Observer' in 1840 to send lady missionaries and governesses, both European and Indian, into the zenana bore fruit in the first Zenana mission, which was started in 1854."--William Forbes Gray Smith, Thomas (1817-1906) (DNB12)
  3. ↑ Richter, Julius (1908). A history of missions in India. Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier.
  4. ↑ Murray, Jocelyn (2000). "The Role of Women in the Church Missionary Society, 1799–1917". In Ward, Kevin; Stanley, Brian. The Church Mission Society and World Christianity: 1799 - 1999. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 66–90. ISBN 978-0-8028-3875-9.
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