For a sane person, living without an identity is not possible. But the identity of a woman from a Third World country, such as India, becomes all the more complex due to social and cultural circumstances. In this article, I aim to explore how the naming culture of a Bengali Hindu middle-class woman impacts her identity formation and plays a significant role in her agency in the patriarchal society. Phyllis Katz points out that the concept of identification, which was originally delineated by Freud, has been “a troublesome one for contemporary theorists” as it is “too ambiguous to operationalize” (Katz 157-58). Katz further adds that one of the problems associated with the theories of identification is the “problem of male bias” (Katz 159). In other words, as most of the theorists are male and "the male child is used as the prototype to explain the development of sex-role identity" (Katz 159), for the male psychoanalytic theorists the development of female identity is "particularly puzzling" (Katz 159) and can be depicted only "in terms of the female's wish to be masculine" (Katz 159). On the contrary, female psychoanalysts, such as Karen Horney, specify "the capacity for motherhood as central to the development of female sexual identity, and instead talk about masculine envy of women's ability to bear and nurse children" (Katz 159). Therefore, the "gender of the theorist" (Katz 159) plays a significant role in setting forth the theories of identification.

To further probe into the concept of into the concept of identity, Sutanuka Ghosh points out that identity is “not the product of a sole individual consciousness” (Ghosh 18). On the one hand, identity is “understood to be who or what a person is, from his or her perspective” (Ghosh 18) and on the other hand, it is also a “social perspective of who or what a person is and the person is labelled accordingly” (Ghosh 18). Although the politics of identity of both men and women from the Third World is determined based on group membership or collectivity, internal factors such as caste, gender, social status, race, and religion play a significant role. During the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was quite common to refer to Bengali women as meyemanush (a female being) (Ghosh 19), which signified "a creature that is less than manush (human) (Ghosh 20). Patriarchy has a significant impact in "framing the parameters of masculinity and femininity" (Ghosh 19). Thus, in Bengali Hindu society, group identities set up codes within which women have to function and conform.

The custom of addressing a woman, especially someone who is not financially stable, as someone’s daughter or wife, or, at the most, by her “pet” name is a common tradition in Bengali culture. In a typical Bengali household, it is a ritual to give two names to a child: a good name called “bhalo naam,” and a pet name, which is “daak naam” in Bengali. While good names signify formal usage, pet names are a “persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people” (Lahiri, Namesake 26). Pet names are part of a child’s identity, which cannot be discarded easily. Sometimes these names are a “persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious” (Lahiri, Namesake 26). On the contrary, good names represent “dignified and enlightened qualities” (Lahiri, Namesake 26). Good names are especially to be used in public settings and therefore, they appear on “envelopes, on diplomas, in telephone directories” (Lahiri, Namesake 26). Pet names are never recorded for official purposes, and they are to be mentioned only by parents, family members, and close relatives. Pet names have “no aspirations” and they are mostly “meaningless, deliberately silly, ironic, even onomatopoetic” (Lahiri, Namesake 26). Unfortunately, often these pet names are misused and mocked in public, and this bullying has an impact on the children for the rest of their lives. Although the naming culture is the same in Bengali for both men and women, for the women it is stricter: before marriage, a woman is addressed by her father’s or brother’s identities and after her marriage, a Hindu woman is supposed to take the surname of her husband. The lack of individual identity of a Bengali woman is best portrayed in Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story, “Mrs. Sen’s” (from the collection, Interpreter of Maladies, 1999): the protagonist is addressed throughout the narrative as someone’s missus and not by her first name.

However, it has to be foregrounded that women of nineteenth century Bengali were not a homogenous group. One of the primary markers of differences is based on whether they belonged to rich families, middle-class, or poor families. While women of elite societies were exempted from the stricter norms of patriarchy, for instance, they were allowed to attend private schools and maintain a social life, middle-class Hindu women stayed in seclusion within the andarmahals (inner circuits). On the other hand, women who belonged to the working class were "either self-employed like naptenis (women from the barber caste who used to decorate with aha [red liquid] the feet of andarmahal women), sweepers, owners of stalls selling vegetables or fish, street singers and dancers, maidservants, or women employed by mercantile firms dealing in seed produce, mustard, linseed etc.” (Banerjee 129).

Although the scenario for middle-class Bengali women has ameliorated, the "notion of lojja [shame] and somman (honour)” (Ghosh 226) still define the life of Bengali middle-class Hindu women. It is striking that the women are accustomed to most of the regulations since their childhood, and they learn the rest of the rules after marriage. These women “could not conceive of an identity that would take them beyond the circumference of the family” (Ghosh 228). For instance, in Gurinder Chadha’s film Bhaji on the Beach (1994), one of the female characters is repeatedly warned by a Hindu god to “know [her] place” (Chadha 0:02:10) and to remember who she is, her “duty, honour [and] sacrifice” (Chadha 1:14:46). Thus, a Bengali woman “certainly [belongs] to a family and a community...But the family [does] not belong to her” (Ghosh 230). In other words, in the family, she is treated more like a commodity: she is expected to take care of her husband and children, provide food, and nurture the family. However, she cannot participate in the decision-making process. Instead, she has to conform to the decisions that are taken on behalf of her. For the women questioning authority is not an option. For instance, in Monica Ali’s novel Brick Lane (2003), the protagonist’s mother asserts, “If God wanted us to ask question, he would have made us men” (Ali 80). The image of the ideal woman is so strong that these women try to conform to and represent these repressive cultural norms even at the price of ill-treatment and oppression.

Thus, it is evident that although a Bengali Hindu woman has two names (“bhalo naam” and “daak naam”), she struggles to have an identity of herself; not only within the family but also in the patriarchal society. While men are endowed with the task of bread-winning, women are forced to limit themselves in home-making. The stereotypical role assigned to male and female members of Bengali society predominantly affects the identities of women. Even though middle-class women, with time, fight for their agency, mostly through education and they go out of their houses to work, they are still identified as someone's daughter, wife, or mother, and are seen as bearers of their native traditions. Therefore, it can be said that despite the equality in the naming tradition of men and women in Bengali society, women do not enjoy equality of opportunities since the hegemony of the patriarchy should not be challenged.

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Works Cited:

• Ali, Monica. Brick Lane. Black Swan, 2003.
• Banerjee, Sumanta. “Marginalization of Women’s Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Bengal.” In Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History, Sangari, K. and S. Vaid (eds.). Zubaan Books, 2003, pp. 127-77.
• Chadha, Gurinder. Bhaji on the Beach. Directed by Gurinder Chadha, performances by Zohra Sehgal, Saheen Khan, Kim Vithana, Jimmi Harkishin and Sarita Khajuria. First Look International Columbia TriStar Home Video, 1993.
• Ghosh, Sutanuka. Becoming a Bengali Woman: Exploring Identities in Bengali Women’s Fiction, 1930 – 1955. Doctoral Thesis. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 2007.
• Katz, Phyllis. “The Development of Female Identity.” Sex Roles, vol. 5, no. 2, 1979, pp. 155-78.
• Lahiri, Jhumpa. “Mrs. Sen’s.” Interpreter of Maladies. Flamingo, 2000.
• The Namesake. Harper Collins, 2003. Print.