In Gita 09.32, why are women put in a separate category from the various varnas?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, why are women put in this category separate from the four Varnas? Sita, Vaishya and then Vaishya, Shudra and Sita, Shudra as I talked about. So, are women not in a particular Varna? I would say there are two different things going on over here.
Say, in one case was that traditionally women or marriages would happen within the same caste. That means otherwise the marriage would be called as Pratiloam or Anuloam. Now, if the marriage is going to happen according to the same caste then obviously the woman has a caste.
So, it’s not that you can call the woman as not having. So, if the woman is a Brahmana or Brahmani you could say then she will marry a Brahmana. If the woman is a Kshatriya, she will marry a Kshatriya.
So, obviously for marriages to happen in the same caste women have to have a Varna. And if you look at it from the philosophical perspective each soul comes to the body based on its, comes to this life based on the karma that they have done in the previous life. And they have the psychophysical nature.
So, that psychophysical nature will fall somewhere among the four Varnas. So, naturally women have a Varna. So, the way a Kshatriya, a Kshatrayani will conduct herself will be very different from say a Brahmani will conduct herself.
Because their Varna will affect their social contribution, their personal disposition, everything. So, definitely women have a Varna. Now, it’s not that women get a Varna only when they marry someone.
It will be a little difficult if a Brahmani marries a Kshatriya. Then, will she take up the Kshatriya role? So, that sort of things will have to be adjusted. But in general the woman has her own Varna.
Now, just like all of us may have multiple identities. Say, I may be an Indian. You may be an Australian or whatever.
So, now, this is your identity. But also you have an identity that, okay, you are a youth. Somebody may be a teenager.
Somebody may be a middle-aged person. So, we have multiple levels of identities in the world when we are functioning. So, from one perspective, everybody here is Australian.
Another perspective, yes, Australian also, there are different age groups, there are different financial groups, there may be different ethnic groups. So, here the stress is not, Krishna has already said, chatur varne maya srishtam. And the way he has spoken in 4.13, it is inclusive for all of humanity.
There are four Varnas. And it is another point which we could say is that if you want to look at, traditionally it was said that one should not marry somebody who is an outcast. So, if women did not have a caste, would that women be outcast? Then everybody would be marrying outcast.
Which would make no sense at all. So, definitely women have Varnas. And that is the Varna, usually, you could say, if the parents like the Brahmin and Brahmin unite in proper consciousness, then they will attract a Brahminical soul, whether it is male or female.
If it is not by birth, then it is by psychophysical nature. You can observe, some women are more intellectual, some women are, they also have their managerial nature. Some women may have more of a financial consciousness.
Different women also have different natures. We could identify the Varna of women also. Here, the focus is not listing Varnas.
The focus in this verse is on talking about those people who are traditionally considered unqualified or less qualified for spiritual life. So, they are Shudras, Vaishyas and Kshatriyas. So, why women? Because, as I said, they have a more emotional nature and they may not be interested so much in philosophical analysis.
So, Vaishyas and Shudras, just interested in physical work and money. So, this is not a listing of Varnas. This is a listing of the categories of people who are traditionally considered to be not qualified for spiritual life.
Another category is Papayonaya. That is where, the people who are outside Varna ashram come. So, everybody who may be traditionally considered unqualified for practicing spiritual life, they are all considered qualified for the practice of Bhakti.
Bhakti can take them to supreme perfection. So, this is not talking about Shudras being a separate Varna, but rather, it is listing categories of people who are considered traditionally to be not so qualified for practicing the philosophical approach to spiritual life.