In this article I have presented a critical study of three feminist utopias written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century viz. The Palanquin Tassel (1889), Sultana’s Dream, (1905), and Herland (1915) from a comparative perspective. All these three works provide significant feminist critiques of the society of their times. They are therefore, I argue, significant contributions to the utopian ideas of nineteenth and twentieth century as well as to feminist theory. It is surprising, given the scope of the visions embodied in these works, and their self-evident artistic achievement, that these books are not better known. All these three works were written by women and are specifically feminist interventions in the utopian debates
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The Palanquin Tassel is a utopia of feminist concerns. Verisimilitude for the utopia is achieved by the author in a prologue in which she claims to have visited the place, and discovered a written biographical narrative, and obtained permission to publish it. In the prologue the author ushers us into a remote and quaintly named Princely state, and its eponymous capital town called the Palanquin Tassel. It is a prosperous town, modern in its industrial production, and has enlightened and gender-egalitarian laws and social structure. One of its chief attractions is the well-attended Shibika college where the author spends her night during her visit. The author meets the Lady Principal of the college who informs her that Shibika College was started for wives deserted by their husbands or evicted by oppressive marital family. “They were all married and their husbands being alive.”(p. 238) “The women who come here to study have no homes or families. There are some whose husbands are absconding, and others who are no longer able to endure the oppression meted out by their husbands or parent-in-laws.”(p.239) “To feed and nurture them, train them in some vocation, and make them capable of earning their own livelihood is the aim of the college. There are many institutions that take pity on widows, but there was not a single institution to provide shelter and sympathy for women such as these. The Ranisaheb of the State therefore opened this institution to look after them.
The Palanquin Tassel is a utopia of feminist concerns. Verisimilitude for the utopia is achieved by the author in a prologue in which she claims to have visited the place, and discovered a written biographical narrative, and obtained permission to publish it. In the prologue the author ushers us into a remote and quaintly named Princely state, and its eponymous capital town called the Palanquin Tassel. It is a prosperous town, modern in its industrial production, and has enlightened and gender-egalitarian laws and social structure. One of its chief attractions is the well-attended Shibika college where the author spends her night during her visit. The author meets the Lady Principal of the college who informs her that Shibika College was started for wives deserted by their husbands or evicted by oppressive marital family. “They were all married and their husbands being alive.”(p. 238) “The women who come here to study have no homes or families. There are some whose husbands are absconding, and others who are no longer able to endure the oppression meted out by their husbands or parent-in-laws.”(p.239) “To feed and nurture them, train them in some vocation, and make them capable of earning their own livelihood is the aim of the college. There are many institutions that take pity on widows, but there was not a single institution to provide shelter and sympathy for women such as these. The Ranisaheb of the State therefore opened this institution to look after them.