This book, now with a new preface charting recent events, examines the position of women in rural Haryana in north India. Covering both colonial and post colonial periods, it explores issues such as participation of women in the processes of production and reproduction, their exclusion from the control of resources and decion making, the resistance of patriarchal society to a change in their legal position, their self assertion and agency against heavy odds as well as their complicity in the reconstruction of patriarchy. A new preface recounts the few positive