Demystifying the Public-Private Divide

Women in Bangladesh are confined by the strictures of the public- private divide, which has been constructed by the state. Through the interactive exercise of legal and religious institutions, the state has alienated women from their ability to exercise their rights under Bangladesh's Constitution and under the system of Muslim Personal law in the context of family laws. As more than just a passive observer, the legal state apparatus facilitates the control and oppression of women within the private sphere, while denying them enjoyment of constitutionally enshrined equality rights in the area of family laws. Through the analysis of the collaboration between legal and religious institutions, the complicity of the state in the oppression of women in Bangladesh becomes apparent. Moreover, as an agenda for further study and action, this book explores a strategy of resistance for building counter-hegemony against the oppressive collaboration of institutional religion and the law.