Virile Householders and Fertile Wives

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 4 examines how preta tales construct masculinities and femininities. Preta literature maintains several tensions between Brahmanical gender norms, those of the broader patriarchal householder society, the values of the sangha, and the everyday gendered realities of men and women. Although these tales reinforce many of the gender norms of Brahmanical patriarchy in their construction of the ideal householder as a virile, filial, and generous man and the ideal woman as the virtuous mother-wife, the values and goals of the monastic institution result in a moderation and destabilization of these values. Even as preta literature attempts to relegate gender transgression to the realm of the non-human, the preta world also opens space for transgressive behavior. As such, while the non-human preta may allow Buddhist authors to generate bodily hierarchies, stories about pretas may also create space to resist the very norms they attempt to regulate.