One major source of information on the position of women and the male attitude towards them in early medieval India (ad 800–1200) consists of the large body of inscriptions in Sanskrit and south Indian languages. This article is concerned with the woman’s position in the family as contemporaneously conceived based on this extensive source. Male preference and dominance were expressed in particular ways; and it is with this particularity that the present study is largely concerned. Since inscriptions, especially the voluble ones, were set up to record some act of the royalty or the nobility, one is warned in advance of the limitations of the evidence. Yet, as will be seen, ordinary women too sometimes appear in our epigraphic evidence.

在中世纪早期的印度，有关妇女地位和男性对妇女的态度的主要信息来源（广告800-1200）由梵文和南印度语言组成的大量铭文组成。本文关注的是根据广泛的信息来源同时构思的妇女在家庭中的地位。男性的喜好和统治力以特定方式表达；正是由于这种特殊性，本研究才引起人们的广泛关注。由于铭文（特别是易碎的铭文）是为记录皇室或贵族的某些行为而设立的，因此，在证据有限之前会提前警告人们。然而，可以看出，普通妇女有时也会出现在我们的人口统计学证据中。