The Psychological Cost of the “Ideal Woman”: Sita, Draupadi, Sati, Jauhar and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar

The Ideal Woman and epic traditions

For centuries, women have been asked to conform to patriarchal ideals to build the identity of ‘an ideal woman’. Historically, their autonomy and sexuality continued to remain an important subject of public perception. The Ideal woman is expected to strictly embody ideals, including obedient, graceful, dignified, sexually pure, self-sacrificing and supremely devoted to family and husband. Beneath these expectations lies a profound psychological cost: losing self and growing pressure to embody externally prescribed identity.

Indian mythology, epic literature, social history and contemporary literature offer vivid imagery of the ideal woman. Lead women protagonists from epics such as Ramayana, Mahabharata, and social practices such as Sati and Jauhar offer strikingly different representation and imagination of ideal women.

Epics such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata have profoundly shaped the moral imagination, social values, and everyday lives of people across the Indian subcontinent for millennia. Both epics deeply reflect on changing social ideals, morality and the concept of Dharma. What changes between the Ramayana and the Mahabharata is not just the position of women, but the manner in which patriarchy itself is imagined, justified, and challenged.

Two lead protagonists, Sita and Draupadi, not only emerge as contrasting women in these epics but they also reveal far more interesting things about society, morality, sexuality, family honour and Dharam. While Sita is an obedient wife, Draupadi is rebellious. These two contrasting characters, however, explain profoundly about changing idealised patriarchy and the notion of virtuous women.

While the Ramayana constructs an idealised form of morality wherein women’s virtue is deeply embedded in Stridharma and pativrata or the notion of purity, Mahabharata exposes that fractures within moral order constructed by Ramayana. Thus, movement from Sita to Draupadi cannot be exclusively seen as movement from oppression to liberation, rather it is movement from idealised patriarchy to self-conscious interrogation of patriarchy.

While Sita in the Ramayana and Draupadi in the Mahabharata create completely different imagery of ideal women, social practices in mediaeval period such as Sati and Jauhar vividly captures how patriarchal norms can inflict significant psychological costs upon women. This poses a compelling question:  What happens psychologically when a woman’s worth is measured by how successfully she conforms to an ideal created by others?

The answer does not lie in simple suffering. A complex set of factors, including silence, resistance, anger, withdrawal, self-assurance and desperate attempt to reclaim agency.

The Ideal Woman as a Social Construction

The notion of ‘ideal women’ is an exceedingly complex construct, as it is rarely a single and coherent construct, rather it is a collection of expectations produced by family, religion, morality, marriage and culture. An ideal woman is expected to be a good daughter, a devoted wife and a moral example for members of society. An ideal woman is expected to fit in patriarchal norms. She is neither expected to have her personal desire nor any expectations as she must deliver on collective expectations. Her sexuality must be controlled. She must deliver to collective expectations.

The psychological problem arises when a woman becomes subjected to external approval to determine her internal worth.  A woman may begin asking not, “What do I want?” but: “What will people think?”
“Am I a good woman?”
“Am I fulfilling my duty?”
“Have I sacrificed enough?”

Over time, identity becomes inseparable from performance. This tension between the self-one experiences internally and the self one is expected to perform externally is central to both classical narratives and modern feminist literature.

Stridharma: The woman and her prescribed duty

Viewed within its historical context, it becomes obvious that the concept of Stridharma lies at the heart of ideal women.  The concept Stridharma can be defined as duties expected from a woman consistent with her familial and social position. It also acquires a central position in understanding the gendered world of epics.

In the Ramayan, Sita’s identity is deeply intertwined with her role as a wife, a daughter and a mother. Sita accompanies Rama into exile, and it is principally seen as her marital duty and supreme loyalty towards her husband. Her suffering becomes a supreme example of morality, as she endures and remains committed to the concept of Dharma.

But Sita is more than an obedient wife. She accompanies Rama to the forest and it is her choice. Nevertheless, this very insistence of her not to appear as rebellion as accompanying husband is very much consistent with the concept of Stridhrma. She exercises her agency within the moral vocabulary of Treta Yuga. This can be also seen as one of the central paradoxes of epic patriarchy.

The representation of Sita in the epic Ramayana idealises the concept of pativrata, the devoted wife whose loyalty to her husband is supreme, both morally and spiritually. Ravana can imprison her physically, yet cannot possess her morally and psychologically. Although her refusal to submit to Ravana can be seen as an assertion of selfhood, her chastity becomes public concern. The Agni-Pariksha underlines this paradox visibly but painfully. Yet the same ideal is not only celebrated by patriarchal society, it becomes a dominant mechanism of control, as the burden of proving sexual purity falls upon women.

According to Valmiki Ramyan (Yudha Kanda), Rama addresses the assembly by proclaiming that he has accomplished what a man could achieve by valour, yet a man of noble lineage like him cannot accept a woman who has lived in another’s house. Rama, therefore, allows Sita to go wherever she wishes. This very proclamation of Rama expounds the mindset of patriarchal society. However, Sita does not remain silent, she invokes Agni (fire) to test her purity.

Stridharma is, therefore, deeply entrenched in patriarchy, honour of man and public testimony. The later abandonment of Sita under the influence of public opinion intensifies the contradiction overtly.

The character of Sita, her sufferings and unwavering fidelity have been significantly valorised. The psychological cost of this valorisation is quite obvious. Her body as well as the whole character remain subjected to public surveillance, creating the requirement to absorb public humiliation without protest or resistance, which results in the final choice of disappearance as the only ultimate means of exercising her remaining agency. Idealisation not only robs the woman from exercising her agency but also repeatedly tests her impossible and absolute standard of purity. Thus, the psychological cost of embodying elements of ‘Ideal Women’ was monumental in the imagined ‘Treta Yuga’ in the epic Ramayana.

The Concept of Dharma: the secondary treatment to women

The concept of Dharam, including Stridharma, becomes more complicated and paradoxical as we make movement between epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata. The very foundation of both epics is laid on Dharma, yet the Mahabharata poses an intriguing question, whether Dharma can be defined. Draupadi can be seen as embodiment of this paradoxical question. When Yudhishthira loses Draupadi in the dice game, she asks an unsettling question: if Yudhishthira had already lost himself, did he still possess the right to stake her? 

Draupadi’s question goes beyond her personal humiliation, as it poses challenges to the moral and legal foundation of patriarchy.  Who owns whom? Can a husband treat a wife as property? Does marriage confer a man complete authority over a woman?  Does the Dharam allow women to exercise her agency at all?  More importantly, Draupadi’s question shakes the very foundation of Dharma.  Can a patriarchal institution call something dharma simply because powerful men accept it?

Draupadi’s questioning transforms her from the object of the gambling into the person who interrogates its legitimacy. Perhaps this can be seen as the most significant shift between Sita and Draupadi. In the Ramyana, Sita’s journey revolves around how women should fulfil their dharma. On the contrary, Draupadi questioning poses apprehension whether the social order itself and Patriarchal interpretation of Dharma are capable of protecting dharma and justice at all.

Importantly, through her seminal book ‘The Bell Jar’, Sylvia Plath offers an interesting perspective about the conflict between women’s ambition and gender roles. The psychological consequence of social expectations imposed upon women of stature like Sita is obvious. After returning from the captivity of Ravana in Lanka, she undergoes Agni-Pariksha (Trial By Fire) to prove her chastity, but she refuses to undergo another Agni-Pariksha, when Rama enforced it as a precondition of returning her as queen of Ayodhya along with Luv and Kush, rather she decided to take final refuge with earth.

The biggest irony is that society expects Sita to embody an almost impossible set of feminine ideals: a faithful wife, devoted companion, dignified queen, morally pure women, obedient daughter and a self-sacrificing mother. The epic Ramayana has historically played an important role in nurturing the patriarchal psyche through enforcement of these feminine ideals, and embodiment of these ideals itself becomes a mechanism of discipline. Society wants a woman to continually demonstrate these ideals.

Plath’s The Bell Jar helps us understand how social expectations act as internal pressures of conformance. This gives rise to the conflict between social expectations demanding multiplicity of lives and a women independent imagined life. Plath argues that there is inherent tension between female identity and socially imposed gender roles. The issue is not Sita gives Agni-Pariksha, but the deeper issue is that her identity becomes contingent on external judgment of her sexual and moral purity.

Plath’s The Bell Jar helps us understand how social expectations act as internal pressures. Esther Greenwood experiences the conflict between the woman society expects her to become and the multiplicity of lives she imagines for herself. Scholarship on Plath similarly emphasizes the tension between female identity and socially imposed gender roles.

Sita’s predicament is different, but the structural question is very much comparable: What happens to a woman when society gives her only one acceptable version of womanhood? For Sita, the answer is unwavering endurance. She must continually negotiate between being herself and being the woman that Ayodhya expects her to be.

Sita: The Burden of Purity and Devotion

In the Indian epic imagination, Sita can be considered as a powerful but complex figure. The epic Ramayana presents her story through ideals of chastity, devotion, marital fidelity and sacrifices. Through these qualities, idealised womanhood is not only celebrated but exerts psychological pressure on other women to embody these ideals.

The episode of Sita’s abduction by Ravana is particularly significant, as it not only presents a crisis but also robs her social identity. After returning from the captivity of Ravana, she is required to demonstrate her purity through the trial by fire.  The psychological significance of this episode is foregrounded in its inversion of responsibility. The woman who has suffered violence is nevertheless placed in the position of proving that she remains morally pure. Sita’s ordeal therefore becomes more than a test of chastity, as it becomes a representation of the way patriarchal honour can make a woman’s body the very site upon which family and social morality are judged.

Her later abandonment intensifies this contradiction. Sita can be understood as the embodiment of the ideal wife, yet conformity does not necessarily guarantee security, emotional belonging and recognition.  Her eventual refusal to return and her appeal to mother Earth can consequently be read as a moment of profound or ultimate agency. The woman who has repeatedly been asked to prove herself ultimately refuses another trial by ending her own life.  Sita thus complicates the notion of the “ideal woman.” Perfection does not protect a woman from being questioned, judged or sacrificed.

Draupadi: When Silence Becomes Impossible

If Sita is frequently associated with endurance, Draupadi evokes a radically different psychological response to patriarchal expectations. In the form of Draupadi, the Mahabharata presents a woman who refuses to disappear into silence. The dice-game episode becomes particularly significant. Draupadi is dragged into the assembly after Yudhishthira has gambled away his all possessions, including her. Rather than silently accept the situation, she asks a fundamental legal and ethical question: if Yudhishthira had already lost himself, did he still possess the right to stake her?

Her question disrupts the very assumptions of the assembly and assumptions surrounding Dharma. Draupadi’s psychological power comes partly from her refusal to allow humiliation to become normalised. She speaks when silence is expected. She questions when obedience is demanded. Her anger is also important.

Traditional constructions of femininity frequently encourage women to transform anger into patience, forgiveness or self-sacrifice. Draupadi demonstrates what happens when anger refuses to disappear. Her humiliation becomes inseparable from the larger political catastrophe of the epic. Her demand for justice cannot be contained within the private sphere. Draupadi therefore challenges another version of the “ideal woman”: the woman who remains agreeable even when she has been wronged. Her story asks whether femininity must necessarily mean emotional submission.

Importantly, the Mahabharata intensifies this debate through Draupadi’s public humiliation. Her disrobing in the Kuru assembly cannot be simply seen as an act of violence against an individual woman. Rather it becomes a symbolic assault on the honour of the Pandavas and their political capital or political communities. Here the female body becomes an important site of political theatre, and a means to strip husbands’ status. Unlike Sita, Draupadi’s violation is staged, deliberate and political.

Sati and Jauhar: When Female Honour Becomes Collective Honour

Perhaps historical practices of Sati and Jauhar have been borrowed from epic tradition of Ramayana, particularly the idealised notion of women. The historical practice of Sati concerns a widow immolating herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. The practice of Sati can be examined in relation to ideals of female chastity, wifely devotion, obedience and sacrifice glorified in the Indian epic traditions. The epic Ramayana however does not establish sati as the ideal duty of a wife. Rather it portrays an idealised notion of a woman, particularly Sita, Urmila and others. Ramayana introduces the concept of Agni-Pariksha (Trial by Fire), the symbolism of fire and female purity. Ramayana foregrounded women’s purity as a social expectation. Sita’s virtue becomes something that must be publicly celebrated and demonstrated. Fire becomes a symbol of purification. Thus, Ramayana links the ordeal with a woman’s honour, and sexual and moral purity. The epic traditions also link sacrifice as a proof of virtue. Sita’s willingness to undergo Agni-Pariksha reinforces the image of a woman who bears hardship to preserve her honour. Therefore, it can be argued that society borrowed the notion of ideal women from epic tradition.

Juahar is strikingly similar to Sati tradition, but it primarily concerns self-immolation of women (often Rajput women) to avoid capture, enslavement or rape at hand of enemy. This represents the extreme endpoint of idealism. In certain folktales, Juahar has been framed as the highest expression of women’s loyalty, purity and honour.

Neither Sati nor Jauhar practice can tolerably be reduced to a simple story of “female choice” or “female oppression.” Historical circumstances, social pressures, religious interpretations and political conditions created basic grounds for such inhuman practices to thrive.  Yet, from the perspective of the “ideal woman,” both provide an important framework for examining the psychological consequences of transforming female honour into a collective possession. When a woman’s body is treated as the bearer of family, marital or community honour, her individual identity becomes secondary to the symbolic meaning imposed upon her.

The woman is no longer regarded simply as a person with a life, desires and more importantly an individual having imagined a future. She becomes a representation of something larger: chastity, loyalty, honour, community or sacrifice. The psychological danger of such a system is monumental.  If honour depends upon a woman’s behaviour, then her existence itself can become conditional upon maintaining that honour. In its most extreme form, self-sacrifice can be transformed from an act of individual tragedy into a socially glorified ideal.

This is why examining sati and jauhar alongside the literary figure of the “ideal woman” is important. They reveal how societies can attach moral value to women’s willingness to surrender the self.

Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar shifts the discussion from epic and historical worlds to the psychological interior of a twentieth-century woman. Its protagonist, Esther Greenwood, is intelligent, ambitious and academically successful. Yet she finds herself trapped between competing visions of womanhood.

She is expected to imagine a conventional future involving marriage and motherhood, while simultaneously confronting the emerging possibilities available to educated women. Esther experiences these possibilities not simply as freedom but as overwhelming alternatives.

The famous image of the fig tree captures this crisis. She imagines numerous possible futures but feels that choosing one means losing all the others. Every possible life becomes a potential loss. Her psychological crisis therefore emerges partly from the impossibility of reconciling multiple identities within the restrictive expectations surrounding her.

She wants intellectual achievement. She also confronts expectations surrounding sexuality, marriage and motherhood. She wants freedom. Yet freedom itself becomes frightening when the culture around her provides no coherent model for integrating ambition, sexuality, relationships and identity. The bell jar becomes a powerful metaphor for psychological suffocation: Esther can see the world outside, but she cannot fully participate in it.

From Sita to Esther: Different Worlds, Similar Questions

Sita and Esther Greenwood should not be treated as equivalent characters. They belong to vastly different literary, historical and cultural worlds. Yet placing them in conversation can reveal a recurring psychological problem. Sita is repeatedly defined through roles such as wife, daughter and mother. Esther struggles against a modern system in which femininity, sexuality, marriage and professional ambition appear difficult to reconcile. The forms of pressure are different. The underlying question is strikingly familiar:

Who am I when the identity society gives me is not large enough to contain my actual self?

Draupadi provides another response to this question. Instead of internalising every demand placed upon her, she speaks against the structures that humiliate her. Her anger becomes a form of psychological resistance. Sita’s final withdrawal, Draupadi’s questioning and Esther’s psychological breakdown can therefore be read as radically different responses to a common tension between social identity and personal identity.

When Virtue Becomes a Wom

The problem is not virtue itself. Loyalty, compassion, courage, responsibility and devotion can all be meaningful human qualities. The problem begins when these qualities are made gender-specific obligations and when women are punished for failing to embody them perfectly.

A man may be praised for ambition, for instance Ram in the epic Ramyana. Ram chooses to stay in Ayodhya and perform his duty as a king, instead of going with Sita into the forest to perform his duty as a righteous husband.  A man may prioritise his career. Ram also prioritises his career as a king. But despite being crowned queen, Sita is abandoned into the forest for the crime she has never committed. Such contradictions create what might be called psychological double binds: situations in which fulfilling one expectation means violating another.

Beyond the Ideal woman

The larger cultural question still remains significant: what happens when women are taught to evaluate themselves primarily through external standards? This certainly imposes a monumental psychological burden upon women. These costs are not merely historical curiosities. Contemporary women still encounter diluted versions of the same demands—career excellence combined with domestic perfection, sexual autonomy policed by purity narratives, resilience praised while vulnerability is pathologized. The Indian archetypes and Plath’s novel together illustrate that the “ideal woman” is rarely a source of freedom; more often it functions as a psychological enclosure. Curiously, the stories of Sita and Draupadi also complicate the simplistic idea that Indian traditions offer only a singular model of femininity.

Sita can be read as a figure of endurance, but also as a figure who ultimately refuses to submit to another demand for proof. On the contrary, Draupadi can be read as a figure of marriage and familial duty, but also as a woman whose speech, anger and demand for justice challenge male authority. Indian culture provides sanctity to Sita’s model of femininity, as it allows patriarchal society to exercise control over women’s autonomy and sexuality.

As Indian epic traditions offer alternative models of femininity, Indian women should follow Draupadi’s model of femininity because she is the embodiment of self-respect, independence, courage, intelligence and the ability to challenge injustice.

Author: D.Chandra