The Female Gaze in early Tamil Poetry: Mullaippattu

Abstract

The early Sangam poem, Mullaippattu, which has been traditionally attributed to Napputhanar centers on a warrior’s wife, who is awaiting her husband’s return from the battle. Although she remains within her home, the poem lingers over her interior world. Her longing, uncertainty and hope structure the emotional movement of the poem. Her waiting becomes the narrative’s central condition.

The wife and the women’s viewpoint complicate the classical Sangam distinction between the domestic sphere (akam) and the external realm of war (puram). What emerges is the form of agency expressed not through action in the outer world, but through presence, perception and interpretation. The wife’s emotional labour constitutes a quite claim to authority over her own experience. In this way the women find meaning on their own terms, challenging the trope of the passive woman awaiting her husband’s return.

Read in this light, Mullaippattu offers a vision of feminine subjectivity that resonates beyond its ancient context. The poem demonstrates that the act of looking, waiting and interpreting can itself be a form of resistance and self-assertion, with deeper roots in early literary traditions than is often acknowledged.