Zenana missions

The Zenana missions were established in the mid 19th century to send women missionaries into the homes of Indian women with the aim of converting them to Christianity. These missions expanded from purely evangelical work to providing medical and education services, hospitals and schools established by these missions are still active in India. The Church of England Zenana Missionary Society (founded 1880) worked first in India and later did similar work in other Asian countries.

The Baptist Missionary Society inaugurated zenana missions in India in the mid 19th century. The first zenana mission resulted from a proposal by Thomas Smith in 1840; the first zenana mission began in 1854.

Women in India at this time were segregated under the purdah system, being confined to a women's quarters known as a zenana into which it was forbidden for unrelated men to enter. The zenana missions were made up of female missionaries who could visit Indian women in their own homes with the aim of converting them to Christianity.

The purdah system made it impossible for many Indian women, especially high status women, to access health care, and many were dying and suffering needlessly. By training as doctors and nurses, the women of the zenana missions could be accepted by the women of India in a way that men would not have been.

By the 1880s, the "zenana missions" had expanded their ministry, they had also opened schools to provide schooling for girls, including the principles of the Christian faith. In addition to home visits, women's hospitals, and segregated women's wards in general hospitals, were opened and the society had become the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission. This involved recruiting female doctors, both by persuading female doctors in Europe to come to India and by encouraging Indian women to study medicine in their pursuit of conversion. As a result, the Zenana missions helped break down the male bias against colonial medicine in India to a small extent.

The work of the Baptists inspired the formation of a British Anglican missionary society, the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society (founded 1880), that was involved in sending missionaries to mission stations in countries such as India (19th and 20th centuries) and late Qing dynasty China, beginning in 1884.

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