Role of Informal and Skill-based Education in Upgrading Socio-Economic Status of Women in Assam during the Ahom Period

This study examines the paradigm of informal and skill-based educational models during Ahom Period in Assam (13th–19th century) across the Ahom, Kamata, Koch, Chutia, Kachari, and Jayantia polities. Adopting primary historical and descriptive methodologies, the research analyzes how multi-generational apprenticeships, experiential learning, and lived experiences bypassed structured institutional absence to serve as primary catalysts for women’s socio-economic mobilization. The findings reveal that women converted localized technical expertise into significant structural leverage, maintaining functional monopolies within high-value cottage industries like sericulture, textile weaving, and multi-material handicrafts. Beyond these technical crafts, women executed indispensable tasks in agricultural production management, animal husbandry, and local fishing industries while directing decentralized commerce across regional haats (markets). This mastery over domestic economies and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) granted women relative financial independence, heightened social visibility, and critical household decision-making authority. Crucially, during geopolitical or environmental crises, this practical fluency seamlessly translated into tactical military resistance and matrilineal wealth preservation. Ultimately, this research shifts the regional historical discourse, proving that the holistic sustainability and socio-political resilience of medieval Assamese society were fundamentally contingent upon the informal empowerment of its women.

Ahom Period, Informal Education, Skill-based Education, Women

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