Gender and empire

I think that there is always going to be something to say about gender whenever one discusses empire and imperialism. For instance, I’ve always known that India was the crown jewel of the British Empire, “a symbol of Britain’s overseas power” for other colonial cultures to see, but after reading chapter 17 to 20 of Passage, I came to see it as a site of British anxieties as well, particularly in their attitudes towards the white European woman. All the hullabaloo made after Adela was ‘assaulted’, particularly the lack of rationality used in dealing with the situation (the extinguishing of the “lamp of reason” in place of “emotion”, the use of the phrase “women and children” with growing hysteria etc), suggest to me that the British were conscious of their women as signifiers of a greater domestic culture.
This is how my logic follows: children are the future of the nation --> women care for the children --> British customs and values are transmitted from a mother to a child --> women are therefore seen as guardians of British domestic culture and the future of that heritage --> the protection of women is thus paramount to maintain this great culture. Since the native has, to a majority of the British, become a site of corruption and debauchery (indeed, there are many snide throwaway remarks made about Mohammedans and their 4 wives), the white European female must then be kept away from the vile beasts lest they be infected by native impurity. The heavy emphasis placed on white female virtue objectifies the female because she has become more of a national emblem than a fellow human being. We see how the treatment of Adela reveals this—“their kindness was incredible, but it was her position, not her character, that moved them.” This symbolic position is made more demeaning because it is a symbol which confers importance to the bearer only for a little while—“The wife of a small railway official...with her abundant figure and masses of corngold hair, she symbolized all that is worth fighting and dying for; more permanent a symbol, perhaps, than poor Adela...”
I wonder if the vehicle status of colonial women does not then mirror the status of the colonized women in some sense. Levine mentions the traditional practice of sati or “suttee” as she terms it, where the wife of a deceased Hindu was compelled to die upon his funeral pyre “in recognition of his centrality to her existence”. Not seen as an individual of her own right, she is but a signifier of the male-centred system, a blank slate on which Patriarchy inscribes whatever it wishes.
Different culture, same condition.