In/voluntary Attachments: Marriage, Caste, and Gender in Tamil Nadu

Abstract

This dissertation examines the relationship between voluntariness, marital kinship, and the production of caste and gender stratification in contemporary Tamil Nadu. Over the last decade, ‘inter-caste marriages’ between Dalit men and dominant caste women in the South Indian state have become a highly politicized ground of contestation for a number of social actors invested in preserving caste hierarchies, as well as those invested in abolishing them. Taking inter-caste marriage as an entry point into broader questions of how caste, gender and kinship are organized in Tamil Nadu, I look at three empirical sites in which the question of voluntariness—and particularly ‘women’s choices’—emerge as central to the configuration of caste and gender hierarchization.

Chapter 1 considers the years-long contestation between two Tamil electoral parties, explaining how a hegemonic common sense regarding the relationship between voluntariness, caste and gender emerged through this contestation, and has constrained progressive anti-caste politics. Chapter 2 analyzes mass media representations and stories of dominant women in inter-caste marriages, arguing that progressive narratives of inter-caste brides, while intended to challenge caste and gender hierarchies by emphasizing women’s capacity for free choice in marriage, may actually reproduce these hierarchies. Chapter 3 examines ‘family and marital mediations’ supervised by women police officers in Tamil Nadu, showing how these mediations attempt to ensure that women who come to the police station for help are making ‘free choices’ in their marriages—and ultimately arguing that in the process, caste distinction is projected and circulated. Overall, the dissertation illuminates one shared ground—the voluntariness of dominant caste women—on which contestations of caste hierarchization are taking place, and suggests that we critically evaluate this ground.