narratives of three generations of urban middle-class - eTheses ...

self and society through a critique of the artificial dichotomy between the popularly
termed ‘love marriage’ and ‘arranged marriage’.
‘Love’ cum ‘Arranged’ Marriage: Critiquing a ‘Politics of Polarity’:
Narratives of intimacy which manifest in Puri’s words, “a Little Bit of This and a Little Bit
of That” (Puri, 1999: 140) and are popularly narrativized by many middle-class Bengalis
as ‘love cum arranged’ marriage, illustrate ‘hybrid’ or ‘hyphenated’ narratives and
subjecticities. Subjects’ embodiment of cultural hybridity that is a result of the
intertwining of national and trans-national ideologies and practices of intimacy and the
intertwining of self and society, critique the putative dichotomous categories of ‘love
marriage’ and ‘arranged marriage’ and their stereotypical associations with modern and
traditional identities respectively. According to Majumdar (2000: 7), “the association of
arranged marriage with antiquated ideas of gender relations and cultural backwardness
is a by-product of the coupling of love marriage with progress, choice, agency and
modernity”. While European colonial domination contributed much to such constructions
and evaluative dualisms, these impressions, Majumdar argues, outlived formal colonial
rule in popular representation of marriages within the nation (2000: 7).
While the narratives of Shanta and Priya are laden with notions of ‘pure’, ‘emotional’,
‘love’ and ‘mental match’, their narratives are also riven with practical considerations of
class, status, respectability, family tradition that are often typically associated with
‘arranged marriages’ (Puri, 1999: 140). The associated entwinement of self and society
is also noted in Pushpa’s love marriage of ‘choice’ which is subjectively re-interpreted
by her as pabitra prem or pure love. These narratives problematize the nationalist and
234