Love and Sexuality in a Gujarati Village: Men and pre-­‐marital relationships
Studies of marriage and sexuality in India have generally focused on girls or women and although men are central to these relationships, they are often ignored. This thesis concentrates on this gap in the literature and focuses on how masculinities are shaped by the negotiation of love and sexuality, particularly in pre-­‐marital relationships. The few studies of masculinity that do exist have typically focused on urban men, whereas the focus of this thesis is on marginalised men in rural central Gujarat. For men, life stages and rites of passage are a significant feature governing their lives and aspirations, and so how these are negotiated within the secrecy of pre-­‐ marital relationships in contrast, and conflict, with a public normative discourse of marriage is a defining feature of this thesis. This research contributes to a better understanding of the different discourse and practice that men utilise in their approach to pre-­‐marital relationships and how this reflects divergent attitudes towards women and notions of love and sexuality. The thesis is based on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork alongside the conducting of 38 interviews with men from the Muslim, Christian and Tadpada communities. The analysis highlights the significance of male peer solidarity that exists during a liminal period of relative freedom for young men during the transition between adolescence and the responsibilities of marriage and manhood. Pre-­‐marital relationships are framed as transgressive within a public normative discourse; in actuality multiple performances of sexuality are presented by young men dependent on context and audience. The consequences of discovery for transgressive relationships are typically discussed in terms of their effects on female transgressors, yet this research aims to explore the consequences that such a discovery has upon young men, particularly in relation to the distinctive, yet inter-­‐related, notions of credit and honour.
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