Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Introduction Who Decides?: Marriage Law, the State, and Mutual Consent Is the Spirit Gendered? Fluid Gender, Sex-Change, and Same-Sex Marriage "Immortal Longings" Love-Death, Rebirth, and Union through Life After Life Love's Rite: Traditions of Love, Friendship, and Marriage From Monstrous to Miraculous: Same-Sex Reproduction and Parenting All in the Family: Same-Sex Relationships in Traditional Families "Married among their Companions" Female-Female Relations in Pre-Modern Erotica Aspiring to Union: Twentieth-Century Cinema Conclusion
Synopsis
This is the first book to examine the same-sex weddings and same-sex couple suicides reported in India over the last two decades. Ruth Vanita examines these cases in the context of a wide variety of same-sex unions, from Fourteenth-century narratives about co-wives who miraculously produce a child together, to Nineteenth-century depictions of ritualized unions between women, to marriages between gay men and lesbians arranged over the internet. Examining the changing legal, literary, religious and social Indian and Euro-American traditions within which same-sex unions are embedded, she brings a fresh perspective to the gay marriage debate, suggesting that same-sex marriage dwells not at the margins but at the heart of culture. Love's Rites by Ruth Vanita is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award.