Abstract
Heteronormativity is not just an ideological instrument, it impacts an individual’s agency, experiences, prospects, ambitions, and performances. Marriage is deployed at the service of the ideology of heteronormativity, both by the apparatuses of “the social” and “the legal.” Culturally, in Indian society, marriage is often considered an inalienable part of one’s life. Marriage, being a social institution, has the potential to snare up its new candidates in heights of delusion, privilege, compulsion, and, often regret, tyranny, and oppression. Living under these real-life frames, how do vulnerabilities operate in queer lives? This paper addresses this question through a qualitative analysis of six different queer narratives gathered across different locations in urban/semi-urban India. These narratives are divided into two categories. The first category narrates the complex web of queer experiences of surrender/compromise/management of arranged and forced marriages. The second category narrates the queer experiences that depict a tactful escaping/challenging/subversion of the snares put forth by the monolithic hegemonic discourses of compulsory heterosexuality. All these narratives also depict the powerful impact of marginalisation and privilege caused by the various intersectional markers such as class, sex, gender, age, location, and education over the experiences of the queer. Based on the study of these livid experiences, I draw some phenomenological analogies to gauge the impact of family jurisprudence on queer lives. Further, I use these phenomenological analogies to prescribe changes in the Indian legal framework through a queer-reading of the Constitution of India.
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