/ Will Speak Out: Narratives of Resistance in Contemporary Indian Women's Discourses inHindu Arranged MarriagesDevika Chawla

Abstract: Much has been written about the importance ofrecognizing and understanding resistance as it isexperienced by members of Other and/or marginalizedworlds. In this essay, I discuss resistance as enacted bymiddle-class women of a Punjabi community incontemporary Hindu arranged marriages who live inSouth Delhi, India. Accessing life-history narratives ofwomen currently involved in these marriages, 1 argue thatthe structure of the Hindu marriage creates aconstraining framework of power within which womenare placed in disadvantaged positions. It is within andfrom these positions that women resist filial relationshipsin structural, relational, and interactional ways. 1 exploretwo emergent forms of resistance Marital Self-deftnitions and Addressing the Mother-in-law. I explorethese forms as truncated resistances because myparticipants resisted 'what they could' within theconstraints of a fdial reality. Finally, I conclude bymerging my voice with contemporary transnationalconversations about the problematics of interpretationand naming resistance.

Introduction

Arranged marriages continue to be normative inmany Asian cultures, such as Japan, India, Korea, and soon (Applbaum, 1995). Specifically, among Hindus inIndia, they continue to be the most popular form oforganizing a marital relationship (Mullatti, 1995). Despiteglobalization, modernization, and urbanization, thenumber of arranged marriages continues to outnumber'love' or 'self-arranged' marriages. In fact, an estimated95% of all Hindu marriages in India are still arrangedmarriages (Bumiller, 1990; Chawla, 2004; Kapadia, 1958;Kapur, 1970; Mullatti, 1995).

Research on the arranged marriage in the humanitiesand social sciences has been limited to historical andcomparative sociological analyses. Historical literaturehas generally emphasized the structure of the family,Hindu norms, traditions, caste, and so on. Social-scientificwork on the arranged marriage in the last five decadesincludes socio-psychological surveys that focus uponcomparisons between 'arranged' and 'self-arranged'marriages in India (see Chandak & Sprecher, 1992;Dhyani & Kumar, 1996; Kapadia, 1958; Kapur, 1970;Rao & Rao, 1975; Ross, 1961). More recently,sociologists and historians at the University of Delhi haveexplored issues surrounding kinship, sexuality, same-sexmarriages, marital laws, and the state (Uberoi, 1993,1996).

Within sociological research, a few seminal studiesexamined urbanization and Hindu family life. In 1958,Kapadia traced the history of the marriage up to the early1950s (the study was first published in 1955), and

concluded that although there were changes in maritaltrends with industrialization and urbanization, marriageamong Hindus remained a holy sacrament, an obligationand a duty that went beyond industrial progress. A decadelater. Gore (1968) looked at urbanization and familychange, and found that Hindu traditions won over forcesof urbanization and industrialization in both rural andurban areas (see Ross, 1961 and Kapur, 1970 for similarfindings). These studies are invaluable because theyexplore change and also because they describe Hindufamily structure and member roles. 1 rely upon these,among others, in a subsequent section to explore thestructure and role distribution of a typical Hindu family.

Other social scientific research on Hindu arrangedmarriage has dealt with marital satisfaction, adjustment,attitude change of college students about the arrangedmarriage, and more comparisons between love andarranged marriages. The results, based on urban samples,are often contradictory. For instance, in a study aboutattitudes toward the arranged marriage, Rao & Rao (1975)found that 91% of the college student sample (n=182,evenly distributed by gender) disapproved of thetraditional form of 'arranged' marriage, and the high'disapproval' rate was attributed to factors such asmodernization, industrialization, education and thebreakdown of the joint family system. A similar studyconducted almost two decades later by Chandak &Sprecher (1992) found that in a survey sample of 66respondents (n=66, 48 women and 18 men) over halfapproved of traditional system. This study, conducted twodecades after the Rao & Rao (1975) study, points to areversal in the modernization trend. It has an unevenlydistributed sample with three times more women, but thatis left unexplored and unexplained.

At the same time, studies on marital adjustment andsatisfaction display some consistent results. SociologistPromilla Kapur's (1970) socio-psychological surveyentitled. Marriage and the Working Woman in India,investigated marital adjustment among Indian urbanworking women (n=300), and concluded that women inself-arranged marriages did not adjust better or worse thanthose in arranged marriages. Kapur's study remains themost descriptive document available as she used acombination of qualitative and quantitative data inpresenting her conclusions. However, her qualitative datais merely used to support her findings, and is not analyzedper se. Moreover, Kapur's study, though seminal, is nowover three decades old. A more recent study by Dhyani &Kumar (1992) also examined the relationship betweentype of marriage, marital duration, sexual satisfaction, andadjustment (n=240, urban women married for at least oneyear). They found that type of marriage and maritalduration had no significant relationship with maritaladjustment. In sum, while these studies offer valuable

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insights into the socio-psychological processes that factorinto an arranged marriage, less attention has been given towomen's contextual experiences in these marriages.

This paper contributes to contextual research aboutfamily experiences of contemporary Indian women inHindu arranged marriages. In examining narratives ofresistance which emerged in my ethnographic life historystudy of 20 urban women in a South Delhi Punjabicommunity in India, 1 show how my participants accesseddifferent marital self-definitions, silence, and anembodied material resistance against the central figure ofthe mother-in-law in their marital homes. The significanceof this essay lies in its addition to literature on gender,marriage, and family in some crucial ways.

First and broadly, I provide discussions about ahighly understudied context in marriage and family life -the Hindu arranged marriage. The study answers Turner& West's (2006) recent and urgent call for expanding thecontexts of the study of family life in their new FamilyCommunication Sourcebook, Much family research hasassumed that family communication issues are similaracross groups thereby overlooking unique issues, andglazing over religious contexts (Galvin, 2004). This studyundoubtedly expands the context of family research,alongside it unravels the intricacies of Hindu marriagesarranged by kin. For instance, the notion of women self-defining marriage within arranged marriagesproblematizes the idea of arranged marriages as astructural continuity in this community. In redefining theirmarriages, these women dislocate as well as reinventcommon perceptions about such family systems.

More specifically, this study is significant because italso dislocates the notion of family confiict which has forthe last thirty years focused upon spousal, parent-child,and sibling conflict (see Roloff & Miller (2006) for anoverview of family confiict research). Even thoughmother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships havebeen studied, confiict between these family members isgenerally used to predict low or high marital satisfaction(see Bryant, Conger, & Meehan, 2001; Turner, Young, &Black, 2006). My study, however, shows how suchconflicts are a product of the structural/historical contextand are fundamental to understanding women'sexperiences and marital interactions in these contexts.Moreover, in showing conflict and resistance assymbiotically linked, this essay moves us beyond a studyof family confiict styles (such as avoidance andengagement) and power into addressing resistance as ameans to live 'with' the conflict or to help bring out a'new' resolution. Finally, this resistance is framed asdiscursive thereby contributing to Third World feministsensibilities that privilege the local means/actions/practices un/consciously employed by women to cope intheir daily lives.

In the following sections, 1 highlight the history ofHindu marriage and structure of the Hindu family beforeproceeding to describe my fieldwork which took place inDelhi, India. Following this, 1 explore in-depth two formsof resistance that emerged in the stories narrated to me in

the field. I conclude my essay with a discussion abouthow my study merges with contemporary transnationalconversation/s about the problematics of interpreting andrepresenting resistance.

Hindu Marriage in History

The Hindu arranged marriage and family are a case inpoint for looking at the family as ideology and a site inwhich power relations are structured and distributed inconstraining ways. Historically, all Hindu marriages werepremised upon similarity of social standing, which oftenincluded the caste, class, religion, and education of theprospective couple. Despite forces of modernization,urbanization, and liberalization, the number of arrangedmarriages in India far outnumbers 'love' or 'self-arranged' marriages (Chawla 2004; Bumiller, 1990). Inthis section, I rely on historical literature, to explore theroots of the Hindu marriage. Further, 1 describe the basicconstruction of the Hindu family to explain the context inwhich the narratives in my study emerged.

In a simple understanding, arranged marriages amongHindus were marriages generally organized by parentsand elderly kin (Sur, 1973). In earlier times,intermediaries called sambhalas, or traditionalmatchmakers, were employed to keep the genealogicalhistory of each family, and ensure that the bride andgroom were not related from five to seven generations(Sur, 1973). In more recent times, these criteria havestretched. For example, Mullatti (1995) outlines sevencriteria that are currently followed by matchmakers: kin;parents and relatives; caste; social structure; moral valuecompatibility; academic compatibility; occupationalcompatibility; the family's moral history; and horoscopecompatibility (though not necessarily in this order). In thepast two decades, parents have begun seeking matches fortheir children through matrimonial columns innewspapers, magazines, and now even via intemet(Mullatti, 1995; see also "Rearranging Marriage" in theweekly magazine India Today, 2004). The criteria, rules,and other norms for arranging Hindu marriages differfrom region to region within India. So, for instance, inurban areas such as Delhi, young men and women havebegun meeting via intemet matrimonial websites. Thesesites match people using some of the basic criteriaexplored above. However, it is important to note thatthese are not dating websites, and parents/kin have a sayin the meetings that occur through these mechanisms. Asany social phenomenon, Hindu marriage has evolved overtime and it is important to examine its socio-historicconstruction to comprehend the distribution of power inthe home.

Hindu marriage is said to be derived from lawsinterpreted in the Dharmashastras which in tum havetheir roots in the 3000-year-old hyms called Vedas andSmritis. The Vedas and the Smritis are considered theoldest surviving documents from the Vedic and Epic age(what are considered the first recorded periods of Indiancivilization from 4000B.C. - 1200 A.D; see Kapadia,

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1958; Shattuck, 1999; Lipner, 1994; Zysk, 1989). Thesetexts tell us that Hindu marriage dates as far back as 4000B.C'. Written by holy men of the time period, thesescriptures (as are scriptures across most religions) are acollection of rules and conducts for society at the time(Zysk, 1989).

A general theme across these scriptures was thatmarriage was a duty and a religious sacrament that wasrequired of all human beings for the well being of thecommunity. Through different periods of Indian history,these texts underwent various interpretations. Allpredominant interpretations (which were male until veryrecently) outlined four main aims of life for Hindus(tailored for men). These were: dharma, artha, kama andmoksha (Kapadia, 1958; Lipner, 1994). Kama representedthe instinctive, and was connected with satisfying theemotional, sexual, and aesthetic urges of man. Arthareferred to the acquisitive instinct, and signified man'senjoyment of wealth. Dharma was of primary concembecause it aimed to balance the instinctive andacquisitive. Dharma was achieved by gaining theknowledge that artha and kama were means, not ends.Dharma represented the harmony between "temporalinterests and spiritual freedom" and is a key element inHindu life (Kapadia, 1958, p.27). Moksha represented theend of life and the realization of an inner spirituality inman.

The four aims of life were to be accomplished byconducting life in four stages which were bhramacharya, grahastha, vanaspratha and samnyasa.The second stage, grahastha, dealt with marriage andincluded the goals of dharma, progeny, and sex. Eventhough marriage was required of all Hindus, itsadvantages were enjoyed by men, who benefited bothspiritually and economically (Mukherjee, 1978). Menwere spiritual beneficiaries because they married in orderto beget sons who would light their funeral pyre. Inancient Hindu philosophy, having one's pyre lit by a sonensures the male line a place in heaven, and moreimportantly rebirth in the next life as a human being (saidto liberate future generations of the family). A male heirwas also an economic necessity - he was desired becausehe alone could continue the family line and inheritancestral property (see footnote 2 for the revised laws onproperty). Therefore, historically, the Hindu marriagewas, according to Mukherjee (1978), 'male-emphasized.'In fact, the word 'wife' was often used interchangeablywith 'household' (see also Shastri, 1969). In fact, theSanskrit word for marriage - vivaha - translates intoprocuring/abducting a maiden from the house of herfather to the house of her husband.

This objectified and prescribed role for women canbe more contextually understood by looking at the formsof Hindu marriage. Marriage was divided into eightforms, those that were 'righteous' {dharma or acceptable),and those that were 'non-righteous' {adharma orunacceptable; Mukherjee, 1978). Of these eight, the firstfour forms of marriage were considered righteous. Thesewere - brahma, prajapatya, arsa, daiva. Even though

they differed in degree, these four forms were organizedby the bride and groom's father and paid for by thebride's family. The bride's family received a negotiated'bride-price' from the groom's parents, but her personalwealth or stridhana (a material bridal gift given to her byher parents at the time of marriage) was inherited by thegrooms' family. With the material bounty shared byparents from each side, the bride was ultimately lefteconomically impoverished and at the mercy of her in-lawfamily. These four righteous forms of marriage, beneficialto the male line, evolved into what we consider to beHindu 'arranged marriages.'

When kin and family were not involved in maritalnegotiations, and marriages were self-arranged by thebride and groom, they were considered non-righteous(adharma). These forms - gandharva, asura, rakshasa,paisaca - were considered 'female-emphasized' due toeconomic, social, and spiritual reasons. First, at the levelof status, the marriage was not arranged by kin, and thusfrowned upon. Second, on the economic level, the brideand her family benefited from the union because the bridekept her stridhana, her parents did not bear the economicburden of the marriage, and the bride had independentresources because it was she, and not her parents whoreceived the 'bride-price.' It has been speculated thatthese forms of marriage not arranged by kin came to belater called, 'love marriages' (I have used the terms love-marriage and self-arranged marriage to mean the samething in this essay). Finally, on the spiritual level, whilethe first four righteous forms of marriage (also male-emphasized) were supposed to spiritually liberate futuregenerations of the groom's family, the next four did notdo so (Mukherjee, 1978).

Structurally, these eight forms of marriages havenumerous implications. First, they clearly show thatmarriage was organized around inheritance and there wasa need to protect sons. Second, because marital formswere given value, women within each form began to betreated accordingly. Women in the righteous (arranged)forms of marriage were treated with more respect thanwomen in the non-righteous (self-arranged) forms(Mukherjee, 1978). The Hindu woman who had neverbeen attributed much status and authority in the scriptureseventually experienced a more devalued status in the non-righteous form of marriage mainly because she was heldresponsible for having drained the family of economicresources (ironically, she was not responsible becauseproperty laws favored men, her husband would eventuallyinherit her wealth). At the same time, in the righteousforms of marriage, the women did not have any economicstatus at all. Men, on the other hand, were the clearbeneficiaries of both forms of marriage, spiritually as wellas economically^. Therefore, on every level, men's rolesand treatment in the family were advantaged. To betterunderstand this, I tum now to the previously mentionedsociological literature to explore roles, authority, and theintemal relational stmcture of a Hindu family.

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The Hindu Familv: Structure and Power

In his study. Urbanization and Family Change, Gore(1968) tells us that an ideal Hindu family in contemporaryIndia consists of a man and wife, their adult sons, theirwives and children, and younger children of the parentalcouple (see also Sharma, 1997). A 'joint family' isgenerally a multiplicity of genealogically related nuclearfamilies living under the same roof, sharing in worship,food, and property. It has been described as a group ofadult male coparceners and their dependents - thedependents being wives and children (Gore, 1968; Ross,1961). A coparcener is a joint heir. For instance, if afather has two sons and one daughter, the sons would beconsidered joint heirs; but, a daughter would not inheritproperty. According to Hindu Law, an adult male and hissons were coparceners in ancestral property (Gore, 1968;see also footnote 2).

Hindu women were not entitled to any property rightsuntil 1956, and therefore were economically dependent ontheir fathers, husbands, and later on their sons if they werelucky to have male progeny (Gore, 1968; Kapur, 1970).With the amendment of Hindu property laws in 1956allowing for female inheritance, and given increasedlevels of women entering the workforce 'by choice' in thelatter half of the 20* century, there has been tremendouschange in gendered roles within families (Gore, 1968;Indian National Commission Report for Women, 2001;Kapadia, 1958; Kapur, 1970). Further, in the 1980s and1990s, the liberalization of developing world economiescreated new jobs for women throughout the world,including India (Indian National Commission Report forWomen). In particular, the last two decades saw anupsurge of women in the both the urban and rural workforces. Of the 314 million Indians currently in the workforce, 89 million are women (Indian NationalCommission Report for Women, 2001). Despite thepromise and arrival of economic independence andchanges in property laws many urban Hindu womencontinue to accept and choose arranged marriages. Itwould seem that the breakdown of economic disparitieswould lead to an increase in 'self-arranged' or 'love'marriages; yet that has not been the case (Bumiller, 1990).Speculatively, this can be attributed to the structuralcontinuity of Hindu family life.

Historically, the structure of the Hindu family(traditionally a joint family'') contributed to an overalldisadvantaged status of women. Formal authority wasalways centered on the oldest male and therebyhierarchically bound by age making it a 'verticallyextended family.' This hierarchy occurred on manylevels. Women were (and are) expected to move into anew family which consisted of men who are all related byblood. Therefore, women were always outsiders becausethey did not share any biology with their new legalfamily. Their status was somewhat elevated if they gavebirth to a son because doing so ensured their economicstatus in the family. Once a son was bom, a woman wouldfeel more included in the family because she had been

instrumental in producing an heir who would providespiritual continuity to the family and economic stability toherself In the event a male-child was not bom, a newwife could be brought in (this changed with the HinduDivorce Bill in 1952 and women achieving a right toproperty in 1956; see Derrett,1976; Kapadia, 1958;Uberoi, 1993, 1996; see footnote 2).

Once married, the 'conjugal relationship' betweencouples was discouraged from becoming too romanticizedand strong because the emphasis was on the socio-economic welfare of the family. This, according to Gore(1968), was a major cause of the degradation of women'sstatus in the family, which in turn was supported bydenial of property rights to women and by women'sinability to achieve economic independence. In fact, roleand authority segregation of men and women wasessential to the well-being of a joint Hindu family. Thegoal was the economic well-being of the family and thediscouragement of individualism.

What we have here is robust asymmetry. If one wereto look at this social field in terms of power distributionand power relations, we can see that there are twoconcentric circles of power in the household, distributedrelationally. The outer, more powerful circle is the circleof male relatives who are biologically and economicallybound, and so obligated to each other. The second circleof power is the inner-circle which consists of women whoare not biologically related, have negligible economicrights, and thus have few obligations to each other. Theyfind themselves thrown into the inner-circle with little orno say in the goings-on of the outer circle. They are awarethat they are largely an instrument of procreation in theHindu marriage system. By being relegated to the 'inside'their only connection to the outside is their husband onwhom they have little influence. As a result, power andresistance as they experience it is 'bound' within astructural framework, specifically the inner-circle.

Such an understanding of the power dynamics in thehome became more and more relevant to my study as Ibegan to access the life-histories of women from onecommunity in South Delhi. In the following section, 1discuss the field practices that enabled these narratives. 1describe, in fair detail, the multiple methodological toolswhich allowed me to interpret my participants'experiences.

Research Practices

My fieldwork was conducted in New Delhi, Indiawhere I traveled a few years ago to participate in anethnographic life history study of urban Indian womeninvolved in arranged marriages. My research practicesbroadly centered around an ethnographic interviewingframework because such approaches are especiallysensitive to context, dynamic processes, and subjectiveperspectives (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Patton, 2000;Strauss & Corbin, 1998). They allow us to understand andarticulate experiences that are inaccessible fromobservation and survey methods (Denzin & Lincoln,

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2005). Qualitative ethnographic research necessarilypositions the researcher as a part of the research processin various roles such as interviewer, observer, co-participant, participant, and the researcher is often knownas a bricoleur (Agar, 1996; Briggs, 1986; Denzin &Lincoln, 2005). In this study, I wore the garb of thebricoleur because 1 used a variety of tools, methodologiesand strategies to explore the experiences of myparticipants. 1 developed a set of research practices thatformally involved interviewing and participantobservation. While these were 'methods' that 1 had 'set'in advance, an 'informal,' yet significant methodologicaltool was my own evolving subjectivity that re/shaped theresearch process and become a necessary lens in myinterpretations and observations.

1 am both native and other to Delhi and a member ofthe Punjabi community to which my participantsbelonged. I was bom and raised in India, thus my status inthe study can be considered that of an insider. However,since I have been away from home/my field for eightyears, I was also a literal outsider. On the other hand, Iwas a 'partial insider' since I grew up surrounded insimilar histories and marital narratives (Chawla 2003).Yet, 1 was on the outside as I have chosen to by-pass thisform of marital arrangement. My positional displacementsremain deeply intertwined with my interpretations andrepresentations for the study as a whole (see Chawla2003). A reflection about my own subjectivitiesthroughout the research process was a set of practices thatwere integral to my interpretations and laterrepresentations. Even though these quandaries are not aprimary focus of this essay, they emerge in my writing asI engage with my interpretations of resistance in thenarratives.

The formal research practices I employed were acombination of retrospective life-history interviewing andethnography. My participants included 20, urban, workingand non-working, middle-class women from the Punjabicommunity in South Delhi. They ranged in age from 27-44, and were married in the early 80s, 90s and 2000s''. Iaccessed the groups using a word of mouth and'snowball' strategy. A majority of the women werereferred to me by families in the community where Ireside in Delhi, and all were previously unknown to me.Their occupations ranged from homemaker to corporateexecutives, medical doctors, teachers, special educationcounselors, a sexual activist, journalists, day care workersand private entrepreneurs. All participants had undergonesame-caste arranged marriages, thus discussions aboutcaste conflict did not emerge in the narratives. By limitingmy participants to urban, Punjabi, middle class, workingand non-working women in one community in SouthDelhi, I 'bound' my participant group so that 1 was able toseek 'saturation' (Bertaux, 1981). It follows then, that thenarratives presented in this essay are not representative ofthe experiences of 'all' Hindu women in arrangedmarriages, and therefore cannot be universalized torepresent an essential picture of a married Indian womanor victim (see Hegde, 1996; Mohanty, 1988). Thus the

discussion provided here is one set of interpretationsabout my participants, and must be understood withinthose boundaries. These narratives may be read as casesamong cases of marital experiences that have the potentialto evoke moments of similarity and difference withwomen in other contexts.

My interviews were audio-taped and conductedpredominantly in English, but when my participantsslipped into Hindi (the most commonly spoken northIndian language as well as the national language, which 1also speak), it was easy for me to translate. Specifically,the interview protocol included 25 broad, open-ended andconversational questions that were chronologicallywritten (see Chawla, 2004). 1 conducted the interviews insites chosen by the participants. In addition, 1 spent a fewdays immersed in each woman's life. Such immersioninvolved participating in the everyday activities of thewoman 1 was interviewing. This could involve a varietyof tasks such as traveling with some women to pick uptheir children from school, talking with them aboutparenting teenage children, eating dinner with theirfamilies, going shopping with them if they asked me to,and sometimes even talking with their mother-in-laws andother extended family members while 1 waited for them.Every night I wrote field notes about each woman'sactivities and daily life. These notes along with the audio-taped 'formal' interview enabled broader access toexperiences.

The formal interview sites were usually necessitatedby the emotional status of my participants, and somewomen specifically chose 'external' sites (not home) forthe main interview events. 1 interviewed Anita in a hotellobby because she wanted to narrate her story away fromthe extended family household, which in her caseincluded about 15 members. Geeta chose to beinterviewed in her offices. As most of these women livedin joint or semi-joint families, they asked me to interviewthem during times when their homes were empty of theextended family unit. Radhika asked me to come by herhome for the interview in the early evenings when most ofthe family members were away.

Therefore, for some women, choosing to do theinterview was an act of resistance because they riskedincurring their extended family's disapproval or wrath.The very act of 'speaking' and voicing the 'unsaid' isoften been considered a form of resistance especiallyamong populations and peoples that are disenfranchised,colonized, and marginalized (Geiger, 1986; Gluck &Patai, 1991; Riessman, 1993; Romero & Stewart, 1999).So, on a meta-level the life-histories shared with me canbe considered 'resistances' in the very act of being'narrated.'

My interviews followed the format of 'life-history'narratives, an approach to interviewing women that isincreasingly being discussed by feminist researchers andanthropologists as, "a feminist method for the broader anddeeper understanding of women's consciousness,historically and in the present" (Geiger, 1986, p. 35; seealso Gluck & Patai, 1991; Menon & Bhasin, 1998;

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Personal Narratives Group, 1989). This approach tointerviewing facilitates detailed descriptions andnarratives about individual life experiences and enablesboth individual and group analysis (Bengston & Allen,1993). A unique characteristic of this practice lies in itsforegrounding of the experiences and requirements ofindividuals. In other words, the focus is on how theindividual copes with society rather than how societycopes with groups of individuals, particularly women(Geiger, 1986; Menon & Bhasin, 1998).

In the study of women's lives, life-histories areconsidered exceptional resources because they allowaccess to, "women's lives at different points in their lifecycles in specific cultural and historical settings" (Geiger,1986, p. 338). Life-histories "illuminate the course of alife over time and allow for its interpretation in itshistorical and cultural context" (Personal NarrativesGroup, 1989, p. 4). Giving form to a life, or a portion ofit, requires looking into the meaning of individual andsocial dynamics that may have been most significant inshaping a life. In the stories they told me, my participantspresented me with ways and forms in which they werenegotiating their filial and marital relationships.

Emergent in these life-histories were forms ofresistances against filial structures that my participantswere narratively negotiating as they talked. Two of these- Marital Self-Definitions and Addressing the Mother-in-law - were interpreted by me inductively as a result of alayered thematic analysis of my field notes andtranscripts. The first form of resistance - Marital Self-Definitions - was intertwined with a traditionalunderstanding of the Hindu marriage. 1 discuss it in thefollowing section relying primarily upon the words of myparticipants.

Marital Self-Dermitions: Comfort, Playing Wife,Romance

Comfort, Play, and Romance are certainly not wordsthat one associates with arranged marriages (Nussbaum,2000). Rather, for non-Indians and indeed many youngIndians, the arranged marriage invokes ideas ofimposition and constraint. On my own end, at the start ofmy fieldwork, 1 broadly explored two understandings ofmarriage - those that were self-arranged (love) by thebride and the groom, and those that were family-arranged.My interview protocol included questions that asked myparticipants to describe how they were experiencing theirmarriages. I encouraged them to remember pre-maritaldays, specifically the period preceding their marriagebecause I wanted to get a sense of their life before theywere married (Chawla, 2004).

In recollecting these experiences, my participantsarticulated an understanding of marriage that was rootedneither in arranged or self-arranged marriages. I foundthat all of them had defined marriage for themselves byouthning for their parents, distinct criteria for a groom.Each woman had agreed to have an arranged marriage,and was aware of the reality she would enter - a marital

system which necessarily located her as an outsider in theinterior circle of home-life. Despite this, each woman hadput conditions to her consent to the arranged marriage.

As an interpreter, 1 experienced the process of self-defining marriage as a form of resistance, albeit a localand everyday one. That is, even though these womenwere aware that 'taking charge' of their marital life wasrestricted, by outlining criteria for a husband they weretransforming this constrained reality. This, in my view,was agentic, and therefore a resistant act. By definingmarriage as Comfort, by placing themselves in the role ofPlaying Wife, and by associating marriage with Romance,my participants had reframed their view of theirmarriages, and their roles within it.

Comfort and Playing Wife emerged at a point in myprotocol when I urged my participants to describe if theyhad envisioned any criteria for a husband before theirmarriages. Interestingly, yet not surprisingly, materialwealth, good jobs, and higher education emerged asprerequisites for their future husbands. Each womanexpressed a desire to be comfortable. In fact, I have usedtheir own words Comfort and Playing Wife - becausethese were semantic and symbolic redundancies in thetranscripts and my field experiences.

My own response to these desires is importantbecause it sheds light on the process of interpretation andmy own engagement with the stories. 1 experiencedannoyance when my participants listed overt 'material'demands. This emotional response was rooted in my ownsubjectivity and, perhaps. Western trained academicstatus. As a researcher from India who is now situated inthe West, a middle-class Indian women who iseconomically independent, and woman who has by-passed such a form of marriage, these criteria seemed toomanipulative. I became reacquainted with my outsiderstatus in the study. I began by acknowledging my anger,knowing that while I could not move into my participants'frames, I had to examine the locations from which theywere speaking. Belonging to a similar community, 1wondered why some of these women were uninterested inbecoming financially independent on their own.Geographic distance from the field upon the completionof my field work and a temporal distance from thenarratives, accorded me time and space to reflect uponand re-frame my annoyance.

A shift occurred in my own interpretations because Ibegan to perceive Comfort as not a shying away fromwork, but as a striving to own a marital story. Myparticipants were using the need for Comfort to redefinethe meaning of marriage from 'work' to 'play.'Incidently, marriage and family as 'work' is a cross-cultural concept that has been explored elsewhere amongdifferent people and societies (see Bateson, 1990; Gluck& Patai, 1991; Lorber, 1994; Risman, 1998; Williams,2000).

So, for instance, Jhumpa', a 28 year old journalisttold me that she had insisted on marrying someone with aprofessional degree. Expanding this further, she claimedthat in her profession there were very few men in her age

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range who eamed handsome salaries. Given this, throughher parents, she chose a man who was her age, but in ahigher position in the corporate world. His salary wouldallow her to live in the manner to which she wasaccustomed in her natal home. Other women told similarstories:

1 wanted to marry someone from a goodbackground. It did not matter whether the familywas very wealthy or not, but the guy should havea good education and should be holding a goodpost. (Jhumpa)

1 wanted a comfortable house, a room of myown, you know? And I mean if 1 am cookingthen 1 should not be the only one cooking. Workin the moming and cook in the evening thenback to office, back to cooking, back to cleaning- that was not something that I could have done.So, I expected all these things when 1 married.(Geeta)

If someone used to ask me what kind of a boy Iwanted, I would say, "Someone who had a nicekitchen, who had a good bathroom, who wassmart and handsome." My husband's salary didmatter to me. It had to be good, so that 1 couldhave a luxurious and comfortable life. And hehad to be educated this was my firstpreference. Education is very important. Ithought even if he lost his job, if he has goodqualifications, he could always look forsomething. That is what I liked about myhusband - he had studied in a very good instituteand his salary was also very good at that time.(Meena)

Jhumpa, Geeta, and Meena negotiated the terms andconditions of the matchmaking to make sure that theywould not find themselves in 'discomfort' and thisbargaining occurred much before their marriages. Havingsucceeded in this negotiation with their parents, theyperformed their marital stories as women who werePlaying Wife because bargaining out of the workelements of marriage made wifely chores seem moreplayful. Through this narrative maneuver they wereshowing me how they had skipped themselvesperceptively (and literally) out of the structural constraintsof marriage. Defining Comfort as a condition to marriage'bought' them out of the role of the being the traditional'householder' - a structural reality in the Hindu marriage.

Playing Wife as play state was keenly evident in 30year old Radhika's story. A practicing anesthesiologist,upon marriage Radhika had quit professional work forsome time because her husband's medical education wasin process in another town. Radhika laughingly describedthose times:

He had long hours of working, but I just lovedbeing the housewife. Generally, you know? 1picked up a lot of cooking and I used to try outmy cooking on him.

Similarly, Jhumpa explored her own 'wifely' role inamusement:

1 had a very good time in Chennai. 1 had acookbook and all and 1 used to, (I was notworking at the time), experiment in the kitchenand stuff like that. I used to play housewife. Iused to go out and buy potatoes and things likethat. There was also help at home - a cook and aperson who could also chop vegetables.

Comfort and Playing Wife were intertwined asresistance because requiring Comfort allowed myparticipants to re-name their wifely status as playful. Inshort. Comfort allowed my participants to play wife.Comfort was a desired permanent state, and Playing Wifea temporary state occasioned by Comfort.

Additionally, Comfort and Playing wife wereintertwined with defining marriage as Romance. Romancewas a particularly intriguing way to define marriage,especially since Hindu marriages have almost negligibleassociations with romantic emotions*. Historically, therewere eight forms of Hindu marriage of which four thatwere considered dharma or holy were necessarilyarranged by kin; the other four, considered unholy wereself-arranged by the bride and groom and involved love,elopement, and abduction. It is speculated that what hasevolved into the arranged marriage are the four types of'holy' unions negotiated by family (Kapur, 1970; Sastri,1972, 1974).

Contemporary writings and studies have reinforcedthe non-romantic nature of these marriages. For instance,Bumiller (1990) explains that for middle-classcontemporary Indian women 'falling' in love is a conceptentertained by teenagers and Hindi romance films.Echoing this understanding in Women and HumanDevelopment: A Capabilities Approach, MarthaNussbaum (2000) writes that marriages are more of anorm in middle-class India and that "love is potentiallyunderstood as a threat to rather than a goal of marriage"(p. 259). While a majority of women in the contemporaryWest are socialized with the idea that the meaning of theirlife is to be found primarily in a relationship of romanticlove, such a goal is uncommon among Indian women.Nussbaum writes that, "even though marriage is prized,its raison d'etre is not taken to be romance" (p. 259). Infact, closely aligned with historical understandings ofHindu marriage, middle-class India defines love ascommitment and devotion to family.

However, my participants repeatedly expressed adesire for romance. This longing was well illustrated inthe descriptions of their 'first meetings' with theirhusbands. Within the middle class Punjabi community, a'first meeting,' in general, involves a meeting between

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two sets of parents and the potential bride and groom in apublic area such as a restaurant, country club, or acommon fi-iend's home. This meeting is not a 'date'between prospective bride and groom rather, it is the firsttime the two families meet each other.

Given the significance of the 'first meeting' as apunctuated event in one's life-cycle, it was notunsurprising that all my participants recollected it with anintimacy of detail. These details were embellished byromantic overtones suggesting that they were re-storyingthis meeting for their own as well as my benefit. Owing tothe obvious asymmetry of our positions, I have wonderedif this romantic detail was exaggerated. 1 am left feelingthat these detailed descriptions functioned as resistanceagainst their own stories and my own outsider status. Thisspeculation notwithstanding, romance remained a keyelement in all stories. Geeta described the first meeting incuriously romantic detail:

So, I went to this Avon office (my sister-in-law)works there, and I entered the office and therewas this sweet little thing I saw and she was sosweet to us. It was apparent to me that she is avery nice person. I really fell in love with thegirl, so the next day when the brother walked in.It's unbelievable even after three years that itwas "love at first sight." I peeped from thewindow for something and they were walking inand my nephew came in and said, "My God, heis so good-looking." I said, "Shut up, your expertcomments are not required." I saw my husbandand I was like completely floored. He's not verygood-looking, but he has a very honest face.He's got big and beautiful eyes. So 1 think I wascompletely head over heels in love with him. Icould see that. So, I tried not to show it.

Geeta's story re-narrativized a family-arranged eventinto a romantic event, by re-plotting the 'first meeting'story into a 'love at first sight story.' Such shifts wereexpressed in various ways in other narratives. Thirty-seven-year old Reema's entire marital narrative wascentered on romance. She explored this by describing tome what was important to her in a husband:

See first time you see only physically. You wanta loving, caring and smart boy. Mainly, heshould be caring, he should listen to you, and heshould be loving. He should understand you. Itused to feel good that not only will I have somany clothes to wear and jewelry, but that wewill go out and there will be someone to love meand care for me.

Reema recalled with fondness the one month ofcourtship preceding her marriage. Her memories weremostly of romantic moments shared with her fiance. Astheir marriage progressed, this romance diminished

because her husband was too loyal to his mother wholived with them. Describing this tug and pull, Reema said:

Oh, that was very bad. Then you see theseactions (him siding with his mother) and youcan't love the person. And the wife's thing is thatshe wants him to be hers alone and nobodyshould share your husband. That he should belistening to you alone.

This strain took a toll on Reema's marriage, but she andher husband were trying to salvage it by taking onevacation every year as a couple:

We go out every year on our anniversary. Wedon't take our kids. We go out and that is a goodchange and we can discuss all our problems. Youhave all the time. It gives you a break from workand household tensions. You can discussproblems and say what things should not happen.Like I tell him, 'you should not scold me, youshould not say this in front of everybody.'

Romance in Reema's story migrated from a longing, to aloss, and then a replenishment. It remained centrifugaland intricately linked with her experience and definitionof her marriage.

I believe Romance provided my participants with'altemative' understandings of the arranged marriage byhelping them cope with structural controls and, in somecases, an interfering mother-in-law who invariablyemerged as a pivotal character in all the maritalnarratives. So much so that in addressing her as a site ofconfiict my participants perfonned what 1 haveinterpreted as the second form of narrative resistance -Addressing the Mother-in-law.

Addressing the Mother-in-Law: Material EmbodiedResistance and Silence

As explored in the previous section, Reema's desirefor Romance in her marriage was curtailed because ofinterference from her mother-in-law. Seventeen of mytwenty participants emphasized the mother-in-law'spersisting presence in their marital lives. They placed heras a focal point in the interior world, and positioned her asthe first power-authority figure that they encounteredupon marriage. The first signs of marital conflictoriginated in their interactions with this figure.Addressing the Mother-in-Law as a confiict figure was aform of narrative resistance which my participantsenacted via the strategies of Silence and MaterialEmbodied Resistance.

Twenty-nine-year-old Anita's narrative well capturedthis strain. Anita was married into a traditional jointfamily comprising 15 members. From the very beginning,Anita's parents-in-law had disapproved of her preferencefor wearing westem clothes. While her mother-in-law

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never verbalized her disapproval, Anita sensed it in hersilence:

She doesn't say anything, but you can make out.Because my mom-in-law is like that, no? Shedoesn't say anything. 1 don't know sometimes Ifeel that she doesn't say anything, because 1 feelthat she knows that I will not take any nonsense.That's why she doesn't speak up. But, it's okaybecause I don't like to cross her. If 1 cross her Icross him (husband) and I don't want to do that.Because his whole happiness is connected withthe parents. If 1 keep his parents happy he is veryhappy, you know?

In the preceding exchange, Anita illustrated theimportance of her mother-in-law's presence in hermarriage. As the interview progressed this relationshipbegan to take more narrative space than Anita's ownmarital relationship.

A similar experience was related by Reema whorecollected multiple episodes about her mother-in-law'sinterference in her daily life. For Reema, the troublesseemed to be rooted in the early years of her marriage,which was now 15 years old:

Maybe because my husband is the only son(male) as my father-in-law expired very early.My mother-in-law must have been very attachedto him or something. Then after the marriage thehusband looks after more about the wife, that isthere among newly weds anyway. So she mustbe feeling left out. Maybe the problem startedthat way.

Describing her verbal altercations with her mother-in-law,Reema implied that the arguments were associated withpower struggles in the home:

There are many. It's always a little thing, of noconsequence. The fight starts about justanything. If 1 reply back then it becomes big.Then she says, "She doesn't listen to anyone, shedoesn't agree with anything." Then they call up(my parents) and say, "She replied back and shedid this." So they (my parents) would say, "Wewill make her understand, we can take her homefor a while." Even now it's still there, but veryless. 1 keep myself very busy. Now 1 don'tinvolve in these things. I make it a point to goout, have my kitty parties, and all that. OtherwiseI go to the Avon store. I do this to make myselfbusy even though there is not much money in it.You don't have any eaming, but it keeps youvery occupied.

Reema's mother-in-law was a discipliner in the home, andif Reema 'behaved badly' her 'misdeeds' were reported toher parents. Whether the conflict was verbal or non-verbal

there was a sense of foreboding about this matriarchalpresence. While some participants, like Reema, hadcarved spaces for themselves - by working part time andkeeping busy - others remained bitter about theircontinuing struggles with this figure.

This bittemess shadowed Supama's story. She wasmarried to her husband for spiritual reasons. Her mother'sspiritual guru had suggested a match with a man who wasone social class lower than Supama's natal family, butbelonged to the Punjabi community. Blindly believing thespiritual consul, Supama's mother hastily arranged themarriage not worrying that her daughter wasunaccustomed to working in the home. Supama's mother-in-law, on the other hand, expected her to manage thehousehold. Describing her ineptness about such work,Supama related early altercations with her mother-in-law:

My mother-in-law would say: "Why don't youwork in the kitchen? Did your parents not seeinitially that we don't have a servant?" Did theynot prepare you for this? 1 would get up at eightand 1 would have those scary eyes looking at me.The whole family focused upon me. 1 had to getup early in the moming. Like they would get upat five, so I was expected to do the same. Thingslike that, you know? Keep working. My husbandwould not say anything, and ours was not a verypleasant relationship. We used to have a lot offights because of my in-laws. That is because hewould not accept his parents' mistakes.

Supama's argued with her mother-in-law over chores,space, and even her husband's attention. Eventually, thisled to a property split in the family, leading to the literalemergence of two spatial units as they each moved intodifferent family homes. Despite this, even now themother-in-law would live with them for a part of the year.As our interview concluded, Supama's narrativecontinued to be liberally peppered with more bitter detailsabout her mother-in-law's behavior towards her.

Anita's, Reema's, and Supama's experiencesillustrate that the mother-in-law functioned as a site ofconflict and as a conduit to the rest of the family. Theability to 'address' her with much directness is akin toresistance. However, this was merely the first step in amore multi-layered form of resistance. In their stories, myparticipants addressed and then isolated the strategies ofMaterial Embodied Resistance and Silence to show howthey countered her presence, and in so doing displaced therelational symmetry in the home.

Material Embodied Resistance

In my interpretation. Material Embodied Resistanceimplies a reliance on extemal objects to performresistance. In my participants' narratives these involvedclothes and food. Anita had been discouraged fromwearing westem clothes such as jeans, skirts or dresses.She was encouraged to wear the North Indian traditional

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dress, such as a sari or the salwar kameez. On occasion,she would slip outside unnoticed in her jeans - an overtrebellion that was unfortunately discovered by her father-in-law who then complained to her mother-in-law and herhusband. Revealing her response to this episode, Anitaforcefully told me:

I didn't say anything, but 1 told my husband,look 1 am married to you, I'm not married tothem. I will wear what 1 want, what I like. Hesaid, "Okay agreed." He was agreeable to that.That a human being should be able to wearclothes of their choice.

By asserting her right to clothing of her choice, Anita wasresisting her husband's family. Even though thisresistance is truncated, and may seem a small victory, itwas integral to Anita's narrative because she continued torevisit it all through the interview.

Later on, Anita spoke of other restrictions that hadbeen imposed upon her by her mother-in-law. In her natalhome, Anita enjoyed dining-out, and had looked forwardto this activity with her husband after she was married.But, after marriage she found out that she was required todine in with the extended family. Anita's response was tobegin a bodily rebellion against this norm by refusing toeat, thus losing weight, thereby making her husbandnotice her distress. She was able to negotiate new rulesfor dining-out by doing this. In this rebellion, she wasable to signal her priorities and emphasize to her husbandthat 'their' time was more important than family time.Describing the bodily rebellion, Anita said:

1 just kept losing weight. There was a time when1 was 38 kilograms (84 lbs) because I stoppedeating at home. One thing, I don't like eating athome, on top of it, it was a sort of rebellionwhich I was trying to show him (her husband)that 1 will not eat at all.

Resistance as a material act was also evident inMeena, a 27-year-old doctor's marital narrative. WhenMeena was married, she lived in a semi-joint familywhich included her in-laws, a sister-in-law, and herhusband. At the time of the interview, she was livingalone with her husband, but her in-laws lived with themfor part of the year. Meena's mother-in-law disapprovedof her wearing sleeveless blouses, which showed off herbare arms. For a while Meena had adhered to these rules,but later began wearing what she wanted in her home. Shehad, however, made some concessions:

My own father never stopped me from wearingany type of dresses, even without sleeves. Mymother-in-law had this thing in mind that girlsshouldn't wear, you know, jeans and sleeveless.Once I shifted to my own home, 1 startedwearing my normal clothes. 1 also love wearingshorts, but when they are here - to not make

them unhappy - I wear a nightgown over it.Initially when they asked me not to wear theseclothes, I asked my husband, "So what should Ido?" He said, "You wear whatever you want,don't worry, I'll talk to them." So this was a verysupportive of him. He could have said, "No, myparents don't like it, so you shouldn't wear it."But he was saying, "No 1 like it and you shouldwear what everyone is wearing nowadays."

There were two factors that influenced Meena'sresistance. The first was gaining support from herhusband, and the second was her decision to live awayfrom her in-laws. Therefore, while the first factor was aninteractional achievement, the second was a materialmove outside of the family home. While Anita did notmove away, she 'shifted' her 'body' to bring about achange. Both Anita and Meena consciously involved theirhusbands in their resistant acts. Ironically, it was conflictthat brought them closer to their husbands. Their storiescan be seen as 'victory tales' in which a protagonistencounters and names hurdles, takes the listener (us)through their struggles, and eventually achieves success.The other form of addressing the mother-in-law emergedthrough Silence.

Silence

Neeta's, a 44-year-old woman entrepreneur wasmarried into a joint family in which she was required tolive not only with a mother-in-law, but also agrandmother-in-law. Her personal history of herunmarried life was a source of conflict with her mother-in-law. As an unmarried woman, Neeta had been fussyabout whom she would marry. Word of this had reachedher husband's home. Her grandmother-in-law andmother-in-law were aware that she was 'outspoken,'because they knew that she had rejected many men beforeshe chose to marry their son. When Neeta began livingwith them after marriage they proceeded to discipline herby imposing rules which required her to cook, not answerback, and learn other household chores. Neeta followedthese rules in Silence:

I already knew that my reputation was that 'sheis very outspoken.' I did not want to do anythingthat would aggravate that. I did not know what todo. I was not happy, so I went home for a littlewhile. When I returned my grandmother-in-lawcame to stay with us and this became a majoradjustment point because she was very clever.She had heard that I was sharp, so from thebeginning she knew that if they don't keep mesuppressed then / will speak ouf (italics mine).The initial years were very difficult. 1 would crysometimes, in hiding.

For one year, Neeta spent her time in her new home inSilence. Ironically, this moved her closer to her husband

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thus shifting the focus of her relationship from the familyto her marriage. Neeta began helping her husband out inhis business, which was undergoing a rough patch. Duringall this time, she carried on working in the household andalso took over the reins of the business. Alongside, shecontinued her household work. Silence worked as herresistance in a twofold ways - it pushed her to learn towork inside as well as outside her home, all alongallowing her to create a closer marital relationship withher husband. Exploring this self and maritaltransformation, she told me:

I think after marriage for a few years I reallytried hard to be like a typical wife, be everythingthat was acceptable. I tried to be that. And later Iwas just trying to survive. You know, survive inthe sense that I had no time to think. I was busywith my house, my work, my children and 1 wastrying to run the whole show. Today I think Iwas trying to be a superwoman, but then thattime I was trying to be the best at whatever I wasdoing. My children had to be the best. In mywork whatever I could do, even at home I triedyou know that do all the work that I can do, youknow. 1 can wash clothes, I can cook food.

Along similar lines, 44-year-old Naina, an economicallyindependent corporate executive married into a jointfamily. Her mother-in-law too tried to discipline her.Unlike Neeta for whom Silence was imposed, Nainaaccessed Silence as a narrative strategy in dealing withthe mother-in-law.

Naina story focused on her self-transformations andshe began by telling me that she started in her marriage asa confident and fmancially independent woman.However, she soon began to be harassed by her husband'sfamily because they expected her to be a housekeeper. Atfirst, she had argued with them, and when this provedfutile she turned to her husband for support seeking helpfrom him against his family thus shifting the locus of herlife from family to her marriage. She handed over theconfiict to her husband and embraced Silence:

He took over and that was the only way I thinkwe saved our sanity because whenever I trieddoing things on my own it never used to work.His family used to outplay me completely, theyare much sharper, more politically minded, Ithink and more wiser. These silly games thatwomen can play. I think he latched on to the factthat 1 was cracking up. That's this was beyondme and I couldn't handle it and he told me, "Youmay be a communications expert, but you don'tknow how to communicate with this clan and Iknow how to communicate with them, so nowyou stay out, if they ask you anything just keepquiet and either you say we'll talk in front ofMahesh or don't say anything, just keep quiet."

In the stories they told Anita, Meena, Neeta and Nainaspoke of using Material Embodied Resistance and Silencewith the goal of addressing confiict with the mother-in-law. These strategies allowed them to redirect theirmarital focus from family to the relationship with theirhusbands. Their narratives show that they were able tonavigate and then convert conflict to their advantage byaccessing whatever resistance that they found available intheir everyday lives.

Probiematizing Resistance

Even though I have closely bound resistance to twobroad forms, they are certainly open to furtherinterpretation by readers. I believe that my interpretationsare ultimately 'constricting' because there may be manyforms of resistances that are beyond my own reading,capability, experience, or imagination. Therefore, thenarrative forms of resistance discussed in this paperpresent themselves as a challenge to be theorized becauseproblematic questions such as the following persist: Whoresists? Who decides (the participant or the researcher)what constitutes resistance? And then who goes aboutnaming it? Moreover, is it possible or even desirable toframe resistance?

Interpretive and representative dilemmas such asthese questions have been at the heart of ethnographic,postmodern, post-colonial/transnational feminist researchfor numerous years. Within feminist research, eventhough the goals are to empower and bring about socialchange, feminists have been intensely self-refiexive aboutthe privilege and authorial power that we bring into ourfields. The problematics of interpretation andrepresentation are continuously debated by scholars whocritique the inherent 'colonial' nature of the ethnographicprocess whether it be conducted by insiders, partial-insiders, or outsiders (Agar, 1996; Clifford & Marcus,1986; Clair, 2003; Van Maanen, 1988). Along these lines,feminist scholarship has continuously problematizedethnographic representation as a necessarily intrusiveprocess in which the relationship of the researcher to theresearched is inevitably unequal. In her 1988 lecture tothe New York Academy of Sciences, "Can There Be aFeminist Ethnography?" Lila Abu-Lughod asserts thatfeminist ethnographies must take the commonalities anddifferences between researcher and subjects into account,and that such an acknowledgement itself is feminist praxis(as summarized in Menon & Bhasin, 1998; also see asimilarly titled essay by Judith Stacey entitled, "Can therebe a feminist Ethnography?" in Women's Words: TheFeminist Practice of Oral History, 1991).

Speaking to similar matters in their essay,"Interviewing Women," Reinharz and Chase (2001) pointout, "Interpreting any woman's silence or speech is acomplex task that requires a strong understanding of hersocial location, including her place within her communityand society, the cultural constraints and resources shapingher everyday life, and her particular circumstances" (p.225). Thus, my tentativeness with claiming resistance in

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these narratives is deeply embedded in feminist concemswith representation and theorizing about women's lives*.Even though, I was a 'partial-insider' in this life-historystudy, my locations and those of every participant werevarious and distinct. Although we shared class andcommunity, I was privileged (in my eyes) because I hadchosen to by-pass the arranged marriage. So, perhaps 1was seeking to find some resistance to a maritalinstitution that I had myself resisted. Without doubt, theinterpretations are very much subject to my own positionin the study. Were I married at the time of this study, were1 living in India, and were I non-Indian, the narrativeinterpretations would be remarkably different from thosepresented here. For example, the theme of Silence which 1speak of as an empowering resistant frame could verywell be construed as a compromising and acquiescingstance taken by women in my study, a convergence so tospeak with Hindu marriage. Silence, has been defined invarious ways by women who are involved in the study ofThird world women's lives. Hegde (1996), in a studyentitled, "Narratives of Silence: Rethinking Gender,Agency, and Power from the Communication Experiencesof Battered Women in Southem India," shows us howsilence is imposed on battered women and how it leadswomen to an "existential impasse - a totaldisenchantment with self (p. 312). In Hegde'sunderstanding, silence is a tool that controls, reprimands,and makes invisible (i.e. her analysis is concerned withexploring silence as power). My understanding of Silenceas resistance in this study is very different from theseconclusions - it reinvents, reconfigures, and empowers,when co-opted by the subject.

Thus the explorations of resistance that I offer are myown, registered in my voice, experienced from myposition in the interviews (Stacey, 1991; Patai, 1991). Thedanger of such representational control is that researchthat wants to transform and reveal inequalities mayreproduce other forms of control and hierarchy, or it mayreproduce hierarchy (such as my 'authoring' resistance inparticular ways in this case). Moreover, the problem ofinterpretation and representation becomes more complexin the portrayal of "subaltem subjectivities from theperspective of Westem locations" (Hegde, 1996, p. 314;see also Mohanty, 1988, 2003; Sunder Rajan, 1993)

Recognition of these interpretive and representationaldilemmas and attempts to address them are being robustlydebated among transnational scholars who want toimagine newer ways of addressing and exploringresistance as it is enacted by women in their everydaylives. For a few decades now there has been a 'resistance'to the knowledge/s we have about resistance, and how wechoose to represent it. As already mentioned issues ofrepresentation are an ongoing conversation inethnographic work especially that which is with and aboutwomen. The work of those that identify as post-colonialand transnational scholars falls in line with a 'resistance'to the dominant understandings of resistance (Anzaldua;1987; Gluck & Patai, 1991; Jayawardhane, 1986; Menon& Bhasin, 1998; Mohanty, 1988, 2003; Narayan, 1997;

Said, 2003; Sunder Rajan, 1993). Dominant post-structuralist understandings of resistance focus upon an"undifferentiated" power that is "unremitting andunstoppable" and is meted out by administrators,managers and technocrats (Said, 2002, p. 240). In anattempt to privilege participants, transnational scholarsfocus on the everyday practices of resistance in the dailylives (in this case, family life) of subjects/participants as alocally emergent phenomenon that cannot be bound toframeworks. So, while popular imaginations of power andresistance are concemed with power from the standpointof its realization, rather than opposition to it, recentexaminations delve more into the 'subject' who resists(Said, 2002). This 'new resistance,' both divergent andmultiple, is concemed with the subject who speaks, 'towhom' one speaks, and 'where' one speaks rather thanmerely 'what' is said. In a recent essay that theorizesresistance, Mumby (2005), a post-strucuturalist scholarhimself, leans on the side of local discursive resistancebecause he believes that it is important, "to counteract theimpression that power...is a force from which there is noescape" (p. 32).

Resistance under such an understanding takes variousforms because the challenge for feminist scholars is toshow how the "the everyday lives of women areconstituted in the interstices between being victims ofoppression and agents of resistance" (Hegde, 1996, p.310). Across disciplines, there has been an emphases onresistance as a "routine yet complex, embedded socialprocess" the meaning of which is largely contingent uponthe relational context that one is enmeshed in (Mumby, p.32, 2005), and one that emerges out of the "multipleinterpretations of both workplace actors and academicresearchers" (Prasad & Prasad, 1998, p. 251; see alsoPrasad & Prasad, 2003). At the same time, researcherscaution against essentializing routine resistance andtreating it as a stable set of behaviors, actions, orperformances. For instance, Jermier et al. (1994) critiquethe "tendency of researchers to impose, rather thaninvestigate" (pp. 10-11) the nuances and meanings ofresistance. Most of these scholars encourage studieswhere the spoken and the said of participants is taken intoaccount to assess and explore the significance of localresistances.

There has been an outpouring of studies (acrossfields, contexts, and disciplines) that explore localizedresistances in multiple ways. These studies exploreresistance as a socially constituted 'discursive tactic' withan emphasis on the enactment and embodiment of -material, corporeal, interactional, narrative - resistant acts(Mumby 2005). This understanding of resistance alignswell also with de Certeau's (1984) classic study ofeveryday life in which he proposes that individualsingenuously create their own responses to power andconstraints imposed upon them in their daily lives. DeCerteau tells us that in order to subvert, cope with, orchallenge constraints, people are able to utilizes 'tactics' which are an opportunistic manipulation (temporallycontingent and in the moment) of a constraint at a given

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point of time, one that converts constraint intoopportunity.

A plethora of studies explicate the idea of resistanceas a 'discursive tactic' Tretheway (1997, 1999), forinstance, explored 'irony' as a narrative resistance tacticused by employees in a human service organization.Sotirin & Gottfried (1999) explore local resistance in theform of "bitching" and gossip (see also Sotirin 2000 for adiscussion of women's office talk). Material forms ofresistance such as office graffiti, mimicry, and modes ofdress have been investigated as resistant tactics (see Bell& Forbes, 1994; Bhabha, 1994; Gottfried, 1994). In herfeminist ethnography of a Japanese confectionary factory,Kondo (1990) unveils how discourses of resistance areclosely tied to conceptions of work, self, family, and thepublic-private relationships that operate in Japanesesociety.

In life history work on women's lives, testimonialshave often been treated as 'counter-narratives' that resistdominant understandings of one's identity. In their essay,"Millie's Story: Motherhood, Heroine, and Methadone,"anthropologists Alicea & Friedman (1999) present thetestimonial of a Puerto Rican drug addict and mother,Millie, and examine how her told story counteracts thedominant meta-narrative of the drug abuser. In a similarand more nuanced vein, Schulz, Knoki, & Knoki-Wilson(1999), examined the personal narratives of two Navajowomen, Faye and Ursula, who, in telling their stories,discursively create counter-identity/s which challenge themaster-narrative of assimilation and civilization imposedupon indigenous American women. To take it a stepfurther, the two Navajo women, Faye Knoki and UrsulaKnoki-Wilson co-authored the essay about themselvesalong with the researcher thereby confronting andembracing the crisis of representation in telling theirstory. They are able to make representation a resistant act.

My own interpretation of resistance aligns with theabove discursive understandings of resistance as sociallyembedded, temporally and locally emergent, and deeplycontextual (italics mine) and my hope has been toinvestigate rather than impose (Jermier et al., 1994). Myconcem is with the enactment of resistance and to showthe local, unorganized, relational, material, and eveninvisible ways in which women in some communitiesmight resist filial, work, and institutional relationshipsand structures. The stories of my participants illustratethat not only is it possible to oppose power, it is alsopossible to realign power structures, albeit in smalldegrees. For instance, the notion of Self-defining theMarriage may be read as an attempt to create a counter-narrative. Silence can be seen as a narrative strategy thatmay reconfigure intimate relationships. Addressing theMother-in-Law is a direct attempt to resist structure inorder to realign it and redefine an intimate relationship.For transnational feminists like myself, these maneuversconstitute not only resistance, but also feminist practice atthe level of identity and relational communities. In hermost recent collection of essays. Feminism withoutBorders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity,

Mohanty (2003) emphasizes this point by exploring herunderstanding of feminist practice:

Feminist practice as 1 understand it operates at anumber of levels: at the level of everyday lifethrough the everyday acts that constitute ouridentities and relational communities; at the levelof collective action in groups, networks, andmovements constituted around feminist visionsof social transformation; at the level of theory,pedagogy, and textual creativity in the scholarlyand writing practices of feminists engaged in theproduction of knowledge (p. 5).

1 believe that my own empirical contribution fits well intothese conversations as my goal is to emphasize everydaypractices of resistance and not bind the stories of myparticipants to preexisting knowledge frames. My hope isthat the narratives represented here expand our idea ofeveryday practices of resistance by qualitatively anddescriptively showing embedded complexities. Theanalysis here addresses and privileges 'who' speaks and'to whom' one addresses what is spoken. Instead offocusing upon power stmctures encountered by myparticipants, I show their discursive, material, andcorporeal 'opposition' to it.

Notes

1 These seripturcs are said to have been written by male Aryan sageswho inhabited the areas across the Indus river, long before theword 'Hindu' came to be associated with religion. 'Hindu' wassimply an evolved Persian word for the people who lived acrossthe river 'Indus' or 'Indu.' One of the most influential interpretersof these seriptures was the sage Manu (This is documented in theManu Smriti said to have been written in 200 B.C.; see Shattuck,1999). Manu is said to have been instrumental in laying out maritallaws whieh are followed even in contemporary times.

2 Some of this history was transformed with the passing of theHindu Marriage Aet by the Government of India in 1955 whiehallowed for dissolution of marriage via divorce and annulment, andproperty for women, widows, and daughter-in-laws. Under this act(amended in 1964 and 1976) a marriage is considered "Hindu" ifthe following requirements are fulfilled: (i) both parties are Hindu;(ii) both parties were separated from eaeh other by sevengenerations; (iii) the marriage is conducted according to Hindurites (Derrctt, 1976; Uberoi, 1996 p.327). These were legalattempts at shifting the understanding of the Hindu marriage fromsacrament to contract. However, in a study of recent judicialdecisions, Uberoi (1996) found that Indian judges still tend tomake decisions about dissolution/conscnt/custody using the pre-eolonial understanding of'sacrament.'

3 In this study I have used the words 'joint' and 'semi-joint' to referto family structure and co-habitation patterns. A semi-joint familyeould mean one in which one son and his family live together withhis parents while the other siblings live elsewhere.

4 The women in this study were interviewed according to cohorts, asin women who had been married in the 1980s, 1990s and early2000s ranging in age from their forties to thirties to twentiesrespectively. Given this, women aeross and within eohorts,articulated many differences in how they had experieneed theirmarital lives. These differenees were based upon both life-eourseand life-cycle. The discussion presented in this ehaptcr emergedfrom the theme of resistanee which was a Shared Experienceacross eohorts.

Women and Language, Vol. 30, No. 1, Pg. 17

5 In this study, following human subject protocol guidelines, all thewomen's names have been changed to pseudonyms in order toprotect their privacy.

6 In fact, in her recent study. Marriage, A History: From Obedienceto Intimacy Or How Love Conquered Marriage, Stephanie Coontz(2005) argues using anthropological, historical, and archivalresearch that even in the Westem world marriage was a deeplyeconomic institution and was separate from love and intimacy,which was expected to be provided from individual/s outside of themarriage.

7 The title of this essay is taken from my eonversation with Nccta.8 In order to avoid framing/defining resistanee, I have deliberately

ehosen to textually plaee discussions about resistance at the end ofthis essay.

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