This book is an extensive and thorough exploration of the ways in which the middle class in India select their spouse. Using the prism of matchmaking, this book critically unpacks the concept of the 'modern' and traces the importance of moralities and values in the making of middle class identities, by bringing to the fore intersections and dynamics of caste, class, gender, and neoliberalism. The author discusses a range of issues: romantic relationships among youth, use of online technology and of professional services like matrimonial agencies and detective agencies, encounters of love and heartbreak, impact of experiences of pain and humiliation on spouse-selection, and the involvement of family in matchmaking. Based on this comprehensive account, she elucidates how the categories of 'love' and 'arranged' marriages fall short of explaining, in its entirety and essence, the contemporary process of spouse-selection in urban India. Though the ethnographic research has been conducted in India, this book is of relevance to social scientists studying matchmaking practices, youth cultures, modernity and the middle class in other societies, particularly in parts of Asia. While being based on thorough scholarship, the book is written in accessible language to appeal to a larger audience.

This book presents a unique rendering of love in South Asia by reading love through the specific lens of dissent. It presents multiple articulations of dissenting love in contemporary South Asia including negotiations with parents to assert choice of partner, migration, elopement, live-in relationships, singlehood, ‘new’ ideas of masculinities, and embracing diverse sexual identities. It studies these forms of dissent in the context of changing legal discourses, impact of media in everyday life, and transforming social attitudes. As such, this book is the first of its kind to analyse the myriad ways in which love and dissent constitute each other shaping the social, political, and cultural mores and movements of South Asia. The contributions are based on ethnographic research cutting across diverse religious, ethnic, and gender and sexual identities of South Asia. Part of the Social Movements and Transformative Dissent series, this book will be of interest to students and researchers of sociology, anthropology, history, geography, political science, gender studies, and media studies. It will also appeal to academics who study South Asia with a special focus on love, intimacy, sexuality, marriage, migration, history, politics and media.

Demonstrating the tremendous diversity of families in India, as well as their ongoing evolution, this volume answers a clear call to dive deeper into the intimacy of the domestic sphere in one of the world’s largest and fastest growing societies.

This book explores different strands of thinking about sexuality education in contemporary urban India. It interrogates the limits of sexuality education as we know it today by rethinking adolescent masculinities in middle-class urban India. This book contributes to the wide gap in theorising sexuality education and adolescent masculinities in urban India. It presents an adolescent perspective on sexuality education, looks at adolescent love from the school teachers’ perspective, and tries to understand a teacher’s negotiations with student romance. It unravels the sexual and romantic lives of adolescents and examines the circulation of sexual knowledge and sources of information on sex that adolescent boys in India have access to. This book uncovers the limits of sexuality education by examining State, feminist, Christian, and sexological materials on sexuality education in Mumbai and Delhi. Based on detailed research and narratives from teachers, young men, and women, the book explores adolescent male romance and its affective registers, adolescent male sexual knowledge, and the regulation of romance in school spaces. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of education, sexuality and gender studies, masculinity studies, sex education as well as those interested in education policy, education politics, educational research, and inclusion and special education. Located at the intersection of sexuality studies, education, masculinity studies, and cultural studies, it will also appeal to those working in sexuality education in urban India within the complex web of the middle classes, consumerism, post-feminism, romance, adolescent masculinities, and cinema.

Exploring the unintentional production of seemingly feminist outcomes In India, elite law firms offer a surprising oasis for women within a hostile, predominantly male industry. Less than 10 percent of the country’s lawyers are female, but women in the most prestigious firms are significantly represented both at entry and partnership. Elite workspaces are notorious for being unfriendly to new actors, so what allows for aberration in certain workspaces? Drawing from observations and interviews with more than 130 elite professionals, Accidental Feminism examines how a range of underlying mechanisms—gendered socialization and essentialism, family structures and dynamics, and firm and regulatory histories—afford certain professionals egalitarian outcomes that are not available to their local and global peers. Juxtaposing findings on the legal profession with those on elite consulting firms, Swethaa Ballakrishnen reveals that parity arises not from a commitment to create feminist organizations, but from structural factors that incidentally come together to do gender differently. Simultaneously, their research offers notes of caution: while conditional convergence may create equality in ways that more targeted endeavors fail to achieve, “accidental” developments are hard to replicate, and are, in this case, buttressed by embedded inequalities. Ballakrishnen examines whether gender parity produced without institutional sanction should still be considered feminist. In offering new ways to think about equality movements and outcomes, Accidental Feminism forces readers to critically consider the work of intention in progress narratives.

The contributors to this book present case studies of elder care in China and India, and draw comparisons between the two – illuminating some of the key issues facing the two largest Asian countries as they develop rapidly. Caring for the elderly is a major challenge for all countries, and one which is of acute concern for rapidly developing economies. Development tends to run counter to long-established cultural norms of family-based caring and filial piety, even as it also tends to lead to longer life expectancy. Taking a range of methodological and conceptual approaches to understanding these challenges, the contributors present a multifaceted understanding of elder care issues in both India and China. They focus in particular on caregiving within families and at care homes – and the impacts these have on quality of life and the experience of caregiving for both caregivers and the aged themselves. An invaluable collection for scholars and students of gerontology and aging in Asia, that will also be of great interest to scholars with a broader interest in global trends in caregiving.

Family relations are undergoing dramatic changes globally and locally. At the same time, certain features of family life endure. This popular book, now in a fully updated second edition, presents a comprehensive assessment of recent research on 'family', parenting, childhood and interpersonal ties. A Sociology of Family Life queries assumptions about a disintegration of 'the family' by revealing a remarkable persistence of commitment and reciprocity across cultures, within new as well as traditional family forms. Yet, while new kinds of intimate relationships such as 'friends as family' and LGBTQ+ intimacies become commonplace, such personal relationships can still be difficult to negotiate in the face of wider structural norms. With a focus on factors such as class, gender, race, ethnicity and sexuality, this new edition highlights inequalities that influence and curb families and personal life transnationally. Alongside substantial new material on cultural and digital transformations, the book features extensive updates on issues ranging from demography, migration, ageing and government policies to reproductive technologies, employment and care. With a global focus, and blending theory with real-life examples, this insightful and engaging book will remain indispensable to students across the social sciences.