ABSTRACT
The construction of Muslim marriage in colonial India contributed to the production of a binary sexual relationship – “wife” and the “other.” While the former was used to indicate a legal sexual relationship, the latter referred to persons, including concubines, with whom sexual intercourse was considered illegal. The colonial categorization of sexuality was to indicate the nature of control of man over the body of a woman. The understanding of licit sexual intercourse in a marriage, in which a man could enjoy absolute control over the body of a woman, categorically contributed to developing the husband’s claim over the body of the wife. Therefore, the offense of adultery remedied a violation of the husband’s proprietary right over the body of the wife. Reviewing leading cases related to Muslim marriage, this chapter explores the possible relationship between the sex-based understanding of marriage and criminalizing sexuality in British India through a theoretical lens that recognizes the intersection of local customs, orientalist interpretations of such customs, and theories of gender. In addition, the chapter highlights the way such laws can carry forward colonial understandings of sexual morality into modern postcolonial states in South Asia.
