ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses two interrelated themes: the naming of violence and the response to this naming. It explores the connections between the naming of sexual violence within marriage and the sociocultural contexts that shape how emic concepts of justice are attached to this articulation. The analysis is qualitative and draws from two different studies: one focused on individual women’s experience of violence within marriage in Maharashtra in 2006, the other on evaluating a women’s collective in Bihar in 2015. The chapter provides an overview of the prominent public discourse of marital rape in India and highlights the existent legal framework in the country, the influence of rape narratives on the lives of women, and a particular form of institutional response provided by a women’s collective. It describes the data sources that form the basis for the chapter’s insights. The chapter analyzes the data collated on two specific themes: naming of violations within marriage and the collective response to this naming.
