Majumdar examines three broad developments related to the modernity of arranged marriage: the growth of a marriage market, concomitant debates about consumption and vulgarity in the conduct of weddings, and the legal regulation of family property and marriages. Drawing on matrimonial advertisements, wedding invitations, poems, photographs, legal debates, and a vast periodical literature, she shows that the modernization of families does not necessarily imply a transition from extended kinship to nuclear family structures, or from matrimonial agreements negotiated between families to marriage contracts between individuals. Colonial Bengal tells a very different story.
The case of Bengal illustrates the interaction of colonialism and modernity.
Bengal was the first “modern” province in India-the first, that is, to undergo a forced encounter with Western modernity. Beginning with this premise, the writers in Texts of Power consider what the case of Bengal says about the workings of Western modernity in a colonial setting.
A truly interdisciplinary effort, this collection probes questions of pedagogy, nationalism, and gender. Among the subjects explored are colonialist and nationalist surveillance of Bengali literature; the disposition of the nation’s art; the politics of child-rearing; the mapping of Calcutta; and the disciplining of historical memory. By applying the theoretical insights of recent historical and cultural studies to the specific circumstances of Bengal, the authors develop a new approach to Indian intellectual and cultural history. Their work makes a significant contribution to our understanding of contemporary intellectual modernity.Contributors: Pradip Kumar Bose, Keya Dasgupta, Tapati Guha-Thakurta, all at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta; Tapti Roy, Maharani Kashiswari College, Calcutta; Ranabir Samaddar, Maulana Azad Institute of Asian Studies.READERS
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