Ruth Vanita

Ruth Vanita looks at the history of the ideologies of same-sex friendship and marriage (both cross-sex and same-sex) in Western culture and Indian culture. She argues that current believes about marriage in the West, and to the idea of love-marriage in India as well, share more similarities with philosophies of friendship that early philosophies of marriage--the idea that one's spouse should be someone who is a kindred spirit, a companion, and an equal. She also gives some history and textual examples of same-sex love in India to counter the idea that homosexuality is a western import. In fact, she argues that it is homophobia that is truly alien to Indian culture and brought in from the west. I suspect that it is inaccurate to say that homophobia never existed in the India prior to Colonization, but it is important to see the influences that Victorian British culture had on Indian ideas about gender and sexuality.… (meer)