Matters of the Heart: Romance, Courtship, and Conjugality in Contemporary Delhi

This article explores narratives of heterosexual romance and conjugality in Wazirpur, a neighbourhood in north west Delhi, dominated by the steel industry and populated by a largely migrant workforce. Focusing primarily on two generations of women, it considers how the relationship between romantic love and marriage is articulated, performed and imagined. The oral accounts presented here suggest a multidirectional pattern of marital mobility, which is grounded in social conventions of conjugality. Familial tensions and social fault lines appear over marital decisions, crystallizing especially when elopements or ‘court marriages’ take place. The romantic relationships and forms of courtship in Wazirpur have to discursively and spatially negotiate the tensions between social approval and individual choice. While increasingly, a considerable degree of significance is accorded to the emotional bond between the couple, parental support and the public performance of respectability remain central to marital formations. The article suggests that the intimate and the emotional are not only located in the interior of the individual but are forged by intersecting and often competing registers of social regulation.