Inscribing the Female Body: Fuzzy Gender and Goddess in a South Indian Saiva Marriage Myth

Abstract

The paper seeks to work through the heuristic device of marriage and femalesexual bodily fluids, as they are constructed within particular strands ofHinduism. The paper applies the analytic lens of feminist Anthropologyand proceeds through the contested site of female body and probes howthe discursive body comes to be embedded within a discourse of matrimonyand reproduction. By looking at an archetypal female or Goddess within aparticular stream of Hinduism and the matrix of mythology within whichshe is installed, the paper unpacks how “female” has come to be strategicallyinscribed, constrained and performed upon through various religio-culturaldevices in Hinduism. As much of the performance of female gender scriptsappear to be drawn from the regulatory power of certain (male) canonizedreligious texts, the paper suggests re-installing the goddess within the liminaland interstitial space of fuzzy gender that might well allow for an alternate,more plastic reading of marriage and motherhood, and of female.