Migrant Intimacies and Ambiguities of Law: The Case of Wife Enticement Among Indians in Colonial Singapore, 1900–1940

Abstract

AbstractThis article traces the gendered entanglements of migration, intimate relations and law among itinerant Indians in colonial Singapore between 1900 and 1940, when Indians began consolidating their roots. Singapore did not legislate marriages for migrants, but the courts had to rule on the validity of migrant marriages in marital disputes and offences, resulting in legal ambiguities. Through a close reading of legal reports, newspaper archives and oral histories focusing on cases of wife enticement, this article formulates a gendered understanding of the migration process and intimate life for Indians. It builds on the scholarly literature on intimate life and legal governance in colonial societies, makes a set of analytical descriptions that reveal tensions of race, class and gender in legal negotiations and underscores how the processes of migration and law impacted on the social life of Indians. The cases discussed illuminate how intimate relationships, especially of Indian women, animated communal and patriarchal anxieties, and they establish the role of Indians in the legal history of marriage and family laws in Singapore. Moreover, the context of an urban free port with a predominantly itinerant population highlights mechanisms of colonial rule that were different from the exigencies in other colonies.