“If I cannot give birth to a child, why would anyone accept me?”: Menstrual anxieties, late marriage, and reproductive aging

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore how women who are unable to conform to age-specific conventions of marriage and childbearing construct their adult identities in socio-cultural contexts that valorize fertility and mandate compulsory marriage and motherhood. Through a detailed ethnography of women’s experiences with menstrual anomalies and reproductive aging, this study examines Odia women’s negotiations with their seemingly “incomplete bodies” and “disrupted identities” in the backdrop of experiencing infertility or anticipating it.

ABSTRACT IN ODIA

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• marriage
• menstruation
• infertility
• reproductive aging

KEYWORDS:

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Acknowledgements

This paper is based on the findings of the first author’s doctoral thesis on the lived experiences of menstruation amongst women in Odisha. Both authors have contributed to analysis and writing. Special thanks to all the women who shared sensitive details of their personal lives and provided critical nuances to this research. A version of this paper was presented at the international conference on “Reproduction, Demography and Cultural Anxieties in India and China in the twenty-first Century” held in February 2020 at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. We would like to thank the organizers of the conference and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and valuable feedback. The authors received no financial aid for conducting this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Gharebasiba bhoji in this context refers to the feast/ceremony arranged on the seventh day of menarche, when the girl is welcomed back to the community after six days of menstrual seclusion. Gharebasiba, as a term, broadly refers to the coming of age of a girl, and its literal translation in Odia is “to sit at home,” suggesting “the process of becoming a grown-up girl.”

2 Traditionally in Indian families, older siblings of the same gender are encouraged to marry before the younger ones.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Swayamshree Mishra

Swayamshree MISHRA is a PhD candidate at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. Her research interests include the study of the body, sexuality, reproductive anxieties, and gender. For her thesis, she is exploring the lived experiences of menstruation amongst women in Odisha.

Ravinder Kaur

Ravinder KAUR is a Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. Her main areas of research are gender, sex ratio imbalances, marriage, family, technology, and social change. She has published widely in Indian and international journals. Two recent publications are “Gendered parenting and returns from children in contemporary India: A study of IIT students and their parents” in Current Sociology (Feb. 2021) https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0011392121990022 and “The Gendered Biopolitics of Sex Selection in India (with Taanya Kapoor) in Asian Bioethics Review (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41649-020-00159-7. She has co-edited two books – “Too Many Men, Too Few Women: Social Consequences of Gender Imbalance in India and China”. 2016. Orient Blackswan Ltd. and “Marrying in South Asia: ‘Shifting Concepts, Changing Practices in a Globalising World” (with Rajni Palriwala). 2014. Orient Blackswan Ltd.