Treatment of Infidelity and Infertility in Manju Kapur’s ‘Custody’

Abstract

Female sexuality and maternity, both are rooted in the material, biological, sexed body, yet ultimately are historically/culturally/socially determined, constructed, and “discoursed about”. Women bodies, sexualities and gender identities are sites where cultural notions of normality and indeed social respectability are contested. The constructions of ‘female sexuality’ and ‘motherhood ’are discursive sites in which power fluctuates constantly and is appropriated and negotiated. The discourses surrounding motherhood and women’s sexuality remain deeply engaged with patriarchal-dominant economic and political interest. Maternity is both a site of power for women, as well as a site of patriarchal control and regulation of female sexuality and agency. In a traditional framework there is no space for a woman as an individual, she must be a wife and a mother. Women are forced to conceal silently their bodies and sexuality under the monitoring of family and society. The primary reason is that sex is the culture source of problems and crisis. Control of female sexuality is legitimized, even effectively mystified under the name of tradition. Female sexuality is presented in alleviated terms by glorification of motherhood.