Separate and unequal

Through an ethnographic examination of legal processes in Family Court, this article maps some of the circumstances which Indian Muslim women confront in the area of Family Law. It provides a portrait of the politically interested spaces which govern their lives, indicating the osmosis between 'religious,' cultural and legal realms, rather than essentialisms about the nature of Islam. It provides a reminder that we can no more separate religious practices fundamentally from patriarchal logic than we can separate jurisprudence and the workings of law, indeed the State, from its constitution in multiple embedded sites of patriarchal logic and race and imperial regimes. Optimal strategies for Indian Muslim women to be socioeconomically and legally empowered are also interrogated in this context, as the paper explores the ways in which gender equality and cultural difference and community support can, or not, protect women. It emphasizes the importance of problematizing both notions of 'community' and 'gender equity' in any attempt to address women's rights and needs.