Sociological Description and the Forensics of Sexuality

Abstract

This chapter analyses how typologies of deviant female sexuality shaped medico-legal narratives of abortion in colonial eastern India. I argue that forensic medicine shaped normative understandings of Indian women through a circular logic that united sociological categories—including Hindu widow, child-bride, and prostitute—with detailed assessments of women’s physical anatomy. Medico-legal texts on abortion extended beyond claims to legal veracity, constituting new authoritative forms of knowledge that brought together sociological and scientific methods to comprehend the potential dangers of women’s sexuality. I explore how the medico-legal science of abortion shaped the rise of invasive colonial practices that mandated involuntary genital examinations of women. Medico-legal narratives of abortion characterized a wide range of women outside of the domain of companionate marriage as socially deviant, unchaste, and potentially criminal.