Opposition to same-sex marriage in Mauritius is often defended in the name of “our culture” and “our values.” But whose culture, whose values, and who taught us to define marriage this way?
Mauritian identities were shaped under colonial rule. African and Malagasy people were subjected to forced displacement and enslavement. South Asian people arrived through indentureship. Chinese communities migrated under unequal colonial conditions. Colonial authorities then sorted people into racialised and communal categories and decided which families and relationships were acceptable and respectable.
Our ancestors did not all come from cultures where family meant one cisgender heterosexual man and one cisgender heterosexual woman with biological children.
Anthropological research documents woman-to-woman marriages among Nandi communities in Kenya and Igbo communities in Nigeria. These unions supported kinship, inheritance, caregiving, social parenthood and the continuation of family lines. They were also not always romantic or sexual in nature, showing that marriage has not always universally been defined by heterosexual desire, gender roles, or even solely meant for romantic/sexual partners.
Across South Asian histories, we find gender-expansive deities, same-sex desire, queer storytelling and gender-diverse communities such as hijras. Queer people and practices were therefore never foreign to the cultures from which most Indo-Mauritians descend.
Historical Chinese cultures also recognised same-sex love. “The cut sleeve”, referring to Emperor Ai cutting his robe rather than waking his male companion Dong Xian, later became a literary expression for love between men.
Colonial power regulated sexuality. Through racial capitalism, colonial authorities reorganised families, protected patriarchal property relations and rewarded conformity to colonial respectability. Law, religion and community surveillance gradually normalised these structures until they were defended as “tradition.”
In 2023, two landmark Supreme Court judgments struck down the colonial-era criminalisation of consensual sexual activity between adult men and affirmed constitutional protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation. Recognising same-sex marriage would carry this principle of equal treatment forward by extending the same legal recognition, rights and protections to same-sex couples. Queer Mauritians are demanding marriage equality while continuing to reclaim forms of love, care, kinship and family that have long existed beyond marriage and state recognition.
The concept of marriage, as we currently know it, may be a contemporary legal framework; but queer love and unions are neither new nor foreign to our histories and actual traditions.
Shin
Communication Volunteer YQA
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