Fosterage and Motherhood in the Mughal Harem: Intimate Relations and the Political System in Eighteenth Century India

The Mughal social structure, in line with the Islamic sharia, recognised fosterage as a legally valid relationship, enjoying social acceptability and legal protection. Fosterage not only created possibilities of new familial connections that co-exited with unilateral relations through blood, but also established an extended network of allegiance and loyalty that was politically significant in Mughal imperial court culture. It comes as no surprise then that relationships through marriage as well as those through fosterage could and did relationally configure alongside (and on many occasions even superseded) blood relationships. Much has been written about marriage alliances of the Mughals drawing attention away from a simplistic (and often romanticised) understanding that views it merely as a social phenomenon dictated by whim or passion. Marriage alliances of Mughal Emperors as well as princes are now read better as indices of power and legitimacy, integral to the complex matrix of authority and subordination between the ‘greater’ Mughal household and ‘lesser’ powerful local household.