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Chapter 7 moves into the territory of love and relationships. In recent years, TV audiences in both China and India have been exposed to a growing number of reality and lifestyle shows focused on dating, marriage, parenting, and love relationships. While, like spirituality, the affective and intangible space of love might seem to inhabit a realm beyond the logics of late modern struggles, this chapter argues that the study of televisual treatments of love and marriage offers a privileged perspective from which one can gain an understanding of the cultural process of modernity. Drawing on a range of examples, from game-show-based dating formats to reality shows dealing with love and romance to more advice-oriented formats, we examine how these shows navigate the contradictions between apparent forms of gender empowerment and marketized aspirations toward social and cultural fluidity, versus the realities of powerful gendered social and economic inequities, and the continued cultural potency of familial and communitarian notions of duty.

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