Abstract
<jats:p>Chapter 5 questions what happens when distress becomes deviant. When people take on too much tension or they don’t share or address this tension, they are said to become pagal, or mad. This chapter focuses on the points at which conjugal relationships break down, resulting in accusations and experiences of madness. It explores how madness is associated with women’s experiences of elopement, intercaste marriage, sexual liaisons, and domestic violence. It also reveals how those accused represent their own madness through comparisons with goddesses and other potent beings. Herein, we find a form of peculiar agency afforded to people who deviate from sexual and social norms. This chapter ends with a reflection on the ambivalence of deviant forms of distress, and an argument for recuperating deviance as an analytic in gendered studies of mental health.</jats:p>