Arranged Marriages

The concept of family is a social construct, and the one used in Western countries fails to accommodate the complex systems of interaction between parenthood practices, relationships between spouses and siblings, vertical and horizontal relationships among relatives, conjugal ties, marriage contracts, domestic arrangements in other countries-the more so as these relations are frequently conducted at a distance. Nonetheless, the term "family"is widely used in studies of migration and mobility, though often uncritically. This introduction intends to expose the pitfalls incidental to this uncritical perspective and aims to clear up some of the misunderstandings that can occur when migration and mobility studies adopt an ethnocentric idea of family. Far from being inflexible and forging the self-same links whatever the migration circumstances, kinship ties adapt and help others adapt to the novel situations encountered in new countries, thereby proving a resource and an essential part of the culture of mobility.

Applying insights from newer anthropological kinship studies, this article suggests that the current Danish immigration regime is based on and legitimized by a certain kind of ‘kinship images’ that are used and reproduced in Danish public and political discourses. Since 2002, every Danish citizen applying for family reunification with foreign spouses has been met with a ‘requirement of national attachment’, which basically distinguishes within the pool of citizens between the ‘real’ and the ‘not-quite-real’ Danes. The article discusses the possibilities of ‘integration’ in the current situation where Danish legislation and public discourses tend to distinguish between Danish citizens on the basis of their family history and national attachment. The article furthermore discusses different strategies of ‘kinning’ through which the ‘not-quite-real’ can aspire to become ‘real’ Danes.

Maria Tatar states that the fairy-tale Beauty and the Beast depicts, “The transformative power of empathy, that encodes messages about […] romance, marriage, and ‘The Other’” (9). Because of these coded messages, the story and its many retellings have provided fertile ground for discussions on empathy and gender. The tale, from its very inception, has managed to resonate with how different eras view empathy and its interactions with gender relations, which can be seen through the multiple adaptations and variations of the tale. Through four chapters, my dissertation explores four iterations of Beauty and the Beast, along with other culturally mainstream “beastly” media, through the lens of gender and empathy. The first chapter explores Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s 1756 fairy-tale, and how it reflects conflicting ideas of sympathy and arranged marriage. The second chapter discusses how Jean Cocteau’s 1946 avant-garde film subverts the 1940s culture of gender conformism along with its forcing of female domesticity, and does so by reflecting Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas of gendered reciprocity. The third chapter considers the manifestation of the New Sincerity in Disney’s 1991 animated film, and how it prioritises male transformation over female self-definition. The fourth chapter, which covers the Disney 2017 remake, looks at how feminist critique targets the fairy-tale, and how it is counteracted by the trend of nostalgia within media. I conclude that the multiple iterations of Beauty and the Beast show that despite being a “Tale as old as time,” the story is still being told in accordance with western society’s view of gender relations and empathy, and it is very likely that the tale will continue to be told.

The chapter offers a discourse analytic exploration of the topic of arranged marriage, which continues to fuel popular discourses of culture clash in public/media debates on one hand, and academic celebrations of hybrid British Asian femininities in a range of (non-linguistic) research disciplines on the other. My own work with a group of adolescent British Bangladeshi girls seeks to provide a space in language and gender research for the voices of adolescent Asian girls. At the same time I aim to offer to existing cross-disciplinary scholarship on young British Asian identities a discourse analytic focus on the complex negotiations and contestations of ideas, discourses and subject positions that characterise the spontaneous talk of five Bangladeshi girls from London. Whereas my analysis of the spontaneous data highlights the hybrid nature of a modified discourse of arranged marriage which emerges from the girls' negotiations, later interviews with my in-group informant contain a discourse which positions the girls as being torn between cultures. My chapter on the girls' talk about marriage will therefore take a critical and reflexive approach to perspectives of researcher and researched, different sources of data, and discourses of hybridity and culture clash.

Very little in the way of actual studies on the perceptions of arranged marriages have been done. The current study proposes to explore that comparison of marital happiness—that is, when placed side by side with a set of predictors for marital happiness, how do arranged marriages and autonomous marriages compare at 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, and 50 years. Participants in this study were 168 couples that had been married for a duration of between 1 year to 50 years. Despite the limitations in the study, it is expected this study will find that arranged marriages show an increase and then plateauing consistency of predictors of marital happiness from the 10-year mark forward.

In the nature's scheme of things, all men are shaped to husband any maiden, who in turn is endowed to become the wife of every man there is biologically speaking that is. But the marital selection by restriction, based on race, caste, creed etc. brought about a homogenous order for possible matrimonial harmony. Nonetheless, it put paid to the free leanings of the young hearts across those man-made boundaries (Sarat's tragic tale of Devdas and Parvathi comes to mind) but despite its insensitivities towards the lovers, this social imposition, by and large, had been serving its marital cause rather well. But now, as the newly erected astrological hurdle, relatively speaking that is, in the form of matching the horoscopes for compatibility of the prospective couples in the Telugu marital course, I am familiar with (more or less same may be the case in the Indian panorama), is proving to be debilitating, its review seems overdue.

Since the immigration reform of the mid-1960s, thousands of Asian Indians have immigrated to the United States. This radio documentary traces their experiences in New Jersey. We visit of Sikh Sunday school in Glen Rock, we hear about the so-called "Dot-Buster" incidents in Jersey City, we walk down Oak Tree Road (the Gujurati commercial strip) in Iselin, we attend the all-night Navratri festival in Edison and a quawalli concert in the basement of a home in the same town, we hear about the experiences of thos East Indians who came to America by way of Uganda in Africa and British Guiana in South America, hear interviews NYU professor David Reimers about immigration reform and Princeton professor Gyan Prakash about the similarity between the Urdu language spoken in Pakistan and the Hindi langauge spoken in parts of India, and hear about the generational differences about arranged marriages among East Indians in America.

Dolpo is a culturally Tibetan enclave in one of Nepal’s most remote regions. The Dolpo-pa share religious, language and cultural practices, and a common way of life. Agro-pastoralists
who live in some of the highest villages in the world, the Dolpo-pa wrest survival from this inhospitable landscape through a creative combination of farming, animal husbandry, and
trade. The ethnography and ecological history of Dolpo trace the dramatic transformations in the socioeconomic patterns of the region. Once these traders passed freely between Tibet and
Nepal with their caravans of yak to exchange salt and grains; they relied on winter pastures in Tibet to maintain their herds. After 1959, China assumed full control over Tibet, and the border was closed, restricting livestock migrations and sharply curtailing trade. At the same
time, increasing supplies of Indian salt reduced the value of Tibetan salt, undermining Dolpo’s economic niche. Dolpo’s agro-pastoralists were forced to reinvent their lives by changing their migration patterns and adopting new economic partnerships. The region has been transformed as a result of the creation of Nepal’s largest national park, the Himalayas becoming a major motion picture filming location, the increasing presence of nongovernmental organizations, and a booming trade in a medicinal product so called yartsa gumbu.

Series Description:

We are eager to consider original scholarship on cutting-edge themes and issues for this series. The intention of this series is to fill a gap in research by examining the politics of marriage and related practices, ideologies, and interpretations, and to address the key question of how the politics of marriage has affected social, cultural, and political processes, relations, and boundaries. The series will look at the complex relationships between the politics of marriage and gender, ethnic, national, religious, racial, and class identities, and will analyze how these relationships contribute to the development and management of social and political differences, inequalities, and conflicts.

This brief essay explains the nuances and complexities of Indian elites’
subjectivities,  which  need  to  be  understood  beyond  the  simplistic 
frameworks  of  access  to  capital.  This  is  done  through  the  analysis  of  two recent Bollywood movies—Dil Dhadakne Do and
Shaandaar—that  depict the myriad struggles, vulnerabilities and strategies of the elites in forming marriage alliances.

Objective

This study aimed to understand the main factors influencing the decision of adolescent girls to run away from home in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, and to explore the social and cultural construction of female adolescent runaways in this region.


Method

In-depth qualitative interviews with seven runaway adolescent girls and six women married at an early age (11–16 years old) were conducted in Wukro and Mekelle in Tigray to investigate why the girls escaped from home and how communities responded to these decisions.


Results

Findings suggest that the immediate trigger that led all the young participants to run away was to escape an arranged marriage, except in one ‘romantic’ elopement case. Individual and structural factors, such as child maltreatment and educational aspirations, and new family law respectively, also contributed to the decision to escape.


Conclusion

Adolescent runaways seem to be ignored or normalized within the community in Tigray and, in particular, by its public institutions. This may explain why there are limited services for runaway girls, such as shelters and other forms of support. This lack of social protection structures has left these girls unprotected and exposed to a range of risks, such as early and unwanted pregnancies, labor exploitation, dropping out of school, and transactional sex. To date, this phenomenon of adolescent runaways has remained an invisible issue in Tigray as runaway girls are counted under general migration figures. Further research is needed to explore how this phenomenon is categorized at policy level in order to address runaway girls’ needs as defined by them

This book is an extensive and thorough exploration of the ways in which the middle class in India select their spouse. Using the prism of matchmaking, this book critically unpacks the concept of the 'modern' and traces the importance of moralities and values in the making of middle class identities, by bringing to the fore intersections and dynamics of caste, class, gender, and neoliberalism. The author discusses a range of issues: romantic relationships among youth, use of online technology and of professional services like matrimonial agencies and detective agencies, encounters of love and heartbreak, impact of experiences of pain and humiliation on spouse-selection, and the involvement of family in matchmaking. Based on this comprehensive account, she elucidates how the categories of 'love' and 'arranged' marriages fall short of explaining, in its entirety and essence, the contemporary process of spouse-selection in urban India. Though the ethnographic research has been conducted in India, this book is of relevance to social scientists studying matchmaking practices, youth cultures, modernity and the middle class in other societies, particularly in parts of Asia. While being based on thorough scholarship, the book is written in accessible language to appeal to a larger audience.

Forced marriages of children are one of the forms of exploitation in the commission of the crime of trafficking in human beings. Children are treated as a commodity, sold to interested parties for the establishment of a family, while the children, victims of trafficking, are completely deprived of their human (children) rights, their health is impaired, they are deprived of the right to education and denied the development of their personality as well as belonging to their own family. Children who have suffered such a serious crime will cope with extremely serious consequences all of their lives. The first part of the paper covers the concept, scope and causes of this form of exploitation of children and the consequences that children need to cope with. The second part presents the international legal framework relating to the suppression of trafficking in children as well as the documents to guarantee international protection of children and their rights. Furthermore, it points out to the national legislation, principally in the field of criminal law, but also other blanket regulations which ensure the protection of children and their rights. This paper also analyses the collected data on child victims of forced marriage. In concluding remarks, listed are recommendations de lege ferenda in combating exploitation of children for the conclusion of forced and arranged marriages and other forms of exploitation of children.

Caught in the context of a highly competitive development process, within the framework of a policy which limited their reproductive capacity to a single child, PRC urban families have, in recent decades, attached growing importance to their child's education, aiming to lead them to professional and personal success. This, however, also had an impact on the capacities of many young adults to marry early. In this context, the phenomenon of "marriage corners" mushroomed in large cities all over China beginning in the mid-2000s. Within China, this new practice generated criticism. These markets are seen as displaying conservative forms of marriage arrangement, the disregarding of romantic love, and forms of intergenerational power organization that may be considered backwards. However, by the criticisms it generates but as well the forms of relationships that it displays, the phenomenon can allow for a better understanding of the transformation of inter-generational relationships amongst urban middle-class, and on the norms framing the lives of the new generation.

This article analyzes the public response to the story of a young woman who rejected her fiancé during her wedding ceremony in Bamako, Mali. Controversy over her actions revealed divergent opinions about the rights and responsibilities of individuals regarding marriage and spousal choice in contemporary Malian society, where economic insecurity, tense gender dynamics, and the demands of kin undermine young persons’ aspirations for romantic fulfillment and companionate marriage. Using evidence from online discussion forums, ethnographic interviews, and focus-group discussions conducted in Bamako, this article explores the gap separating young Bamako residents’ ideals of marriage from their lived realities. It finds that concerns about materialism in love and marriage are shared by young men and women alike, indicating deepening uncertainty over ongoing social change.

Are marriages made in heaven? Or partner seekers are trying hard to get a compatible partner. Online matrimonial sites are influencing the searching practices. The language used by partner seekers on matrimonial sites can also be a subject matter of linguistic. One partner seeker uses this phrase: “Govt Job IAS IES IFS IRS PCS ALL India”; another uses: “I am searching a partner for my friend Shruti”. I once wrote a chapter, titled “From Arranged to Online: A Study of Courtship Culture in India”. If you are interested in knowing how linguistics interacts with other disciplines, then you must read this chapter.

In Chap. 2, Maïté Maskens explores the cultivation of secular selves and bodies of state agents in charge of implementing the  fight against so-called marriages of convenience in Brussels. The argument is that civil servants operate a shift between the official goal of preventing cheaters who use marriage as a way to cross European boundaries, and the ‘civili- zational project’ at work by selecting ‘modern’ couples and rejecting those somehow perceived as ‘archaic’. Throughout this chapter, it becomes clear how at the core of the professional routines of the civil servants there are two contradictory activities: (i) the ideal of neutrality and the principle of impersonality at the core of the secular state; and (ii) the concern and concrete implementation of the fight against ‘marriages of convenience’ (especially directed at Muslims).

The business of matchmaking, performed in open-market matrimonial negotiations, has not just helped brides and grooms find their ‘perfect match’, ‘soulmate’, ‘right person’, ‘life partner’, ‘true happiness’, and so on, they have also helped strengthen the ‘community’ through what Dumont called ‘endo-recruiting’. The modernity of matrimonials has reinvented the traditional marriage system, combined the best of both love and arranged marriage, and provided ‘individual’ as well as ‘social’ compatibility to candidates and their families.

The search for 'the one and only' romantic partner, our second half who will love us forever and a day, and will light an eternal fire in our loving heart, has been a frustrating undertaking for many people. But why? Could the goal be unrealistic? Can we improve our strategy, and our chances, or should we give up the search? Should we hold out for the perfect partner or settle for good enough? In the calculus of love, flourishing means getting it right.
https://aeon.co/essays/to-swipe-to-dream-or-to-settle-how-to-find-your-one-true-love

La tesi mira a dimostrare la complessità della cosiddetta comunità indiana nella valle del Chiampo, attraverso lo studio dei diversi centri di culto presenti nel territorio, ovvero i quattro gurdwara Sikh, di Castelgomberto, Chiampo, Lonigo e San Bonifacio, il gurdwara Ravidassia di Montecchio Maggiore e il Sanatan dharma mandir di Arzignano. Tale scelta metodologica è dettata dall’importanza dei templi non solo come luoghi rituali, ma soprattutto per il ruolo che svolgono nei territori di rilocazione. Oltre il lavoro di integrazione per poter farsi conoscere dalle comunità locali, attraverso l’organizzazione di eventi, come il Nagar Kirtan, questi spazi sono centri di aggregazione e di supporto, dove imparare e trasmettere pratiche sociali. Il punto di vista è quello delle seconde generazioni, ragazzi nati in India e trasferitisi in Italia da bambini oppure nati e cresciuti nella Valle del Chiampo, che vivono tentando di conciliare i due mondi culturali in cui sono immersi.

Although frequently debated in the media, few ethnographic studies have examined the dynamics between arranged and love marriages in immigrant communities in Australia. Drawing on Sollors’ theory of Consent over Descent and Bourdieu’s theory of Masculine Domination, this paper examines the cultural transformation brought about by second-generation daughters in Maronite, Lebanese immigrant families from Hadchit who increasingly choose their own spouse based on love and gender equality. This paper theorises women as subjects, not objects of marriage and asks: how does cultural identity change when women have greater agency in the negotiation of marriage? The study finds three dialectical processes of social change. First, the relation of male domination between the sexes has been destabilised. Second, although marriage contracts based upon female consent have led to a growing preference for exogamous love marriages over endogamous arranged marriages within the village, religious endogamy has remained significant. Last, the study finds an overall decline in village identification; ‘Lebanese-Australian’ has become the most common form of cultural identification.

Marriage arrangements in African societies have been widely debated by anthropologists and government officers since the colonial period. In the Horn of Africa, as well as elsewhere, colonial officers and anthropologists saw marriage transactions as forms of buying and selling insofar as women were exchanged among families and/or men In the contemporary present, “arranged marriages” are often considered abusive and equated with “forced marriages.” In isolated cases, asylum seekers have invoked fleeing an unwanted arranged marriage as the ground for a “well founded fear of persecution” and have thus been granted refugee protection status in Europe and elsewhere.  In order to understand contemporary “arranged marriages” it is crucial to situate them in an ethnographic, socio-economic, historical context and to recognize the importance of the social networks into which the new spouses enter by wedding. The notion of “forced marriage,” on the other hand, is also historically constructed and, as such, needs to be contextualized in the historically determined socio-cultural environments from which it stems. 
In this chapter, I demonstrate that forcing people into monogamous marriages was an integral part of Italian colonial policy, as implemented in Gosha, in the Middle/Lower Juba of Somalia, during the last fifteen years of the Fascist period before the British Military Administration took over the area in 1941. As an explicit colonial policy, however, forced marriage was completely different from the indigenous institution of arranged marriage.

Divorce in virtually every culture is a private affair and not thus easily discussed in public. In the Arabian Gulf, because of the shame associated with deep religious, traditional, and gendered views of marriage, divorce is extremely secretive and has therefore been rarely studied. This article explores the lived experiences of 21 Arab Muslims from the United Arab Emirates who were in traditional arranged marriages and have divorced. Ten Emirati women and 11 Emirati men were interviewed using phenomenology to guide an inductive exploration. Nine themes emerged from the interviews. Five were shared across genders and 2 themes were specific to one gender. The first 4 might be called universal themes as they show up consistently in literature from both the East and the West. The rest appear to be more culturally specific.

Endogamy or intra-caste marriage is one of the most resilient of all the caste based practices in India. Even in 2011, the rate of inter caste marriages in India was as low as 5.82%. In this paper we explore whether education has any relationship with this age-old practice of marrying within one's own caste. Using a nationally representative data set, the Indian Human Development Survey, we find that, in sharp contrast with the findings in the existing literature on out-marriages in the Western countries, education levels of the spouses themselves do not have any association with the likelihood of their own marriage being an inter caste one. However, couples with a more educated mother of the husband have a significantly higher probability of being in an inter caste marriage. One standard deviation increase in the years of education of the husband's mother is associated with a 10.16% increase in the probability of inter caste marriage over the sample mean. Our analysis highlights the importance of recognizing the institution of arranged marriages in any analysis of Indian marriage markets.

Previous scholarly works have found extensive presence of colorism in India's matrimonial advertisements. Analysis of newspaper matrimonial advertisements by different scholars over the past decade or so, indicates that fairness of skin is considered one of the most important qualities in a prospective Indian bride, in such ads. In comparison, little importance is attached to their academic achievements or aspirations. This study examines if online matrimonial platforms – where younger consumers (such as prospective brides) have been found to have greater control over content—have affected the importance given to skin color of a woman in matrimonial ads. A textual analysis of 150 matrimonial ads from one Indian newspaper and one matrimonial website was conducted to understand whether the platform or the identity of the advertiser made a difference to the presence of colorism in the ads. Critical Race Theory (CRT) defines colorism as a practice that favors lighter skin over darker skin, and argues that colorism beliefs and practices operate both within and across racial and ethnic groups. Our findings suggest that the online ads highlighted a woman's skills, qualifications, and expectations more, compared to newspaper ads. However, despite being posted by prospective brides themselves, most online posts we analyzed continued to highlight women's skin tone, body type and other physical attributes prominently. Interviews with four Indian women who found their spouses through such ads indicated that these women also agreed to their bodies and skin tone being highlighted because " everyone was doing it " or they were told: " it would help get a good groom. " Findings support key tenets of CRT that colorism is an ingrained feature of social systems; that it is socially constructed and constantly negotiated based on a group's own social interests.

Rear Curtain / authors Seda Manavoglu, Tina Bastajian ; ed. Delphine Bedel. – [Arnhem] : [Dutch Art Institute], 2009. – 19 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. –Artist Book.  – Part of the editorial project  "The Publications Project" by the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) and in collaboration with "WerkplaatsTypografie".

Previous studies have found the presence of colorism, especially a bias toward fair-skinned women in India's newspaper matrimonial advertisements where fair-complexioned women are considered more beautiful than those with a darker skin complexion. Most matrimonial advertisements in newspapers are posted by family elders such as parents of prospective brides. This study explored if the rise of online matrimonial portals has empowered marginalized members of families such as prospective brides by giving them greater access to, and control over, posting matrimonial ads, and whether who posts these ads has made a difference to how women are projected in the online ads. Textual analysis of 150 online matrimonial ads indicated that younger women such as would-be brides posted more ads in online media, compared to older family members. Further, irrespective of who posted the ads, there was less overt focus on physical attributes of women such as fairness of skin, but colorism was present in more subtle forms. Finally, the online ads posted by both prospective brides, and their parents, were unable to entirely break free from shackles of socially constructed patriarchal norms where women's physical attributes such as fair skin are considered critical qualities. Findings were consistent with the tenets of Critical Race Theory that colorism is an ingrained feature of social systems and is constantly negotiated based on a group's own social interests. APA CITATION: Chattopadhyay, D., & Chattopadhyay, S. (2019). Colorism and Love for Fair Skin: Exploring Digitization’s Effect on India’s Arranged Marriage Matrimonial Advertisements. Asian Communication Research, 16(1), 105-138.