re-arranging marriage in mumbai
DESCRIPTION
This presentation was given at the Society for Anthropology in Community College annual meeting in Austin, Texas, April 2013.TRANSCRIPT
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Re-Arranging Marriage in Mumbai
Laura Tubelle de GonzálezSan Diego Miramar CollegeSACC Annual MeetingApril 2013
Photo credit: “Ordinary Lives” film (2005)
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Primary goal: To understand the marriage expectations of girls around marrying age today in Mumbai
Research Goals
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Research questions:
Is arranged marriage still valued? If so, by whom and in what form?
Does caste still play a role in young women’s minds regarding marriage?
If there are changes taking place, to what might we ascribe the changes?
Three Research Goals
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Background on marriage in India
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No one type of “marriage” in India due to its incredible complexity of “communities”: i.e. religions/castes/regions of origin, languages and socio-economic levels.
Studying “marriage” in India
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Through the community(religious leader, relatives, family friends)Marriage bureau registration
Marriage “meets”
Common Forms of Arranged Marriage Today in Mumbai
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Newspaper ads
“Sunday Matrimonials” in the Times of India
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Sample size: 21 respondents
Women between 18-33 yrs old
Middle-Upper middle class
18 Mumbai 10 yrs + Snowball sample
Mumbai data: Quantitative
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Study Participants: Marital Status (15/6)
Unmarried 71%
Married29%
Unmarried Married
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Married Women: Arranged or Self-Initiated Match (1/5)
Arranged17%
Self-Ini-tiated83%
Arranged
Self-Ini-tiated
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43%
33%
10%
5%5%
5%
Hindu Roman Catholic
Christian Sikh
Buddhist Parsi/Christian
Religion of respondents
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Caste
Wedding Reception, Marine Drive, Mumbai
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ETHNIC GROUP Sindhi community Sindhi Hindu Mangalorean
RELIGIOUS Hindu Vaishnav Hindu/Buddhist Hindu by marriage
(Parsi/Christian family) Roman Catholic (2) Christian Sardar (Sikh)
CASTE Koknastha Brahmin
RELIGIOUS + REGION Hindu-Gujarati-Vaishnav Hindu-Balasinor Christian-Catholic from Kerala Hindu-caste; Kutchi-community
REGION Goan Maharashtrian "East Indian, Kulbi community,
the highest class of East Indians”
None (3 - 2 Roman Catholics, 1 Hindu)
What is your caste/community?
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Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Maybe
A for-eigner?
An Indian of another religion?
Of differ-ent caste?
From a different native
place or state?
A divorcée or widower?
0
5
10
15
20
25
17
2
18
2
19
1
20
0
97
3
No. of
resp
on
den
ts
If/when you have children, would you accept them marrying…?
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14
2
2
1 1
All same
Same religion; Different regions
Same religion, caste, region; Different subcaste
Same religion, region; Dif-ferent religious practice, dif-ferent natal towns
Same religion, region; Dif-ferent natal towns
Religion, Caste/Community, Region:Girl’s parents (all respondents)
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5
1
All same
Different reli-gion; Different regions
Religion, Caste/Community, Region:Husband and Wife
(married respondents)
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Returning to basic research questions
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Is arranged marriage still valued?
Yes, it is still valued by most girls in some form, although lines are blurry between self-arranged and other-arranged matches.
My data correlate with Puri’s (2007) research showing that girls seek an understanding and supportive match. The language of “companionship” is used no matter how marriage is initiated.
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Does caste still play a role in young women’s minds regarding marriage?
My study data correlate with Beteille (1991) in that most people are unwilling to disclose caste, defend it, or use it openly as a factor in marriage negotiations.
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However, it seems correct to say, as Shah (1988; 1998), that family reproduces caste norms as simply a function of the family’s roles in an individual’s life.
A person’s network of family relations – as the core of their social world – is the most concrete representation of caste. “So many intra-caste marriages are arranged through informal inquiries among members of kin groups.” (Robinson n.d.)
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To what might we attribute the changes? Seymour (1999) found changes in
marriage and family (40 year study) after girls had begun to pursue higher education
English-medium schooling correlates to middle class urban women’s experience, both married and unmarried; English is main language of middle class families (Robinson n.d.)
Education, Employment and Class
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Education
15
4
1
Postgraduate/Masters
Still an un-dergrad
"Graduated privately"
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What language do you speak most often with…?
Englis
h
Hin
di
Guj
arat
i
Mar
athi
Sindh
i
Kutch
i
Mal
ay...
Punja
bi
Konka
ni0
5
10
15
20
25
Parents/Relatives
Friends/Classmates
No. of
resp
on
den
ts
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Seymour (1999) challenges the notion that modernization alone shifts values -because of collectivist cultures that are fully modern, such as Japan.
My data correlates with Uberoi’s (1993) conclusion that change seems to follow the rise and stabilization of a salaried middle class, not simply urbanization, since lower economic classes have not experienced this kind of change.Urban salaried middle
class
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Questions for further study
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Longitudinal: Follow women as their children grow and marry
Study differences between English- and Hindi- (or other-) medium schooling
Examine the Indian university and modern workplace for processes of change as they are negotiated (Robinson n.d.)
How does the arranged marriage system contribute to a “rape culture?”
Future Research