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Arranged Marriage
The Politics of Tradition, Resistance, and Change
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Edited by:
Péter Berta
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With contributions by:
Asha L. Abeyasekera
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2023
About this book
Arranged Marriage: The Politics of Tradition, Resistance, and Change shows how arranged marriage practices have been undergoing transformation as a result of global and other processes such as the revolution of digital technology, democratization of transnational mobility, or shifting significance of patriarchal power structures. The ethnographically informed chapters not only highlight how the gendered and intergenerational politics of agency, autonomy, choice, consent, and intimacy work in the contexts of partner choice and management of marriage, but also point out that arranged marriages are increasingly varied and they can be reshaped, reinvented, and reinterpreted flexibly in response to individual, family, religious, class, ethnic, and other desires, needs, and constraints. The authors convincingly demonstrate that a nuanced investigation of the reasons, complex dynamics, and consequences of arranged marriages offers a refreshing analytical lens that can significantly contribute to a deeper understanding of other phenomena such as globalization, modernization, and international migration as well as patriarchal value regimes, intergenerational power imbalances, and gendered subordination and vulnerability of women.
Author / Editor information
PÉTER BERTA is an honorary research associate at University College London SSEES and a senior research fellow at Budapest Business School. He is the author of the award-winning monograph Materializing Difference: Consumer Culture, Politics, and Ethnicity among Romanian Roma, and the founding editor of The Politics of Marriage and Gender book series at Rutgers University Press.
Reviews
“This volume interrogates arranged marriage in all its complexities and ambiguities across the globe. It illuminates how migration, legal institutions, technology, and transnational cultural flows interweave with shifting marital practices in Europe, North America, the Middle East, South Asia, and Australia.”
“Arranged Marriage is a compelling collection that forces readers to rethink their assumptions about love, marriage, and choice. Although “modern” is a word rarely associated with such unions, Arranged Marriage persuasively demonstrates that these marriages are not an outdated relic of the past. By providing a thoughtful and nuanced picture of this age-old practice, Arranged Marriage leaves it up to the reader to decide whether the good outweighs the bad.”
— Marcia Zug, (University of South Carolina), author of Buying a Bride: An Engaging History of Mail-Order Matches“Berta’s edited volume is a deep dive into the nuances of the varied processes of arranged marriages – from love-choice to trafficking. Each chapter reads like a novel, taking us through rich collections of stories grounded in ethnography and legal records in communities as diverse as Canadian Mormons, Israelis, Chinese, South Asians, Roma, and Syrian refugees. I look forward to the debates with my students.”
— Erin Patrice Moore, (University of Southern California), author of Gender, Power and Resistance in India“This comprehensive approach to arranged marriage looks both at the dark side of arranged marriages, where women are treated as objects and vulnerable to severe exploitation, and a more nuanced look from a global perspective on how arranged marriage can suit the needs of different populations around the world. There is a high level of scholarship among the invited authors for this book of curated articles and it is hard to imagine anyone who is interested in arranged marriage not needing this book.”
— Pepper Schwartz, (University of Washington), co-author of The Gender of Sexuality: Exploring Sexual Possibilities“Highlighting processual and contextual understandings of arranged marriage, and a de-essentializing approach, this timely collection shows the continued vibrancy, versatility, and variability of current arranged marriage practices – and their crucial importance for studies of marriage and relationality.”
— Janet Carsten, (University of Edinburgh), author of After Kinship"Arranged marriage is unhooked from its stereotypes and stigmas in this volume. What we get instead are new and unexpected insights into an enduring, flexible, portable, and hybrid mode of heterosexual conjugality. An excellent scholarly and pedagogical tool!"
— Jyoti Puri, (Simmons University), author of Sexual States: Governance and the Struggle over the Antisodomy Law i“As a set of practices that are constantly mutating and notoriously difficult to pin-down statistically, arranged marriages have aroused much interest, debate, and judgment in scholarly, feminist, and activist circles. The present volume of thoroughly researched and sharply analyzed essays offers a global view of this complex institution that helps the reader to develop a dynamic understanding of arranged marriage practices, departing from received notions. A must-read for anyone interested in the contemporary reality of a deep historical practice.”
— Rochona Majumdar, (The University of Chicago), author of Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial BengalTopics
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Frontmatter
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Contents
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Series Foreword
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Introduction: Conceptualizing Arranged Marriage – From Binary Oppositions to Hybridity, Processuality, and Contextual Dependency
1 - Part I: Regulating Arranged Marriage
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1. Nothing “Celestial” about It: Trafficking Underage Brides between Canada and the United States for the Purposes of Arranged Marriage
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2. From Family Safety Net to the World Wide Web of Immigration Fraudsters: The Evolution of Arranged Marriages among South Asian Canadians
48 - Part II: (Re)conceptualizing Arranged Marriage
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3. Arranged Marriage as a Process: From Premarital Normalization of Arranged Marriage to Arranged Divorce and Arranged Remarriage
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4. Configuring Arranged Marriage as a Foil to Forced Marriage in Multicultural Australia
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5. Forced Marriage and “Honor”-Based Violence in Britain: Issues, Debates, and the Question of Consent
108 - Part III: Revitalizing and Reinventing Arranged Marriage
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6 Revisiting Transnational Arranged Marriages among Syrian Refugees in Germany: A Relational Approach
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7. From Patriarchal Call to Digital Hunt: Transforming “Arranged Marriages” in China
141 - Part IV: Modernizing Arranged Marriage
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8. Family-Arranged Marriages in Globalizing India: Shifting Scripts of Desire, Infidelity, and Emotional Compatibility
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9. Progressive Traditions, Repressive Victorians, and the Modern Present: Arranged Marriage and Gender in Sri Lanka
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10. “I Wanted to Choose for Myself”: Changing Marriage Patterns in the Ultra-Orthodox Society in Israel
190 - Part V: Diasporizing Arranged Marriage
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11. Wedded to Tradition? Continuity and Change in Arranged Marriage Practices among British Indians
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12. The Changing Face of Arranged Marriage in the South Asian Diaspora in Chicago
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Afterword
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Acknowledgments
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Notes on Contributors
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Index
263
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
March 15, 2023
eBook ISBN:
9781978822863
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781978822863
Keywords for this book
marriage; culture; society; diaspora; migration; Africa; Roma; India; Asia; South Asia; Religion; Iran; Turkey; Indonesia; China; Japan; Kenya; Lebanon; Tanzania; arranged marriage
Audience(s) for this book
For universities and colleges of further and higher education
