Paper short abstract:

Based on my anthropological research (online questionnaires, digital ethnography, and in-depth interviews) I will analyse the dominant political discourses, everyday counternarratives and lived experiences (of new marriage couple) about gender and marriage during the pandemic in Hungary.

Paper long abstract:

Based on my anthropological research (questionnaires, digital ethnography, and in-depth interviews) I will analyse the dominant political discourses, everyday counternarratives and lived experiences (of new marriage couple) about gender and marriage during the pandemic in Hungary. Although marriage partnership is a personal alliance, it is not entirely a private or family affair. Modern marriage has long been central to how states have sought to regulate their populations and to influence feelings of national belonging. The connections between marriage and nationhood are particularly apparent in the case of Hungary. While marriage rates worldwide fell significantly during the pandemic, in Hungary the number of marriages increased. The demographic trend can be explained mainly by the recently introduced policy measures offering favorable terms for loans. Being married and planning to have a child are necessary conditions for accessing these. The political narrative of marriage has been primarily focused on traditional and heteronormative gender roles and articulates “beauty of love and care for others”, and motherhood as a woman’s purpose in life. So, the hegemonic political narrative emphasizes that in the name of marriage, women and men continue to assume conservative and more unequal gender roles. This heteronormative gender notion is also “symbolic glue” that holds together domestic political ideology and positions it against neoliberal Western societies. The everyday counternarratives and lived experiences about gender and marriage showed different views. Presumably, “working misunderstandings” are in the background. Other marriage motivations (e.g. emphasizing economic interests and romantic love), complex and multidimensional gender ideologies prevailed.