Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the continuing changes in attitudes towards love before and during marriage in rural Pakistan-administered Kashmir. It looks in particular at how male migration to the Gulf and the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake played a role in redefining premarital and marital choices.

Paper long abstract:

Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PaK) witnessed several events in its recent past that created and recreated cultural, social and economic changes. Of these, the migration to the Gulf since the mid-70s and the 2005 earthquake impacted directly and indirectly marital choices and relations.

In rural PaK marital choices are often a parents' prerogative, with preference for maintaining endogamy within the family, kinship and caste. As migration impacted demographics, social stratification and education levels, it also played a role in younger generations' quest for bringing the concept of love into marital choices. As a result, the youth has become more assertive and vocal in terms of whom to date and marry.

High levels of Gulf migration also impacted marital relationships. Male migrants and their remittances are usually the main source of income for families. As the house becomes an arena for bargaining, contestation and manipulation over resources, competition frequently arises between the women who have the closest relation to income-earning males - the mothers and wives. Of the many relationships within the house, the saas-bahu dyad is the most visible and the one through which others are enacted while competing to exert control over male migrants. This competition intensified during post-earthquake housing reconstruction, with wives' pleas for separate housing.

This paper analyses the continuing changes in attitudes towards love before and during marriage in rural PaK. It looks in particular at how male migration and the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake played a role in redefining premarital and marital choices.