9 - Marriage: When, to Whom, and How People Get Married

Summary

Marriage serves as the foundation for family life. This social institution can be found in all societies, though its character varies across cultures. An exploration of when, to whom, and how individuals marry can reveal important insights about how a society is structured. The age at which people marry and the method of selecting a partner may reflect gender and generational power dynamics in the family. Social rules about who one can marry are one way that groups construct social boundaries. These boundaries may be defined by religion, ethnicity, race, caste, linguistic group, social class, or some other characteristics. Marriage, therefore, plays an important role in reproducing patterns of social inequality and social distinction across generations. It is for these reasons that social scientists often study marriage and changes in marriage practices as a window through which to examine changing social structure and values.

In India, marriage is nearly universal. Only 1 percent of women and 2 percent of men will have never married by age 45–49. Divorce and remarriage are also relatively rare, so, for most Indians, marriage only happens once in their lifetime. Weddings are often central to the plotline in Bollywood cinema and, in real life, they are the single most costly and important event in an average Indian's life. However, there is reason to believe that marriage has been changing over the past few generations, especially in terms of when, to whom, and how Indians marry. India has undergone rapid economic and political change, an expansion of access to education and increased globalization. This has led to increased urbanization, the nuclearization of families, and changes in the nature of work, with more Indians employed in the non-farm sector. Despite these large social shifts, there remains a debate in the literature about whether Indian marriages are also changing.

Early theories of family change predicted a global convergence in family form across different societies. According to this perspective, as countries developed, urbanized, industrialized, and expanded education, their families and marriage behaviors would begin to look more like those in the West. Families were expected to delay marriage and adopt self-choice in partner selection.