Marriage in India – DW Samachar

Young British Indians are embracing arranged marriage – just not in the traditional sense IVASHstudio/Shutterstock Raksha Pande, Newcastle University Arranged marriages occupy an awkward place in contemporary Britain. For some, they’re equivalent to forced marriage. Others see them as a quaint custom in need of adjustment to the modern ideal of western-style “love marriages”. However, my decade-long research with British Indians paints a rather different picture of this practice. Far from being a homogeneous tradition, modern arranged marriages involve a variety of matchmaking practices where each family tailors its own version to suit modern identities and ambitions. Among the first generation, transnational arranged marriages were the nor...

When gold prices go up, so does the cost of a dowry – and baby girl survival rates in India fall Gold jewellery has traditionally been central to dowries in India. witty234/Shutterstock Sonia Bhalotra, University of Essex When world gold prices go up, fewer girl babies in India survive the first month of life, according to our new research. My colleagues and I suggest that this is linked to gold often being part of bridal dowries in India – so when gold prices go up, the cost of raising girls rises and families tend to neglect or abort them. Dowry, a transfer at marriage from parents to daughters, is an ancient tradition thought to date back to at least 200BC, and was widely prevalent in medieval Western Europe. While it has virtually disappe...