Abstract
Ethnographically interrogating Haryana Kalyanams—popular name for marriages between men from Haryana and women from Kerala—this chapter illustrates the complexity of marital mobility in cross-region marriages (henceforth CRM) in India. CRM are an outcome of local male marriage squeeze created due to sex-ratio imbalance and changing gender relations in north India. Media attention to these marriages is largely negative and replete with stories of trafficking and exploitation of brides from Bihar, Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Bangladesh married into Haryana. However, in Kerala–Haryana marriages, the popular narrative changes. The better position of Kerala in comparison to Haryana, as expressed in its gender development indicators, is used to present Kerala brides as completely in control of their marital destiny and as agents of change and transformation in rigidly patriarchal Haryanavi society. This paper complicates this oversimplified narrative to illustrate how Kerala brides in Haryana grapple with harsh patriarchal norms and gender prescriptions which often conflict with their personal desire for freedom and agency. In doing so, it cautions against any straightforward assumptions of upward mobility and agency for Kerala brides in CRM and emphasizes the need to analyze their poistion within the webs of power within which they operate.
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Notes
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Some rural communities in South India are also reported experiencing bride-shortages and newer forms of marriage migration (Srinivasan, 2017).
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The porous borders of India with Nepal and Bangladesh have also facilitated cross-border marriage migration of women from these countries into India. Ibrahim (2018) has documented presence of Bangladeshi brides in Kutch, Gujarat. Kaur (2012) and Blanchet (2008) have studied Bangladeshi brides married to men in Uttar Pradesh.
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Mishra, P. (2021). When South Meets North: Interrogating Agency and Marital Mobility in Kerala-Haryana Marriages. In: Mani, S., Iyer, C.G. (eds) India’s Economy and Society. India Studies in Business and Economics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0869-8_14
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