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LIVED EXPERIENCES OF MARRIAGE: REGIONAL AND CROSS-REGIONAL BRIDES IN RURAL NORTH INDIA Shruti Chaudhry PhD Sociology University of Edinburgh 2016 DECLARATION This thesis has been composed by me and is my own work. It has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Shruti Chaudhry 19 July 2016 i ABSTRACT Based on eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork (September 2012-August 2013) in a village in Baghpat district located in the western part of the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), the thesis compares the lived experiences of marriage of women in what I describe as regional marriage (RM) with women in cross-regional marriage (CRM). RMs are marriages that conform to caste and community norms (caste endogamy, gotrā [clan] and village/territorial exogamy) and are negotiated within a limited geographical region, i.e., the state. CRMs are those between men in north India and women from the southern, eastern and north-eastern parts of the country. Such marriages cross caste, linguistic and state boundaries with the marriage distance exceeding 1000 kms. CRMs also differ from RMs with regard to their modes of arrangement and the payments involved. They result from two sets of factors – one operating at bride-sending regions (mainly poverty) and the other at bride-receiving regions (masculine sex ratios and the difficulties some men have in achieving “eligibility” for marriage). NGO and journalistic accounts and some academic work has focused on CRMs: being a consequence only of masculine sex ratios and bride shortages; deviating from north Indian marriage norms; involving the “sale” and “purchase” of poor women from poor districts and states; and CRBs’ low status and lack of agency in receiving communities. This research aims to interrogate the moral panic surrounding the “plight” of CRBs. The thesis begins by contextualising CRM by exploring the factors that lead some (UP) men of particular castes to seek brides from other states and those that influence the migration of women over long-distances for marriages. It examines the process of negotiation entailed in making a RM and a CRM – the role of matchmakers, marriage payments and the rituals regarded as necessary to make a marriage “legitimate”. The thesis then focuses on the question of lived experiences of marriage by examining different aspects of regional brides’ (RB) and cross-regional brides’ (CRB) everyday lives – what the process of adjustment in a new (marital) home means for women when they leave their natal homes to live in their husbands’ homes and villages, the work that married women do, their relationships with other women in their marital villages, their relationships with their husbands and with their natal kin. Married ii women’s lives are embedded in various power dynamics and this research aims to address how factors such as caste, class, religion and age/years of marriage shape women’s post-marital experiences, in addition to their regional origins. This ethnographic study also attempts to outline issues specific to CRBs, particularly discrimination, belonging and incorporation within a culturally and linguistically different context, as well as the intergenerational implications of these marriages in terms of the (caste) status, rights and marriages of children of cross-regional couples. This research departs from existing studies on CRM as it attempts to understand post- marital experiences through a comparison with RM. Such an approach makes it possible to recognise similarities in the lived experiences of RBs and CRBs that enables a more nuanced understanding of the gendering of intimate/marital relationships in contemporary rural India within a context of caste inequalities and poverty. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the support of several people. I would begin by thanking my supervisors. Patricia Jeffery has been a wonderful and supportive supervisor. My work was enriched immensely by her experience, insightful comments and meticulous attention to detail. I am grateful to Mary Holmes who agreed to come in as supervisor in the fourth year. She has always been encouraging and constructive and contributed greatly to making the writing process less stressful. I would also like to thank Lotte Hoek and Radhika Govinda who acted as supervisors in the first and third years respectively. My work benefitted greatly from discussions with several others at the University of Edinburgh – Roger Jeffery, Lynn Jamieson, Crispin Bates, Hugo Gorringe, Julie Brownlie and Jacob Copeman. I am grateful to Liliana Riga for her encouragement and all the very useful advice she gave me over the years. In Delhi, thank you to Ravinder Kaur with whom I have shared an interest in researching cross-regional marriage. I am thankful to her for her time. Her insights have been valuable. Thank you particularly to Indrani Mazumdar and Rajni Palriwala for numerous discussions which have profoundly shaped my research. From them I have learnt so much. I am thankful to them for their generosity as I have continuously called on them for advice. I am especially grateful to them for their support during what was particularly challenging fieldwork. Thank you to Taneesha and Varsha for helping out with maps. Thank you too, to Taneesha for pushing me to apply for a PhD. I want to thank my friends in Delhi – Ashwin, Krish, Samir, Radhika, Tanya and Reet for patiently listening to me go on about all things academic. In Edinburgh, thank you to Kostis, Eirik, Dani, Çeren, Erin, Eva and Andreas for being the most wonderful friends. Thank you to Lee and Charlotte for being my family in Edinburgh and making space for me in their home. I could not have possibly asked for a more supportive and stimulating environment to finish writing up. Thank you to my dear friend Nese for being there when I started writing the thesis and when I finished. For her unending support and friendship, I will always be grateful. A special thank you to Daniel for everything – his kindness, patience, love and most of all his humour. I would like to acknowledge the support of iv my family, especially my sister Smriti, and I owe a special thanks to my mother for her enormous strength and for letting me make my own choices. Although for reasons of anonymity, I cannot name them, thanks are due to the family whose home I stayed in for the duration of the fieldwork and several others who helped with entry and access in the field. Lastly, and most importantly, I would like to thank the women of Barampur who agreed to be my informants and who shared their lived experiences with me. v TABLE OF CONTENTS GLOSSARY ................................................................................................................. x INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 What gap does this research aim to fill? ................................................................... 7 Research Questions .................................................................................................. 9 The Field site: Barampur Village, Baghpat District ............................................... 10 Key Concepts Tying the Research Together .......................................................... 12 Bourdieu: Strategies, Habitus, Capital, Social Reproduction ............................. 12 Agency ................................................................................................................ 13 Structure of the Thesis ............................................................................................ 16 CHAPTER ONE: METHODS, ETHICS AND ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELDWORK: REFLECTIONS FROM RURAL NORTH INDIA ................................................... 19 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 19 1.1. What Led me to Barampur: Selection of Field Site..................................... 19 1.2. Methods of Data Collection ......................................................................... 22 1.3. Selection of Respondents ............................................................................ 27 1.4. The Role of Facilitators and Gaining of Access .......................................... 30 1.5. Data Recording and Analysis ...................................................................... 37 1.6. Ethics ........................................................................................................... 38 1.6.1. Informed Consent ................................................................................. 38 1.6.2. Anonymity,