Title: Marriage and modernity
Subtitle: family values in colonial Bengal
First published: 2009
Description: An innovative cultural history of the evolution of modern marriage practices in Bengal, Marriage and Modernity challenges the assumption that arranged marriage is an antiquated practice. Rochona Majumdar demonstrates that in the late colonial period Bengali marriage practices underwent changes that led to a valorization of the larger, intergenerational family as a revered, "ancient" social institution, with arranged marriage as the apotheosis of an "Indian" tradition. She meticulously documents the ways that these newly embraced "traditions"--The extended family and arranged marriage - entered into competition and conversation with other emerging forms of kinship such as the modern unit of the couple, with both models participating promiscuously in the new "marketplace" for marriages, where matrimonial advertisements in the print media and the payment of dowry played central roles. Majumdar argues that together the kinship structures newly asserted as distinctively Indian and the emergence of the marriage market constituted what was and still is modern about marriages in India.
Subjects: History, Arranged marriage, Marriage (Hindu law), Marriage, Families, Family, Marriage, india, Family, india, India, social life and customs
Places: India, Bengal
Time periods: 20th century, 19th century
LC classification: HQ670.15.B46 M35 2009