Strangers to Spouses

A Study of the Relationship Quality in Arranged Marriages in India

Edathumparambil

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781498245807
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Psicología social

Approximately 90 percent of the marriages in India today are reported to be arranged marriages. Parents and families make partner choices and marital decisions for their children, sometimes needing the children only to consent to the decisions of the elders. Given this reality, most men and women who enter into such marriages have very limited pre-marital contact with each other. Several studies have been done on these arranged marriages in India to see how these relationships are formed and what their state of affairs is. The results have been varied and sometimes discrepant. This book is a revised version of a mixed methods study that the author conducted on the quality of relationship in such marriages in India. Specifically, the study explored the levels of marital satisfaction, quality of alternatives, investment of resources, intimacy, passion, and commitment, and examined their association with relationship quality.

Part I

Why This Research?

1

The Research Problem

Marriage is one of the prime institutions in almost every society across the globe (Coontz, 2005; Musick and Bumpass, 2012). People organize their personal and social lives around the institution of marriage in many societies (Mburugu and Adams, 2005; Singh, 2005). However, cultures and communities differ in the way marriages are conducted and contracted. In some cultures (e.g., United States), matters concerning mate selection and marital life are left to the individuals (Madathil and Benshoff, 2008; Settles, 2005), whereas in others (e.g., India), parents and families are actively involved in choosing a person’s marital partner and arranging his or her marriage (Chawla, 2007; Jacobson, 1996). The former is called marriages of choice or love marriages, and the latter is known as arranged marriages.

The majority of marriages in India today are reported to be arranged marriages (Batabyal, 2001; Chawla, 2007). Although the spread of Western values such as individualism and increased social and economic mobility in the past two decades in India have had some influence on people’s perception of marriage and mate selection, the majority of Indians still choose the path of arranged marriages rather than marriages of choice (Chawla, 2007; Ganguly-Scrase, 2003).

The current study was aimed at exploring the quality of relationship in arranged marriages in India. This was necessitated by a gap in the current literature, which appeared to present discrepant results regarding this subject. Some studies reported that arranged marriages in India maintained a high persistence rate (no threat of dissolution) and high levels of marital satisfaction (Alexander et al., 2006; Chawla, 2007; Madathil and Benshoff, 2008; Sandhya, 2009). The rate of dissolution of marriages in India was reported to be inconsequential. The 2001 national census put the overall divorce rate in India at 1.1 percent (Batabyal, 2001; Singh, 2005). In the last fifteen years, these findings do not appear to have changed much, except maybe in some urban settings. There is one study (Yelsma and Athappilly, 1988) that showed that arranged marriages in India had higher levels of marital satisfaction than love marriages (marriages of choice) in India and in the United States.

However, these reports and research findings about the low divorce rate and high levels of marital satisfaction did not match with other reports on arranged marriages in India. For example, authors such as Chacko (2003), Medora (2007), Philips (2004), and Singh (2005) found that there were widespread abuses, violence, dowry deaths, humiliation, torture, and lack of freedom in many Indian marriages. These findings raised the question of how reports of high marital satisfaction existed coincidentally with reports of widespread abuses and violence in those marriages. The present study was an effort to better understand these contradictory findings about these marriages by exploring more deeply the nature of relationship quality in those marriages.

The present study utilized a collection of measures utilized in couples research in the West to assess marital quality. These measures were administered in a survey format to individuals who have been wed within the tradition of arranged marriages in India. In addition, a small sample of individuals who had completed the survey were then interviewed about the different dimensions of their marriage. Specifically, the study examined the association of respondents’ level of satisfaction, quality of alternatives, investment of resources, intimacy, passion, and commitment with their relationship quality.

The Research Problem and the Need for the Study IN DETAIL

Among the many collectivistic cultures around the world, India stands out as one of the most diversified and yet close-knit and kinship-oriented societies (Jacobson, 1996; Singh, 2005). Individual members in Indian families are raised to be faithful adherents to the familial and societal expectations. According to Nancy McWilliams, “Deference to authority is a powerfully reinforced norm” in India (2011, pp. 302–3).

Marriage is one of the institutions in India in which this deference to authority and collectivistic nature of the society is very visible. Parents and other family members are actively involved in choosing marital partners for their children and arranging their marriage. In a typical arranged marriage, the bride- and groom-to-be play a passive role in mate selection and marital decisions. Parents or responsible adults in the family arrange marriages “on behalf of and with or without the consent of the boy or the girl” (Singh, 2005, p. 143). The knowledge of potential partners is limited to what is communicated by the intermediary, which often happens to be their own parents or the marriage broker (Philips, 2004). Such culturally approved influence and intervention of parents and families in an individual’s life and marital decisions might be viewed as an infringement on one’s personal freedom in a country like the United States, where romantic marriages or marriages of choice are more common. In marriages of choice, individual members enter a phase of dating and courtship, and if both partners decide to take their relationship to a permanent commitment as husband and wife, they enter into a marital contract (Myers et al., 2005). The role of parents or family is much less central in such arrangements than it is in arranged marriages.

Although many reasons could exist for these differences between cultures with regard to mate selection and marital practices, authors such as Jane E. Myers and her colleagues (2005) and Yelsma and Athappilly (1988) see it basically as a characteristic arising from the collectivistic or individualistic nature of the society. In collectivistic cultures, the decisions of the family or community get precedence over that of the individual members, whereas in individualistic cultures, the decisions of individual members get precedence over that of the family or community.

Arranged by family or chosen by self, once married, couples pass through different stages in their marital relationship. While some solidify their relationship and persist in their marriage, others escalate in conflicts and break up their relationship. Although the current affairs in the state of marriage across the globe, particularly in the Western world, are reported to be somewhat tumultuous and unpredictable (Gottman, 1999; Hall, 2012; Musick and Bumpass, 2012), there are several studies (Coontz, 2005; Gottman and Gottman, 2008; Hughes, 2007; Rusbult et al., 1998; Sternberg, 1986) that show that there is a high level of satisfaction, stability, and higher functioning in marriages of choice in the West. High rates of divorces and conflicts are real in many marriages of choice in the United States and other Western countries, but despite all that, many marriages have endured and persisted with a high level of satisfaction (Gottman, 1999).

The arranged marriages in India also report a high level of marital satisfaction and low rate of divorces or separations (Chawla, 2007; Madathil and Benshoff, 2008; Sandhya, 2009; Singh, 2005). People persist in marriage, and families remain united. However, there are reports of very disturbing and negative trends in such marriages. There are reports of widespread abuses, violence, discrimination, and torture against women in such marriages.

Looking into the statistics on abuses and violence in Indian marriages, Singh (2005) found that 40 percent of women in India had experienced violence by an intimate partner. Elaborating on the type of domestic violence, he found that two out of every five married women had reported being hit, kicked, beaten, or slapped by their husbands. About 50 percent of the women who experienced physical violence reported that the abuse took place during pregnancy. Many cases of “wife-battering and forced incest with the women of the household” (p. 153) go unreported. Domestic and sexual violence are rampant but often hidden from public view (Chacko, 2003). Forced incest with the women of the household refer primarily to sexual abuses of daughters by their fathers, nieces by their uncles, and other women in the household by their male relatives or family members (Gopalan, 2009). There are also reports of young people still being pressured to consent to consanguineous marriages (marrying a blood relative or cross-cousin, cross-uncle/niece marriages; Philips, 2004; Singh, 2005). Not wanting to hurt the family ties and other attachment bonds, many of them abide by the decisions of their parents or extended families.

Although giving, taking, and demanding dowry is forbidden in India, many women and their families still bear the brunt of this burdensome practice in many parts of the country (Chacko, 2003; Medora, 2007; Philips, 2004; Shukla, 2009; Singh, 2005). Extreme cases of dowry demands lead to harassment, abuse, and even murder of women in families (Chacko, 2003; Singh, 2005). The dowry system pushes many families to the brink of poverty and burdensome financial commitments (Chacko, 2003; Singh, 2005). Even if they are aware that their married daughters are in unhappy and abusive marriages, many parents are reluctant to allow them to return home for fear of having to pay a second dowry. And if they return home and decide to stay single or unmarried for fear of further abuse they might be considered a burden and shame for the family.

Singh (2005) reported that there were 4,148 dowry deaths in India in 1990. Chacko (2003) cited an example of three sisters in the state of Kerala committing suicide to save their parents from the pain and agony of finding sufficient funds for their dowries and weddings. The largely skewed power difference in favor of males in the family and the overarching influence of the extended families on couples’ day-to-day affairs are other factors that characterize couples’ relationships in India (Bose and South, 2003; Chekki, 1988; Jacobson, 1996; Singh, 2005). Although the low divorce rate is not to be minimized by any means, there are reports that the prevalence of the social stigma attached to divorce and the consequent isolation and shame for the individuals and families directly or indirectly influence the high persistence rate in such marriages (Bose and South, 2003; Dupree et al., 2013; Medora, 2007; Singh, 2005).

Besides the reports of violence and abuses, the excessive influence of families on marital decisions adds to the complexity and convolution of relationship in arranged marriages in India. Mate selection, as mentioned above, is a societal and familial endeavor, and anything contrary to this expectation might be construed as disloyalty and disobedience. The experience and wisdom of parents and elders are often pitted against...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: Why This Research?
• Part II: Literature Review
• Part III: Methodology
• Part IV: Research Findings
• Part V: Discussion and Interpretation
• Conclusion
• Appendix A: Demographic Information
• Appendix B: Relationship Assessment Scale
• Appendix C: Investment Model Scale
• Appendix D: Triangular Love Scale
• Appendix E: General Question on the Overall Relationship Quality
• Appendix F: Qualitative Phase Interview Guide
• Bibliography