Book Review: ‘Marriage, Love, Caste and Kinship Support: Lived Experiences of the

Urban Poor in India’, Shalini Grover

Grover, S. (2017). Marriage, Love, Caste and Kinship Support. doi:10.4324/9780203732823

Shalini Grover’s ethnographic work on marriage and cohabitee relationships discusses ideas
of courtship, romance and marital conflict in Mohini Nagar, a poor South Delhi
neighbourhood populated by lower caste North Indian immigrants. Many who live in this
community belong to the Balmiki community, which is listed as a Scheduled Caste. Even
though there are caste and region based inconsistencies regarding many issues, marriage and
kinship practices are more or less similar all over North India for the low income, urban
demographic.

Grover introduces the book by juxtaposing arranged marriages, love marriages and secondary
unions in the context of Mohini Nagar. She dichotomises traditional ‘arranged marriages’,
which are caste and religion endogamous, with ‘love marriages’, which are more often than
not group endogamous. This book is divided in to 6 different parts, In the first two chapters,
Grover discusses women’s relationship with their natal families after marriage. She finds that
marital relationships, which are approved by the bride’s parents provide women a safe space
in case of domestic conflict. Arranged marriages are the norm- hence they have larger social
acceptability.

Parental prerogatives regarding marriage are extremely important, especially for women.
However, one main difference between rural and urban context is that the extreme violence
which is associated with love marriages in rural areas around North India is more or less
absent in bigger cities like Delhi. When women face domestic violence in a ‘love marriage’,
it is partly seen as the women’s fault. Women are perceived to have more agency in a love
marriage as they have played an active part in choosing their partner. As a result, they are
expected to ‘take responsibility’ of their fate as it was their decision which landed them in a
bad situation. However, in an arranged marriage, the parents have chosen the partner. Since
the women’s involvement is very little in the selection process, they cannot be blamed fully
for the violence they endure.

Women’s Relationship with their Parents

The vulnerability of brides in arranged and love marriages are supposedly characteristic of
North India. Grover does not focus on the negotiation of finding a match, but the after math
of a marriage, as most women in her examples are not newlyweds. By agreeing to an
arranged marriage, women are not just agreeing to parental prerogatives or financial security,
but they are also ensuring the ‘right to return’ to their natal homes in case of conflict. During
times of distress, many women shuttle back and forth between their prenatal homes and their
marital homes.

Traditionally, marriages in North India are caste endogamous but village exogamous. The
vulnerability of the bride is increased by the fact that they have to travel long distances to
reach their parents. In Mohini Nagar, many marriages happen between people from
neighbouring bastis. Therefore, it is possible for women to frequently shuttle between the
natal home and the marital home. Love marriages often happen in the same basti- as it
provides young people more opportunity to meet each other. Such unions are looked down
upon because of lack of parental approval and caste/class exogeneity.

Parental support gives women more power while negotiating with their partner and their
families. Often, when women do not have the support of her natal family, she is vulnerable as
she has nowhere to go if her husband decides to abandon her. Access to kin support empower
women, as women are in a position to leave their husbands if needed. Women’s access to her
parents’ house are often limited. Due to death and senility, as parents start losing their agency
and brothers take over, married women start feeling less welcome in their natal homes.
Women’s bargaining power in a marriage reduces significantly when her parents die.

Sometimes, however, women’s close relationship with her natal kin and extended periods of
refuge taken at her natal home may increase conflict and instability in the marriage. The case
studies Grover presents support her claim that parental interference weakens conjugal
relationships. In chapter 3, ‘Revisiting Arranged Marriages’, she recalls Amit and Sunita,
who were in an arranged marriage. Amit feels that Suniti is rarely home and spends most of
her time with her natal family. He says:

Look, I provide for her well. I am employed in a photography shop and have
studied up to class 12. In our three years of marriage, she has only lived with
me for six months. We have been constantly trying to get her to come back. My
father is going to talk to her parents once more. Either they send Sunita back
or we agree to a divorce. You have been evading us for too long
The husband and their family may perceive the excessive involvement of the woman’s family
to be selfish, as she could help with household work when is she home. Women start
participating in domestic labour at a very young age. They help their mothers out with
household tasks and sometimes are even kept home from school for this. Mothers and
daughters often share similar predicaments, and hence find it easier to empathise with each
other. Their physical labour at the household is often tied to their emotional labour-in many
cases, mothers oppose the return of their daughters to their conjugal homes.

Conjugal Stability: Examining Love Marriages and Arranged Marriages

The example of Aarti and Rohit (Chapter 3,Courtships and Love marriages, Pg 113) shines
light on a situation in which married man undergoes a change of mind after marriage, after an
extended period of exciting courtship. Three months into their love marriage, Rohit wanted to
move back home to his family in Bihar, without taking Aarti with him. He grew irritable,
started coming back home late, and refused to answer about his whereabouts on
confrontation. Four months into his marriage, he left her. Aarti recalls:

“Before marriage, I would get angry with him. Since our marriage he is the
one who has started hitting me. There were rumours that he had another wife
in Bihar. He denied it. I have been betrayed.”

The lack of male commitment in love marriages is one of the concerns faced by the woman’s
family at the time of the wedding. There is a large pressure for women to choose the right
partner as their chastity is tied to their marriage. Once a marriage fails, the unchaste woman
is no longer considered to be desirable for marriage again. Parents prohibit daughters from
engaging in sexual relationships before marriage because of the fear that men would no
longer be interested in them once they have sex.

There are instances of loving relationships which become unstable once men succumb to
addiction. The example of two sisters who married their lovers in Raju Camp illustrates a
situation wherein the husbands became alcoholics and then stopped working. Women had to
start working and became breadwinners. According to Grover, women in love marriages who
are working have more agency in the relationship as they are financially independent. This is
important, as during marital conflict, these women are reprimanded by family, neighbours
and eve members of the Mahila Panchayat as ‘facing the consequences of bad decisions’.
Even in difficult love marriages, women do not attempt to leave the marriages. This is not
because of increased conjugal stability as Grover suggests, but rather because of a lack of
choice.

Grover’s methodology for evaluating stability of arranged, love and secondary unions is not
clear. She looks at case studies from womens courts for dispute resolution as a means to
assess stability of the union. However, how the data enabled her to make a conclusion that
arranged marriages are less stable than love marriage is unclear. It might be that the number
of cases in which approached dispute settlement mechanisms were partners in arranged
marriages. However, the absolute number of arranged marriages in the country is higher than
that of love marriages, which could skew the results significantly.

One must confront the possibility that sometimes women stay in abusive domestic
arrangements because they do not have choice. The front of stability which is portrayed by
such unions might be because of women’s diminished agency, not because natal kinships
destabilise marriage. One also wonders about the Grover’s sample of case studies given to
illustrate the point- might it be such that her sample is not inclusive of women who have had
different experiences?

The fact that a couple is going to dispute settlement arrangements is also a sign of women’s
increased agency in the partnership, which might be supported by parental kinship and
increased social acceptability due to caste endogamous, patriarchal norms. Women in abusive
‘love marriages’ might not have the same privilege- it might be such that they are unable to
convince their partner, and the partner’s family to reach out to formal or informal authorities
to resolve discord.

The dichotomisation of love marriages and arranged marriages are two mutually exclusive
entities is problematic. Many a times, a new class of ‘arranged love marriages’ happen,
wherein both parties convince their parents to agree to their union. An extended interpretation
of Grover’s argument could be that these unions are closer to love marriages than arranged
marriages, and hence relying upon the natal family for emotional and financial support could
be unlikely.

Secondary Unions
Chapter four engages with secondary unions. In this context, they are defined as marriages
which are formed after the dissolution of a first marriage, either by death or divorce. There
are some factors which make these unions socially acceptable- a secondary union which is
also a ‘love marriage’ is less likely to be permissible.

Women face conflict and disputes in secondary unions as well. Women often need to
renegotiate their newly found autonomy and domestic lives with their new partners. The most
important factor while considering a second husband, as mentioned by Grover’s informants is
their ability to bear the expenses. However, if the woman is working before the secondary
union, questions regarding her marital status might create discord in the relationship.

In Chapter 4, ‘Secondary Unions and other Conjugal Arrangements’, Grover recollects the
story of Shehnaz, a married woman who eloped with an unmarried man, after leaving her
abusive husband and five young children. Her natal family abandoned her after this act,
therefore, she had to get back together with her husband when her unmarried lover was
forced to marry someone else. Womens involvement in such conjugal arrangements are
considered to be disrespectful to her kin and her community, and are hence looked down
upon, and sometimes even met with violence.

Informal Dispute Settlement Organisations

The next chapter discuss the role of external factors on settling marital discords. According to
the author, women’s courts are improving how women are treated in these situations, all the
while upholding caste based, patriarchal assumptions which hold women down. Grover
illustrates these points using case studies which were brought into women’s courts all over
Delhi, formal or informal to settle conflicts. However, these organisations are not
challenging gender roles or hierarchies. Their idea of an ‘ideal wife’ is very much imbibed in
ideas of appropriate female behaviour. The intended outcome of marital reconciliation is
often achieved, even though sometimes it comes at the cost of women’s limited autonomy.

An interesting example regarding the same was given to me by a researcher studying

domestic violence in Maharashtra as I was writing this paper. He recalled one such arbitration
he witnessed in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. The husband had hit the wife because he did not like
the way she cooked food. He was unhappy with her for not performing he domestic duties
properly. The arbitrator asked the woman to learn to cook what her husband likes and send
them both home, with a light warning to the husband to not hit his wife.

Women and Work

One of the most impressive findings from Grover’s work is that women’s economic
independence and earning potential increases their agency in relationships and reduces the
possibility of domestic violence. However, other scholars have suggested that employment
status does not have a significant relationship on domestic violence or other gender power
dynamics in the household. This is especially true for women belonging to lower
socioeconomic classes. The ‘U curve’ relationship of Female Labour Force Participation
(FLFP) suggests that women’s participation in economic activities fall for middle income
groups. As the subjects of the study belong to lower classes, they face a financial compulsion
to work. In this case, women’s income to the family is supplementary. Women stop working
from lower classes and castes to imitate the upper caste ‘male breadwinner paradigm’.
According to this, many women who hail from ‘respectable' families tend to not leave the
boundaries of the house or work. This makes them upwardly mobile on the social hierarchy.
In contrast, poorer women, who have no choice but to work are seen as 'public women'- and
hence are considered to be not respectable.

Women look for economic stability in a marriage. When men stop contributing economically
to the household, relationships turn sour. In Chapter, 2, ‘Revisiting Arranged Marriages,
Grover illustrates this point with an example of Shantha and Ramesh.

“Women like Shantha emphasize men’s frequent neglect of their responsibility as

providers. They describe how their husband’s, elderly fathers-in-laws, and even
fathers drink regularly and how at any given opportunity plunge their family into
debt. …Women point out that when they enter waged work as a response to male
unemployment, their husbands neglect the search for work. This has led to
widespread perceptions that men are unreliable.” (Grover, 2011, p 48)

Women’s choice and ability to work is strictly tied to ideas of honour and respectability.
Grover illustrates the idea of chastity by giving the example of manam from southern India.
In Tamil, it roughly transfers to honour and respectability. Women's participation in the
labour force makes them less respectable- hence reduces their maanam. Today, Manaam
remains as influential, if not more than income and education levels. Even though these
concepts of respectability, honour and female modesty are not as strict for scheduled caste
women as it is for upper caste women, many lower caste communities see these constraints as
aspirational.

Even though class and caste aspirations play an important part in women’s ability to work,
traditional family roles also contribute to the same. In an ideal, traditional family, men earn
money and women take care of the household and children. Women taking up a job would
mean that her primary focus would shift from her duties at home to her work. Many families,
and in turn, men are not comfortable with this. According to Grover’s conclusion, men in
Mohini Nagar are okay with their wives working as long as they have a ‘respectable’ job.

Notions of respectability are enforced strictly on women in working class neighbourhoods

like Mohini Nagar. A tradition of ghare- bhaire is still strictly enforced on women- ghare
referring to women’s responsibility to remain on the ‘inside’ and bhaire referring to the
outside world, which is associated with men. Women’s involvement in the outside space,
even if it creates additional sources of income can create conflict in the household because
they are violating codes of honour and respectability.

Limitations

Shalini Grover’s ‘ Marriage, Love, Caste and Kinship Support: The Lived Experiences of the
Urban Poor in India’ is a compelling read. She meticulously captures the everyday
complexities of intimate, conjugal relationships among the residents of Mohini Nagar Delhi.
However, many of her conclusions are not consistent nor plausible. Her arguments, are
sometimes not backed from evidence. In the introductory chapter, ‘ Mapping the Debate on
Marriage’, Grover criticises Sudhir Kakar (Sexual politics of Indian People, 1989) for
making unsubstantiated arguments based on small sample sizes. However, even Grover’s
analysis is based on just 12 cases, and she has not mentioned this anywhere but in a footnote.
Several claims, like the one that arranged marriages are less stable than love marriages is a
hypothesis which is not proved quantitively or qualitatively in this book.

In conclusion, Grover’s contribution to the discourse on conjugal relationships in South Asia

is substantial. Her work is well researched and provides detailed insights into love and life in
Mohini Nagar. Despite its shortcomings, this is one of the only works of literature which
studies this topic, and for that reason, is recommended reading to understand marital life in
South Asia.