Altruism and Agency: Marriage among Bangladeshi women

Marriage in South Asia have reported transition in the selection of spouse from arranged, choice of spouse by parents, to love marriage, choice of spouse left to the individual to be married. This paper examines marriage in the Bangladeshi cultural context. This paper first examines the qualities that are valued while selecting a groom/bride. Second,lived marriage experience of female study participants is examined in the light of arranged versus love marriage. Third, use of agency in negotiation of arranged marriage.Finally, role of education on spouse selection is explored. Data were collected from rural Matlab and urban Dhaka. This paper is based on 32 in-depth interviews, combined with participant observation , and a small scale survey (n=400) conducted among currently married women. From a marriage point of view rich and educated boys are valued. Beautiful girls with white skin and competence in household chores are valued. Altruistic norm encourages older generation to choose spouse for the younger generation, which the latter are expected to accept. Participants who have opted for love marriage have experienced opposition from family. Majority of participants with arranged marriage have expressed disappointment over early marriage because in most cases they had to drop out from school after marriage.