Pattern of Marriage Migration associated with Distance in India

A number of researchers have discussed the pattern of marriage migration as a function of distance. Recently, the functional relationship of distance with marriage migration to Bangladesh data was found satisfactorily well through a polynomial model. The aim of this paper is to test the suitability of this polynomial model on Indian data, collected from the Hindu dominated rural areas at different time periods i.e., in 1978, 1984 and 2002. It is observed that marriage field associated with distance has increased over the last two-three decades. Polynomial model of third degree fitted to the distribution of distance associated with marriage migration to different set of rural Indian data, was found that the model fits the data satisfactorily well only, if distance associated with marriage migration i.e. marriage field is standardised. That is, a polynomial model approximates the distribution of distance associated with marriage migration satisfactorily well whether it is from a Hindu society or from a Muslim if grouping of the distance is standardised. It means the class intervals of the distance associated with marriage plays a major role in the fitting of a polynomial model.