“DEALING” WITH MARRIAGE: INDIAN MUSLIM IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Scholarly literature writing about marriages in many parts of India has commonly dichotomized arranged and love marriages. They do so by depicting arranged marriages as a rationalised decision made by parents and therefore is devoid of love and autonomy. In Singapore, arranged marriages are still practiced within the Indian Muslim community. This thesis seeks to understand how Indian Muslims interpret practice, reject and modify arranged and love marriages, and therefore explore spouse-selection practices among Indian Muslims. In my findings, I plot out a typology of spouse-selection practices, and argue that there exists a diversity of marriage practices that extends beyond the binary of love and arranged marriages. In tackling assumptions and stereotypes surrounding arranged marriages from the literature as well as from my informants, I demonstrate how the lines that separate love and arranged marriages are blurred and arbitrary. Situated in a context of individualism and ideologies of love, arranged marriages can involve autonomy and love in the form of family-oriented individualism and conjugal love. Love marriages are also increasingly being “arranged”, where couples and their parents enact rituals found in arranged marriages in order to gain legitimacy. I conclude by showing that there is a hybridisation of arranged and love marriages among the Indian Muslim community. Marriages are now based on personal compatibility and love, and involve familial consent.