Moving for Marriage

Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the 2023 BASAS Book Prize presented by British Association for South Asian Studies Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a village in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Moving for Marriage compares the lived experiences of women in "regional" marriages (that conform to caste and community norms within a relatively short distance) with women in "cross-regional" marriages (that traverse caste, linguistic, and state boundaries and entail long-distance migration within India). By demonstrating how geographic distance and regional origins make a difference in these women's experiences, Shruti Chaudhry challenges stereotypes and moral panics about cross-regional brides who are brought from far away. Indeed, Moving for Marriage highlights the ways in which the post-marital experiences of both categories of wives in this study—their work and social relationships, their sexual lives and childbearing decisions, and their ability to access support in everyday contexts and in the event of marital distress—are shaped by factors such as caste, class/poverty, religion, and stage in the life-course. In focusing on this Global South context, Chaudhry makes novel arguments about the development of intimacy within marriages that are inherently unequal and even violent, thereby offering an alternative to Euro-American understandings of intimacy and women's agency.