Raksha Pande

Learning to Love explores the everyday marriage narratives of the British-Indian diaspora. It unpacks the phenomenon of arranged marriages beyond its pejorative stereotypes by highlighting the diversity of interpersonal and emotional negotiations involved in their practice. Using in-depth ethnographic description, the book shows that far from being a homogeneous tradition, arranged marriages involve a variety of different matchmaking practices modified to suit modern diasporic identities.
 

Arranged Marriage shows how arranged marriage practices have been undergoing transformation; how the gendered and intergenerational politics of agency, consent, and choice work in the contexts of partner choice and management of marriage; and how this type of marriage can be reshaped, reinvented, and reinterpreted flexibly in response to individual, family, religious, class, ethnic and other desires, needs, and constraints.