5 - Marriage Practices

Summary

Heterosexual marriage is widely accepted as being at the heart of Muslim family life. A specific focus on marriage is therefore essential in assessing the central role of gender in shaping family life. This chapter is therefore a valuable step towards a broader, more wide-ranging exploration of gender relations and diverse relationship practices in the next chapter. It sets out how marriage practices show evidence of changing dynamics of gender relationships and changing patterns of social and emotional relationships and considers what this means for the strength of family and kinship ties. The chapter advances understanding by bringing together and critically examining a rich body of research evidence that has shed light on Muslim marriage practices. It highlights a complex mix of change and continuity and areas requiring further investigation. It explores evidence of increasing marital instability, principally divorce and separation, as well as considering the role of different types of gender-based violence and abuse. The chapter further illustrates the ambivalences previously discussed that characterize understanding of Muslim family life. The resilience of heterosexual marriage in Muslim family life contributes to favourable representations of Muslim families as family-oriented and socially conservative. However, notions of deviant Muslim families requiring surveillance and control are supported by pathologizing views of the system of arranged marriage and its connection to collectivist family arrangements, as well as a focus on abusive and violent relationships. Although the chapter focuses mainly on gender, it also draws attention to various other intersectional signifiers of identity relevant to understanding marriage practices, such as ethnicity and transnationalism. In doing so, it considers how individuals exercise agency in negotiating how marital and family relationships are experienced and organized.

Changing marriage practices

Prominent perspectives focus on the role of culture and foreground the part played by ethnicity and religion in Muslim family life. As a result, family life is frequently portrayed as contradicting dominant normative standards of modern society, with an emphasis on deep-rooted, rigid patriarchal authority and significantly unequal gender relationships (Alexander, 2004; Alexander et al, 2013). These stereotypical representations are underpinned by prominent ideas of the extended family as a privileged marker of difference for Muslims.