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Love as understanding
Author(s) -
MAQSOOD AMMARA
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1111/amet.13000
Subject(s) - normative , sociology , morality , gender studies , social psychology , psychology , political science , law
In middle‐class Pakistan, marriage is the prescribed future for all women, but premarital contact between the sexes is discouraged. To find the right partner, then, without visibly flouting social norms, requires a skillful balancing act between private interests and aspirations, and between public representations and collective concerns. Young women often navigate these conflicting demands by developing what they call an understanding : a secret premarital relationship that they normalize by involving family at a late stage to orchestrate an arranged marriage. Firmly enmeshed within the social life of joint families, understandings are an instance neither of defying patriarchal norms nor of pursuing self‐cultivation within them. Instead, they offer a window into how young women live and explore new possibilities within the vestiges of normative structures. [ love , marriage , desire , morality , consumption , joint family , Lahore , Pakistan ]