Book review: Parul Bhandari. 2020. Matchmaking in Middle Class India: Beyond Arranged and Love Marriage

Bhandari’s sociological account of the process of spouse selection that focuses on the motivations of several associated actors like matchmakers, friends and family, is a welcome contribution to the existing literature in this field. Bhandari’s 100 interviewees are management and engineering professionals who constitute the ‘new’ Indian middle class. Through her lucid writing, Bhandari presents a rich account of middle-class India’s foray into romance and marriage. She shows us that the boundaries between love and arranged marriages, formal and informal spaces of matchmaking, and individual and the family are blurry. Individual marital choices are conditioned by the modern Indian family which claims to be hands-off, while having full faith in their class-appropriate socialisation. Matchmakers, both the old (matrimonial bureaus) and new (matrimonial websites), act as ‘bridge’ and ‘referee’, undertaking a skilful balancing act between the desires of the individual and that of the family. Apart from the Introduction and Conclusion, there are seven chapters in the book, that take us on a journey from the pre-marital crowded world of matchmaking, to the inner workings of ‘modern’ married life and, finally, to the hidden injuries of both love and matchmaking.

Bhandari nuances the literature on marriage, matchmaking, and romantic relationships among middle-class India through the following noteworthy findings: first, she focuses on the pre-marital journeys of romance and the injuries involved in love and matchmaking. Both these affective states have received scant attention in the existing literature on urban experiences of romance. Bhandari classifies pre-marital romances as: casual, just a phase, long-term and serious. One of her respondents candidly tells her how, having been schooled in the middle-class goals of getting a good job, working hard, earning money, and relationships dismissed as a ‘waste of time’, he learns to make a distinction between having fun and being emotionally involved in a relationship. He is self-reflexive, and notes that ‘things become mechanical’ (p. 36). He also believes that women are incapable of making such affective distinctions.

Bhandari’s interviewees craft their pre-marital experiences as per their needs, peers, family, morality and professional ambitions. Common wisdom might find pre-marital relationships as being innocent, individualistic and passionate pursuits. However, Bhandari shows how experiences of pre-marital love and matchmaking inform the marital choices that individuals make. For example, one of Bhandari’s respondents approached marriage out of a sense of duty rather than love, after being hurt so badly that he felt emotionally numb. The ‘non-serious’ pre-marital relationships and the process of match selection, Bhandari tells us, are ‘important contributors to the professional middle-class conceptualisation of love, companionship, duty, honour, and family’ (p. 28).

Secondly, the literature on hypergamic marriages tells us that women marry men who are higher to them in terms of class. Bhandari, through a gendered reading of class, shows how the new expression of hypergamy involves marrying men who are not just higher in their class position but linked with it is women’s desire to marry men who are higher in terms of authority, status and knowledge. This is despite believing and portraying themselves as ‘equals’ when it comes to professional choices or leisure practices.

Third, according to her interviewees, ‘proper’ love was when individuals chose to get married initially against their parents’ wishes, however eventually winning them over. It is interesting to note that middle-class respondents saw elopement for love as an act which was committed by lower-class subjects and one which was undertaken out of passion and lust. The middle-class morality meant they wished to honour their families while slowly winning them over, not based on emotion, but on shared professional, material and aspirational ideals.

Bhandari tells us that being in the middle class is about morality. Her middle-class respondents are constituted by upper-caste Hindus. Her work shows the ways in which class operationalises itself (tastes, leisure, education, professional choices, socialisation circles, family environments); it however, does not speak to the literature on caste. What is the role of caste in framing middle class moralities? Bhandari’s upper-caste women interviewees are ready to give up consuming non-vegetarian food; their partners approve when they drink, as long as they drink in moderation; they also approve when women can carry off Western and Indian clothes with ease. Why does women’s ‘agency’ continue reproducing structures of patriarchy? When it comes to marital choices, Bhandari argues that her interviewees are ready to trade caste-endogamous marriages with class homogamy, to maximise their economic opportunities. What are the hidden injuries of love when someone breaks up over a difference in caste locations, as one of Bhandari’s respondents does? A theoretical framework, which helps answer these questions, would have also pushed the understanding of professional middle-class India.