Marriage and Disadvantaged People: A Qualitative Inquiry of Inter-ethnic Marriages Among Low-income Families

Abstract

This study employs a phenomenological approach to examine inter-ethnic marriages among low-income families in Srinagar, Kashmir, by looking at the factors that lead to these marriages and the ways in which they are negotiated. By doing so, the study’s goal is to put the spouses’ pre-marital experiences in context. Participants were recruited using snowball and purposive sampling techniques determined by theoretical sampling. The broader results of the study found that some males only seek such marriages when they fail to find a spouse from their own Kashmiri ethnic background because of their socially disadvantaged position like poverty, physical disability or being over-aged. Under these circumstances, the other option they consider is going for inter-ethnic marriages, which in the present context, entails seeking wives from outside mainland Kashmir belonging to other ethnic groups, while the reasons operating from the female spouse participants were widespread poverty and the desire to avoid dowry.