Confrontation and Compromise: Middle-Class Matchmaking in Twenty-First Century South India

Abstract

During my fifteen-month stay in the suburbs of Madurai, Tamilnadu, South India, I was privileged to witness the complicated process of marriage alliance matchmaking for several Tamil youth, including Radhika Narayanan, a twenty-one-year-old Tamil Brahmin girl and close friend, as well as another bride-to-be, Priya. Using conversations with Radhika, her family members, and her friends, as well as data extrapolated from participant observation in both Radhika's and Priya's matrimonial events, this article uses the multitudinous modes of matchmaking employed by both women's families to investigate the complexity and delicate balance inherent in contemporary matchmaking among middle-class Tamils and India's burgeoning middle classes. In highlighting the confrontations between materialism and morality, neocolonialism and nationalism, and individualism and filial piety that lie at the heart of middle-class matchmaking, this ethnographic examination will provide insight into the world views and lifestyles belonging to and shaping one of the most powerful segments of our global community. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]