practice of marriage reflect the inextricable inter-
meshing of kinship rules and social organization
with dominant economic and political structures.
Dowry has no legal sanction in Bangladesh, India,
or Pakistan, but the ban is not enforced. Irrespec-
tive of religion, such transactions are the norm
among most groups, except the tribally organized,
such as the Baluch, among whom the bride gets
some jewelry, clothes, cash, and household goods
from her father, which he in turn received as màl
from the groom’s family. Even communities with
bridewealth or equivalent transaction systems are
increasingly adopting dowry – in India as a sign of
upward socioeconomic mobility, in Bangladesh
because of rising male unemployment (Rahman
2001). With spiraling demands, women are in-
creasingly victimized and even killed by their hus-
bands or other conjugal kin for not having
provided “enough” dowry, and legal action against
the culprits is rare. When dowry is absent (for
example, among the Ithnà≠Ashariyya Shì≠ìs of In-
dian Uttar Pradesh, Roy 1984), a married woman
receives clothes and jewelry for herself and her
children from her natal family throughout her
life, as compensation for her unclaimed share of
parental property. At least in India, most Muslim
women appear unaware of the size of their share
(Lateef 1990, 143). In pre-partition South Asia,
this did not include agricultural land, which was
governed by customary laws rather than by the
Shariat Act. This still applies to northern India,
but almost everywhere, sisters relinquish their
rights to all paternal inheritance in favor of their
brothers. Though rarely recorded formally, such
relinquishing is universally appreciated and con-
strued as done in exchange for the right to fraternal
asylum, were her conjugal household to fall apart
due to divorce or widowhood. Often, however,
brothers cannot or do not fulfill their part of such
informal agreements, and especially widows are at
the mercy of one and all (Chen 1986, Haram
2002). Widow remarriage is not socially approved
except in some communities in the form of levirate.
In urban Kashmir widows and even fiancées whose
grooms die are considered inauspicious (Man-
chanda forthcoming). Till recently, however, divorce
carried little stigma in rural Kashmir if the woman’s
agnates or new husband returned the bridewealth.
But elsewhere, divorce can be highly stigmatizing,
and while it must be registered in court in Pakistan
and Bangladesh, in the latter alimony is not always
paid. Indeed, with growing globalization and male
mobility, women are being increasingly divorced,
or simply abandoned. Thus in July 2003, a Kerala
court ordered a husband to pay maintenance to his
south asia 341abandoned wife, saying that although she was
a minor at marriage, both partners were post-
pubertal and the marriage was performed follow-
ing customary law. Increasingly women also find
themselves in legal limbo, due to modern technolo-
gies used in contracting both marriage and divorce.
Notably migrants to the Gulf are divorcing their
first wives back home via SMS, email, or telephone.
In these so-called “triple †alàq” cases (†alàq-ul
bida≠/†alàq-e badai/†alàq-e bain) divorce pronounced
by the husband in one sitting is considered binding
by most £anafìSunnìs (but not by Ahl-i £adìth
and not by Ithnà≠Ashariyya or Musta≠lian Ismà≠ìlì
Shì≠ìs), provided it was originally pronounced in the
presence of Muslim witnesses and later confirmed
by a Sharì≠a court. Such practice tends to leave the
divorcees without a minimum of financial security,
and the gravity of the situation is apparent from the
current debate surrounding the issue among Mus-
lim Indians. At the time of writing, ≠ulamà±of vari-
ous persuasions (Barelvi, Deobandi, Ahl-i £adìth
and Shì≠a) who are members of the Muslim Per-
sonal Law Board in India are at odds concerning
the theological validity of this manner of divorce
and its associated practice of ™alàla, following
which a divorced woman may not remarry her
divorced husband unless she first marries another
man. As long as she does not remarry, a divorced
mother usually retains the rights and duties of
hi∂ànat(physical custody and daily care) toward a
male toddler and a pre-pubertal female. Thereafter,
the father alone is entitled to guardianship over the
child’s person and property (the right of wilàyat-e
nafsand wilàyat-e nikà™respectively). Fatherless
children are considered “orphans,” and few wish to
marry such girls.
South Asian states encourage the intermeshing
of kinship, politics, and economics, implicitly by
recognizing and tolerating specific customs and
“traditions,” and explicitly through legislation.
The following examples illustrate this issue:- In addition to millions of deaths and rapes,
the partition of colonial India led to the abduction
of at least 50,000 Muslim and 33,000 non-Muslim
women in India and Pakistan respectively. They did
not accompany the roughly 8 millions crossing the
newly formed borders. Between 1948 and 1956 the
Central Recovery Operation of the newly formed
Indian government sought to “recover” abducted
and forcibly converted women on either side of the
border. Following what it considered the moral
bonds of kinship, the state forcibly “returned”
some 30,000 women, the great majority of whom
were Muslim, to their original families, often
against their own wishes (Böck and Rao 2000,