Capital, Caste, and Patriarchy: Theory of Marriage Formation in India

Abhilasha Srivastava and John Willoughby

Review of Radical Political Economics, 2023, vol. 55, issue 1, 47-69

Abstract: This article presents a theory of marriage formation in India and grounds it with primary qualitative data. India presents a unique case for interrogating the institution of marriage because here, violent kinship-based patriarchy and the neoliberal promises of individual freedom and choice coexist. This article draws on literatures from Marxist, Feminist political economy, economic anthropology, and the political economy of caste to contend that a synthesis of Social Reproduction Theory and Ambedkarite theory of caste and Brahminical Patriarchy presents a better theoretical framework to critically examine the relationship between market and nonmarket social relations in India. We argue that in India, marriage is an institution that provides the essential legitimizing framework for the reproduction of social order, as well as the social relations of class, caste, and gender. Empirical analysis shows that Brahminical Patriarchy amalgamates with social relations of neoliberal capital within the institution of marriage to create new forms of regressive social norms and oppressions. This study also complicates the neat distinction between market and nonmarket relations and, in extension, between economic and social realms of life. JEL Classification: B54, B14, Z13, J12

Keywords: social reproduction; feminist political economy; economic anthropology; caste; capital accumulation; neoliberalism; South Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/04866134221080200 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:55:y:2023:i:1:p:47-69

DOI: 10.1177/04866134221080200

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Review of Radical Political Economics from Union for Radical Political Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().