Changing Patterns of Marriages and Its Impact on Nuptiality: Sociological Study of Karachi, Pakistan

Abstract

Marriages are one of the most authentic and worldwide accepted methods of forming families with different methodologies depending upon social norms, religions and cultures. No one can deny the importance of marriages in a society. Studying society from different dimensions like urban and rural angles, religious and secular aspects or social stratifications and class distribution; human behavior can be measured through social theories and perspectives. Current study is based on in-depth interviews of 15 managers of different marriage bureaus from urban and rural region of Karachi, Pakistan during 2016, this study analyses the changing pattern of marriages and its impact on nuptiality. The results revels that from last two decades the marriage pattern is changing gradually. As compared to previous marriage system, now the number of marriages is declining due to paradigm shift in education from boys to girls. Now girls are more educated as compared to their male counterparts. Now-a-days, the parents of grooms are trying to find out batter matches for their daughters/girls due to large population of girls and declining interest of boys in education. Currently cultural difference is not a big issue in cross-cultural marriages.