Monsoon rains can be truly devastating. South Asian families have historically ameliorated precarity by banding together, building trusted endogamous networks, and providing mutual insurance. Close-knit kinship provides social security, at least for insiders.
Gerontocratic patriarchy keeps everyone in line. Most Bangladeshi girls are married early (before they turn 18), sometimes to their cousins. Kinship solidarity is maintained by socialising girls to please in-laws, put others first and tolerate intimate partner violence.
I specify gerontocratic patriarchy because young men may be similarly restricted. Sons are taught to put family first (rather than pursue their own selfish desires). Precarity may also necessitate obedience to family elders.
Poverty thus entrenches cousin marriage and other forms of kinship.
How might this change?
What happens when crop yields improve and families become wealthier? Which patriarchal controls relax and which persist?
A natural experiment in Bangladesh
People in Matlab (Bangladesh) are overwhelmingly poor, landless, fisher-people or sharecroppers. Severe floods hit twice, in the late 1980s. Donors then funded 65km of embankment along the northwest bank of the Meghna-Dhonagoda River. This prevented overflow, while also facilitating pumped drainage and irrigation.
Economists would call this a ‘natural experiment’, since there are two similar communities, but only side was protected from flooding.
Mushfiq Mobarak, Randall Kuhn and Christina Peters examine what then happened to marriages.
First, they ascertain whether the river’s two sides really were similar before the embankment’s construction? Yes! Female age of marriage, consanguinity, religions and market access were all the same.
Second, they interviewed Matlab residents, who detailed that the embankment had protected their fields and enabled them to increase the number of crop cycles.
Quantitative data bears this out. Protected rice farmers enjoyed an extra growing season per calendar year. Post-construction, farmers became wealthier.
How did this wealth shock affect marriages?
Age at marriage, age of spouse, and the spousal age gap all remained constant.
One difference is that grooms’ families living on the protected side attracted larger dowries. This is to be expected. In India too, brides’ families pay more to marry into the most affluent families (Chiplunkar and Weaver 2023). Modernisation and groom variation have thus pushed up dowries.
Curious to learn more about consanguineous marriages, Mobarak and colleagues surveyed 600 families. Cousin marriages were generally arranged by parents. This is classic ‘gerontocratic patriarchy’.
Consanguinous marriages are also much cheaper. Dowries for cousins or uncles are 65% lower - after applying relevant controls. In 1996, that would be a saving of 2,200 taka (US$276). Consanguineous marriages are also most common amongst Matlab’s poorest.
Meanwhile, families protected by the embankment saw their agricultural profits rise by 4,300 taka. Brides’ families may have felt less inclined to save money by marrying their cousins. Other (perhaps more attractive) grooms became more affordable.
Indeed, after the embankment, bride’s families on the protected side became less likely to marry their relatives.
What can we learn from this natural experiment?
Constructing the embankment boosted crop yields, improved agricultural livelihoods and reduced poverty. To me, that is money well spent.
It also reduced cousin marriage.
But let’s also be clear about which cultural practices persisted alongside enrichment.
Higher yields and larger agricultural profits did NOT change girl’s age of marriage, age of spouse, the spousal age gap or dowry inflation.
This is precisely what I’d expect.
As long as families stay in villages, they remain dependent on kin, under intense social surveillance, with scant exposure to alternatives, let alone any social support for rocking the boat. Girls are thus married young in order to prevent rumours of impropriety and maintain social respect. Agricultural enrichment is no panacea for patriarchy.
Industrialisation and service-based growth in towns and cities are really fundamental to gender equality.
To read the full paper by Mobarak, Kuhn and Peters, click here.
Is Bangladesh a good benchmark for how endogomy can be reduced since Bengal has relatively low endogomy to begin with? At least the level of endogomy is low when compared to the rest of South Asia.