Finding a ‘suitable’ husband: someone with a ‘shared mentality’

This section considers how the majority of participants (and often their parents) sought to find a ‘suitable’ husband who treats women with respect. The process of finding a ‘suitable husband’ often began with participants’ parents making enquiries within their extended family hierarchies and friendship networks. Typically these women referred to these enquiries using words that convey a sense of formality and trust. Ameena described her parents’ enquiries as making ‘a character reference check’. Raveena referred to a ‘network’ or a ‘web’ of contacts that can give families a sense of the potential husband’s background. She saw this network as ‘their own pre-Facebook version of friends and family’. Raveena explained that within these networks there is usually ‘somebody who is a matchmaker type person’ who can ‘put the word out’ that they are looking for a husband.

Typically, participants (and their parents) had a set of standards or expectations that they used to select potential husbands. For Namra, ‘he had to meet certain criteria on our lists’, such as being ‘decent’ or ‘respectable’ and, if possible, ‘well-educated’. Yet some participants, like Namra, sometimes questioned their parents’ views of the ‘criteria’. For example, she found that being ‘well-educated’ did not necessarily make someone a suitable husband. Having considered several ‘well-educated’ men, she realised that ‘some [of these men] expected that the woman wasn’t an equal’ and ‘felt that they were superior’. Similarly Raveena recalls that she and her parents considered ‘how he would treat women’ as particularly important. She was very wary of ‘ending up with…some chauvinistic idiot’ who

167 ‘didn’t appreciate women’, which she regarded as ‘kind of prevalent in our society’. As Namra explains: ‘it has to be a joint thing’ with ‘someone who would give me respect’ and ‘treat me right’. A ‘suitable husband’, for most participants, meant someone who had an egalitarian view of gender norms, in which women were equally as important and respected in their marriage. They wanted husbands who would support them as independent women.

In many cases, women valued their parents’ help in introducing possible husbands. Participants and their parents wanted to enquire not only about the ‘guy’ himself, but also the family in which he was raised. As Raveena explains:

[We were looking for] a respectable family who've got similar values, I suppose. Who have got a shared mentality, I suppose, you can say. Because there's always the fear that you get into a marriage and you're not happy. And it's not necessarily the husband that doesn't make you happy, it's the extended family and the extra people that you marry with him. (Raveena)

Women like Raveena typically saw their parents’ role as trying to reduce this ‘fear’. They did so by trying to ensure that there was a ‘shared mentality’, based on egalitarian gender norms, between their daughters, their potential husbands and his family.

For many participants, finding a ‘suitable husband’ was also a means of trying to ensure that they could negotiate a more favourable position within their new family hierarchy. Traditionally, daughters-in-laws assume a position at the bottom of the gendered family hierarchy (Allendorf 2015; Bhopal 1998; see section 2.4.2). Most participants were aware of the norm of moving into a ‘joint home’ with their future mothers-in-law. As Raveena expressed: ‘you’re the one doing all the moving…you have to be a bit more cautious’. A

168 ‘shared mentality’ was crucial in terms of ensuring a favourable position in their future family hierarchy.

Several participants chose to marry a first-generation husband. These men were usually part their family, or known to the family, in their native country. Participants usually met their husbands whilst visiting family abroad. Importantly, they ensured that their husbands held an egalitarian view of gender norms. For instance, Ameena reflected she and her husband ‘shared’ the view that both husbands and wives should work and share domestic responsibilities. A key implication of marrying a first-generation husband was that their husbands’ parents were not already living in the UK, and were less likely to migrate (presumably due to visa restrictions). In Ashira’s case, she and her parents were keen to ensure that any future mother-in-law could not cause her to ‘suffer’ like her own mother did. She even joked that ‘the first rule [was that] any guy we brought home had to have a dead mum’. Marrying a first-generation husband enabled these women to circumvent their husbands’ extended family hierarchy and remain close to their own family.

While participants were raised with different expectations of how they would marry, their negotiations nonetheless centred on finding a ‘suitable husband’. Most participants did so by having an ‘arranged marriage’ or being ‘introduced’ to someone via their parents. However, several women described themselves as having ‘love marriages’. A ‘love marriage’ was usually defined in contrast to arranged marriages. These women instigated the search process, however parental approval was still required, which often involved parents making enquiries about the potential husband. Regardless of whether they had an introduction, arranged marriage or love marriage, most participants (and their parents) were keen to find a husband with a ‘shared mentality’ regarding gender norms.

169 However, a few women in this study have experienced divorce; their first marriages were arranged with little consideration of finding a ‘suitable husband’. For these women, becoming an independent woman was much more difficult.