Islamic marriage: a haven in an uncertain world

When?

Monday 15 November 2010, 17:00 to 18:30

Where?

Room 49AC05 (AC Building) University of Surrey

Open to:

Public, Staff, Students

Speaker:

Santi Rozario, Cardiff University

One of the appeals of Islamic marriage is the hope that it can provide security in an uncertain world, in which human relationships seem increasingly unstable and temporary. In this paper I show:

•  how many young British Bangladeshis are concerned about the instability of marriage and human relationships in contemporary society and
• how they see marriage to a partner who shares their Islamic commitments as more likely to endure than marriages where the partners (Muslim or otherwise) do not share a strong commitment to religious values.

In a society where neither their parents’ values, nor those of the wider culture around them, seem to offer a satisfactory solution, modernist Islamic movements provide both an ideology that offers a more convincing answer and a community of people among whom friendship and an enduring marital relationship can hopefully be found.

Santi Rozario is a social anthropologist and is a Reader in the School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University, UK. She has conducted extensive anthropological research with rural Bangladeshi women and in recent years has also carried out research with British Bangladeshis in the UK, including a project on genetics, religion and identity (2005-7). Her current ESRC-funded project is on Islam and young Bangladeshis in the UK and Bangladesh. Her published works include Purity and Communal Boundaries: Women and Social Change in a Bangladeshi Village (1992/2001), Daughters of Hariti: Childbirth and Female Healers in South and Southeast Asia (2002, co-edited with G. Samuel), Return Migration In the Asia Pacific, co-edited with R. Iredale and F. Guo (2003); as well as numerous articles and book chapters, including two edited special journal issues, one on ‘Islam, Gender and Human Rights’ (Women’s Studies International Forum, 29/4, 2006) and one on ‘From Village Religion to Global Networks: Women, Religious Nationalism and Sustainability in and beyond South Asia’ (Women’s Studies International Forum, 33/3, 2010).