Abstract
This article deals with the traditional and changing gender roles and relationships in the exchange-marriage system that exists in south Punjab, Pakistan. It examines the structural roles and an individual’s independent choices. In-depth interviews were conducted with twenty-four families who have utilized the system of exchange. In this research the guidelines of the Grounded Theory Method (GTM) in order to collect and analyse the data. The study found that pre-determined, structured roles were more influential and they retain more importance than the individual’s choices. It revealed a perpetual tension between structural forces and an individual agency: an emancipated individual tries to assert and wants to exercise her/his choice but finds that the structural pressures are powerful. Some contention grows between the structural agents and the individual agency for the freeing of the individual’s emancipated role. This paper analyses the interplay between the structure and the agency. It also analyses the tensions and the process of slight social change that occurs under given social conditions.
Muhammad Zaman, Muhammad Zakria Zakar, Abida Sharif. (2014) The Exchange-Marriage System, Traditional Gender Roles And Obscured Transformations In A Community Of Pakistan: The Interplay Between Structure, Agency And Social Change, Pakistan Journal of Gender Studies, Vol. 9, Issue 1.
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