Love or Arranged: Is Marriage Type Associated with Autonomy in Marital Relations?

Manjistha Banerji, University of Maryland
Reeve Vanneman, University of Maryland

This paper explores the relation between marriage type (self-arranged versus parent-arranged) and its association with the extent of gender autonomy in marital relations. In particular, it asks whether self-arranged or "love" marriages are more gender-egalitarian than parent-arranged marriages. Preliminary results using the India Human Development Survey (2005) suggest that women in arranged marriages have lower autonomy than their counterparts in self-arranged ones.