Exchange Marriages in a Community of Pakistan: Adequate Social Exchange

the Monday 16 February 2015 at INED, from 11.30 am until 12.30 pm, salle Sauvy

Presented by Muhammad Zaman (Department of Sociology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan) ; discussant : Christophe Guilmoto (IRD/Ceped)

The structuralist and social exchange theorists relate the system of the exchange marriage mainly to socioeconomic interests, the formation of political and social alliances, as well as to the creation of a kinship network. However, they negate the inherited problems of the system of the exchange. The presentation discloses positive and negative aspects of the exchange and the cycle of social exchange. It focuses on the notion of adequate social exchange. The study reveals tensions between individual and collective perspectives, as well as the conditions under which it—gradually and slightly—is being transformed on the basis of the notion of the adequate social exchange.