Roka Engagements and the Hybridization of Arranged and “Love” Marriage in Urban India

Abstract

Objective:

This study examines the role of roka marriage engagements in blurring the distinction between self-choice, also known as “love” marriage, and arranged marriage in urban India.

Background:

Arranged marriage remains highly prevalent in India though recent research suggests that arranged marriages today increasingly incorporate elements of choice and compatibility. Previous research, however, has overlooked the important role of marriage engagements in this transformation. In North India, a roka ceremony often formalizes an arranged marriage match and marks the beginning of the engagement period.

Method:

This study uses data from 48 interviews conducted in 2018 and 2019 with recently married couples, unmarried young people, and parents in the New Delhi area. All respondents were part of the college-educated middle class.

Results:

Couples in arranged marriages were found to engage in courtship during their engagement, drawing on the scripts of romantic love and deviating from traditional practices which disallowed contact before the wedding. This courtship sometimes leads to a broken engagement. Roka engagements are also important, albeit to different aims, for couples in premarital romantic relationships. They often use the roka engagement to signal that they have obtained parental endorsement of their self-chosen match, an important step in avoiding social stigma and achieving the social legitimacy of their relationship.

Conclusions:

The case of roka engagements reveals important ways in which the definition of arranged marriage has expanded to incorporate romantic love, compatibility, and autonomy.

Arranged marriage, a system where parents choose their child’s marriage partner, is common in many regions of the world (Allendorf, 2025; Yeung et al., 2018). Some of the highest rates of arranged marriage can be found in South Asia, especially India (Allendorf, 2025). Despite numerous predictions over the years that the practice was heading for decline in favor of Western-style self-selection of one’s marriage partner (Corwin, 1977), arranged marriage remains a persistent feature of Indian family systems, even as the country has experienced structural changes like economic growth, urbanization, and advancements in education. In fact, over 90% of Indian women married in the early 2000s described their marriage as arranged (Allendorf & Pandian, 2016). India differs when compared to some other regions where arranged marriage was historically practiced, which have seen decreases in its prevalence over the past half century as people shift to self-choice marriage (Applbaum, 1995; Ghimire et al., 2006; Malhotra, 1991; Matsukura et al., 2011; Nedoluzhko & Agadjanian, 2015; Riley, 1994; Thornton et al., 1994; Zang, 2008). Many of our existing theories of arranged marriage, which are often based around theorizing its decline, are inadequate for helping us understand the case of India, where arranged marriage is transforming, yet retaining its cultural dominance.

Studies on the marriage attitudes of young Indians have shown that they often draw from a blend of traditional and non-traditional cultural scripts in describing their preferences for partner selection (Netting, 2010; Twamley, 2013b, 2013a). For example, they may express an intention to respect parental authority and tradition through having an arranged marriage, but want to play a role in the decision-making process and have an opportunity to assess their emotional compatibility with potential matches (Netting, 2010). Allendorf and Pandian (2016) call this “joint arranged marriage,” an arranged marriage which incorporates the preferences of young people into the process. According to their calculations, as many as two-thirds of marriages in the 2000s could be classified as joint-arranged (Allendorf & Pandian, 2016). With these changes, many scholars have argued that there is an increasingly blurred boundary between arranged marriage and self-choice marriage, which is often called a “love marriage” in the Indian context (Donner, 2016; Fuller & Narasimhan, 2008; Grover, 2018; Uberoi, 2006).

Despite the growing literature on the topic, we still have a limited understanding of what joint arrangement looks like in practice. How are Indian families modifying the arranged marriage process to incorporate new cultural ideals such as autonomous choice, romantic love, and emotional compatibility? The current study aims to fill this gap in the literature by focusing on one stage in the arranged marriage process, the marriage engagement. Drawing on the previous literature on cultural change, this study seeks to answer; first, what are the current functions and practices of marriage engagements among the urban middle class; and second, how do engagement practices fit within the larger trend of hybridizing arranged and love marriage.

In North India, families mark the end of the arranged marriage search process with an event often called roka, beginning a period of betrothal for the couple until the wedding day. This is the first sociological study to focus specifically on these roka marriage engagements. Drawing on 48 in-depth interviews, I describe the function of roka engagements and discuss the social meaning of roka for both the couple and their families. By focusing on one specific stage in the arranged marriage process, I am able to uncover how arranged marriages in India are being reconceived as the definition expands to incorporate new cultural ideals.

BACKGROUND

Culture and Global Family Change

Much of the recent literature in global family change focuses on culture. Thornton (2001, 2005) argues that beliefs that Western family structures are both a cause and consequence of development have spread throughout the developing world through colonialism, schools, travel, mass media, missionaries and international development aid. These beliefs are often referred to as Developmental Idealism (DI) and they include the idea that self-selection of one’s marriage partner is both modern and inherently good. A large body of work documents widespread endorsement of DI beliefs across a wide range of social contexts including China, Albania, India, Iran, Nepal, Turkey, and the United States (Abbasi-Shavazi & Askari-Nodoushan, 2012; Allendorf, 2013; Allendorf et al., 2019, 2023; Gjonça & Thornton, 2019; Kavas & Thornton, 2013; Lai & Thornton, 2015; Thornton et al., 2012, 2014). Furthermore, Allendorf and Thornton (2015) show that there is a direct link between endorsement of DI in young adulthood and marriage practices later in life.

The central role of culture in global marriage change, however, extends beyond Developmental Idealism. The growing importance of individual autonomy, self-realization, and romantic love in intimate relationships shapes family transformations globally (Giddens, 1992; Lesthaeghe, 2010). Even within Western societies, the idea that love is the most important pretext for marriage and that marriages should be decided only by the couple involved is relatively new (Coontz, 2005). Across the 20^th century, the cultural meanings associated with marriage in American society, for example, experienced several major transformations as part of a larger deinstitutionalization of family life in favor of individualized intimacy (A. Cherlin, 2004; A. J. Cherlin, 2020).

Hybrid Marriage Practices

Despite the importance of culture, a growing sociological literature sheds light on the messy and non-linear processes of cultural change (Swindle, 2023). Research from a wide range of settings has documented how “modern” and “traditional” values often coexist with their interaction frequently creating entirely new cultural practices (Ji, 2015; Malhotra & Tsui, 1996; Yount & Rashad, 2008). The ideals associated with DI, for example, have been found to not always come as a package (Thornton et al., 2012; Lai & Thornton, 2015; Kavas & Thornton, 2022). Instead, these ideals interact with and are shaped by the local historical and cultural contexts. This may lead some ideals to be readily adopted whereas others, deemed out of sync with local values, remain unpopular. Local power structures, the degree of compatibility with existing cultural structures, and the complex and layered cultural history of a location all impact the cultural diffusion process (Johnson-Hanks et al., 2011; Wimmer, 2021). Ultimately, individuals are exposed to a vast amount of cultural material, including scripts for behavior (Boutyline & Soter, 2021; Lizardo, 2017; Swidler, 2001). Cultural scripts such as those associated with DI compete with a wide range of other local and global influences.

In blending different cultural scripts, families often create entirely new family structures and practices. For example, Harkness and Khaled (2014) document the hybrid practice of consanguineous love marriages in Qatar and coin the term “modern traditionalism” to describe this amalgam of conventional practices with new elements of “modern” romantic love and choice. Similar hybrid marriage models have been documented in Sri Lanka and Turkey as families have expanded the definition of arranged marriage to incorporate romance and autonomy (de Munck, 1996; Hart, 2007). Even in the East Asian context, which has seen the most dramatic decline in arranged marriage, parents still play a central role in both the search process and marriage decision-making (Tian & Davis, 2019; Tsutsui, 2013). For example, finding one’s marriage partner through family introduction continues to be a common practice in China today (Tian & Davis, 2019).

These examples from diverse social settings reveal how the process of family change produces new hybridized practices that reflect the cultural context in which those changes are situated. The resultant family forms, while sometimes sharing elements with Western family structures, are often entirely unique and reflect a multitude of different cultural influences.

India’s Joint Arranged Marriages

An initial look at the survey evidence suggests significant persistence of marriage practices over time in India. Marriage remains nearly universal, divorce continues to be rare, and the vast majority of marriages remain endogamous by caste and religion (Dommaraju, 2016; Goli et al., 2013; IIPS & ICF, 2017; Yeung et al., 2018). In addition, India continues to have one of the highest rates of arranged marriage in the world (Allendorf, 2025; Yeung et al., 2018). Both parents and young people alike frequently report a strong preference for arranged marriage over love marriage (Netting, 2010; Reed, 2021; Twamley, 2013b). Dating is seen as taboo in many social contexts in South Asia and so romantic relationships are often kept secret from the couple’s family (Aengst, 2014; Huang, 2018; Mody, 2008). Love marriage is unpopular primarily due to strong social norms against both dating and intermarriage. As a result, only 6% of Indian women married in the 2000s described their marriage as a love marriage (Allendorf & Pandian, 2016). Those who do decide to have a love marriage often face social stigma especially if the marriage crosses caste or religious boundaries as it frequently does (Chowdhry, 2010; Mody, 2008).

Arranged marriage plays an important role in endogamy. Arranged marriage can ensure endogamy by both broader caste group as well as jati, a term used for the thousands of regional subcastes found in India. Castes and jati are ascribed identities generally seen as stratified by ritual purity, pollution, and hereditary occupation (Ambedkar, 2014; Vaid, 2014). Opposition to intermarriage remains high in India. In a recent survey, two-thirds of Indians said that it was important to stop people from marrying outside of their caste or religion (Pew Research Center, 2021).

Despite the survey evidence showing a pattern of persistence of arranged marriage in India, emerging evidence suggests a more complicated story. Allendorf and Pandian (2016) document the rise of “joint-arranged” marriage, a broadly defined term referring to when young adults play some role in selecting their marriage partner within an arranged marriage. Using data from the India Human Development Survey, they find that joint arrangement was highest in India’s metros, comprising nearly 80% of marriages in the early 2000s. Interview studies suggest that most young urban Indians want an arranged marriage but also want to not feel compulsion, preferring instead a system of parent-arranged “introductions” where they are allowed to choose whether they want to proceed with marriage negotiations after meeting the potential spouse a few times (Netting, 2010; Twamley, 2013b). Recent evidence suggests that women in these hybrid marriages continue to exert greater decision-making power after the wedding during their marriage as well (Banerji & Deshpande, 2021).

These modifications allow hybrid forms of arranged marriage to conform to norms of caste and class endogamy and respect for parental authority while also incorporating elements of choice for young people. In particular, parents in middle class families show a desire to prioritize emotional compatibility alongside factors like caste, education, and occupation (Fuller & Narasimhan, 2008). Online matrimonial tools help families search for potential marriage partners together, allowing families to meet the goals of both parents and the young couple (Titzmann, 2013).

Recent survey data seems to suggest that most joint arranged marriages involve parents selecting their child’s spouse but allowing them to veto options, often after meeting or speaking with the potential match a few times (Reed, 2021). This can be contrasted with another form of joint arranged marriage, what is commonly known as the “love-cum-arranged” marriage or “arranged love” marriage. This form of marriage occurs when a couple who have been in a secret romantic relationship approach their parents for their approval to marry, a delicate process which may take years of negotiations to successfully achieve (De Neve, 2016; Maqsood, 2021a; Uberoi, 2006). By doing so, the couple brings their relationship under parental authority, allowing them to avoid some of the shame associated with love marriage (Mody, 2008). The parents often choose to endorse the union and move forward as though the marriage were traditionally arranged and may even present it as an arranged marriage in public (De Neve, 2016; Donner, 2016). Some research finds that these couples often refer to their marriage as arranged, obscuring the romantic history that preceded it (Donner, 2016). The public usually makes a distinction between these types of unions and elopement-style love marriages done against parent’s permission, with only the latter being seen as a breach of social norms (Mody, 2008). However, Grover (2018) finds that arranged love marriages are also treated differently than more traditional arranged marriages. Women in these unions access less family support and assistance after marriage and may face heightened social scrutiny (De Neve, 2016; Grover, 2018).

Roka

While marriage practices vary dramatically across the diverse communities found in North India, it is common for families to signal the end of the arranged marriage spousal search with some form of ceremony or ritual. In much of North India this event is called a roka, a word which derives from the verb “to stop” in Hindi and Punjabi (Chadha, 2005; Myrvold, 2004). This event signals that the two families have officially agreed to the marriage match between their children and that they will stop their search for a groom or bride. Though the term “roka” is most often associated with Punjabi Hindu marriage traditions, related practices, sometimes called sagai, are found across India and within Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and Jain traditions. Each community’s betrothal rituals have unique elements, but there is a commonality in how this event publicly signals the end of the marriage search process and begins a betrothal period of wedding planning. In this text, I will use the terms “roka” and “engagement” interchangeably to refer both to the ceremony and the engagement period between this event and the wedding.

Roka ceremonies are often muted events attended by only a few family members which take place at home, in a temple, or in some public place like a restaurant (Chadha, 2005). During a roka ceremony, gifts such as clothes, dried fruit, and jewelry are frequently exchanged between the bride and groom’s families (Chadha, 2005; Myrvold, 2004). India’s $50 billion wedding industry (Vaidya, 2019) wedding blogs, Bollywood and TV depictions, and news coverage of celebrity rokas have helped popularize and homogenize roka engagement practices across India. In recent years, there also appears to be a trend among the middle and upper classes of making the roka ceremony a more extravagant affair.

Historically, arranged marriage norms usually dictated that young people have little to no contact with their betrothed both before the marriage is fixed and during the engagement period. Survey data found that 60% of women living in Indian metros who married in the 2000s report that they met their husband on the wedding day (Allendorf & Pandian, 2016). Only a small share of those women also said that they had another form of contact with their husband such as speaking on the phone or communicating through email or chat before the wedding. However, a recent interview study in Nepal found examples of contact between the couple during their engagement, though women were often unwilling to admit the degree of contact for fear of stigma (Diamond-Smith et al., 2020). An ethnography among middle-class Brahmins in Tamil Nadu also makes brief reference to contact between the betrothed during their engagement period (Fuller & Narasimhan, 2008). In previous interview studies, young unmarried Indians express a desire to begin developing a relationship with their betrothed before their marriage, though we are given few details of what that might look like in practice (Netting, 2010; Twamley, 2013b). One previous study has examined attitudes towards roka engagements using survey data from New Delhi, finding that that two-thirds reported that communication during the roka was socially acceptable (Reed, 2021). Responses did not vary significantly by social class, suggesting that this a broad social phenomenon.

DATA AND METHODS

This paper uses data from 48 semi-structured interviews. Interviews were conducted face-to-face in the New Delhi metro region between July 2018 and March 2019 with three groups: 1) recently married/engaged individuals; 2) unmarried young people; and 3) parents of unmarried young people. The aim in interviewing these three different groups was to gather a variety of perspectives on current marriage practices. Interview respondents were located primarily through recruitment posts in closed Facebook Delhi neighborhood groups, through cold-calling households with unmarried persons who had participated in a previous survey, and through recruitment texts shared on the WhatsApp messaging app. Snowballing was also used to recruit from the social network of respondents.

Participants were recruited from the urban middle class, which I defined as having, or currently pursuing, a college degree. Not all the parents were college-educated but all of them had children who were college educated. Respondents came from a wide range of caste and religious communities found in the Delhi middle-class including Hindus from a variety of different castes (though most were from “General” caste groups which are historically privileged), Sikhs, Jains, and Muslims. While there are differences in marriage practices across these communities, they all have high rates of arranged marriage and most practice some form of roka or roka-like engagement, though the practice sometimes goes by different names. All interviews took place either in the home of the respondent or a public place such as a coffee shop. The interviews were conducted in Hindi and/or English, depending on preference of the respondent. Interviews averaged 40 minutes in length and ranged from around 20 minutes to an hour and a half. The couple interviews were substantially longer, on average, than interviews with parents and young adults. A local research assistant attended all interviews with the researcher. All but one of the interviews were audio recorded. Recorded interviews were transcribed, and, if in Hindi, translated by the local research assistant. Interviews were conducted until saturation when new findings were no longer emerging in each phase of data collection. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Pennsylvania.

In the analysis, I draw primarily from case studies of different couples’ experiences with roka. These case studies come from the 30 interviews conducted with recently married or engaged individuals in 16 different-sex couples. Details on the couples can be found in Table 1. Coupled participants also completed a short paper survey after the interview to share socio-demographic details and information about their wedding costs. In total, 16 women were interviewed and 14 men because two husbands refused participation in the study. The respondents were interviewed alone and separate from their spouse allowing them to speak freely about their marriage. The married and engaged respondents ranged in age from 23 to 35. Eleven of the couples described their marriage as primarily or completely arranged and the remaining five described their marriage as a love or arranged love marriage. All the couples had been married within the past four years, except one couple which was currently engaged at the time of the interview. Twelve of the 16 couples were dual earner. The married or engaged respondents, being part of the urban middle class, were primarily employed in professional occupations such as management, medicine, and information technology (IT).

Table 1:

Characteristics of the Sample

Details on Couples
Total number of couples interviewed	16
Marriage type
Love or “arranged love” marriages	5
Arranged marriages	11
Couple composition
Inter-religious	2
Inter-caste	3
Endogamous (by caste and religion)	11
Length of marriage at time of interview
Engaged	1
Married less than 1 year	8
Married 1-4 years	7
Employment
Dual-earner	12
Single-earner	4
Industries of employment (coupled individuals)
Management or business	16
IT	4
Media and arts	3
Law and research	3
Medicine	2
Unemployed	4
Distribution of Interviews
Coupled women	16
Coupled men	14
Unmarried young adult	10
Parents of unmarried young adult	8
Total number of interviews	48

Note: In two couples, the husbands refused participation in the interview.

I also draw on 18 interviews with middle-class unmarried young adults and the parents of unmarried young adults living in the New Delhi region. Most of these interviews were conducted one-on-one but, due to participant preferences, some were done in small groups of connected individuals, such as when a mother and father asked to be interviewed together. Ten interviews were completed with young unmarried people aged 18-29 and eight were conducted with parents of unmarried young adults. About half of the unmarried young people interviewed were current college students. These respondents were asked about plans, expectations, and attitudes towards marriage. The insights from these interviews complement the couple case studies and provide context to understand how roka is discussed and perceived within the community.

The interview data was analyzed with ATLAS.ti software by the author using iterative waves of coding inspired by the methods outlined by Deterding and Waters (2021). First, interview transcripts were assigned attribute codes based on respondent socio-demographics and the interview type. Next, index codes were applied to chunks of the data corresponding with different topics covered in the interview schedule. This analysis draws primarily from the area of the interviews indexed as covering attitudes towards or experiences with roka including in response to interview questions like “Did you have a roka ceremony?”, Were you allowed to speak to your betrothed between the roka ceremony and the wedding day?”, and “How do you think marriage is changing in India?” Drawing from the emerging findings from my memos as well as from the literature, I then designed a set of analytic codes and re-analyzed all the data using these codes which included concepts like “stigma of a broken roka,” “roka courtship” and “disclosure during roka.” Finally, I triangulated and verified the findings by cross-referencing the quotes from husbands and wives in the same couples to classify each married couple based on different elements of their engagement. During this phase, I searched for disconfirming evidence in my interview data. In the text, pseudonyms are used for the study participants and some identifying details have been changed to protect privacy.

RESULTS

Shifting Attitudes on Contact during the Roka

Since there is little previous research on roka, it is not possible to definitively determine how the practice has changed over time in North India. However, most of those interviewed expressed a belief that the practice had indeed changed over the past several decades. It was common to hear the middle-class interview respondents say that, previously, little or no contact was allowed between the betrothed during their engagement; however, now this contact is considered socially acceptable by many families. Kumar, tailor, and father of three unmarried sons in their twenties, explained that “according to the earlier rules, after the roka, the girl and the boy didn’t meet. They didn’t. But looking at conditions nowadays, once the roka… is done, the girl [and boy] meet each other.” Jayanti, an unmarried woman in her late 20s said:

Quite a few things have changed. Earlier they wouldn’t even show you the person you were marrying. Earlier… the parents would like someone and then you were supposed to get married to this person and you would only see them the actual day of the wedding…Now you are shown the person. You are asked. Now people talk on the phone as well…. You end up meeting the person… once or twice before the wedding. This never happened earlier.

Jayanti’s quote highlights how new technologies facilitate contact between the betrothed that would not have previously been possible.

While both Kumar and Jayanti’s quotes suggest a level of social acceptability within the urban middle class of the betrothed talking during the engagement period, several respondents said that permission for contact between the betrothed is often not explicitly granted by parents. Sumit, an unmarried graduate student in his late twenties described how parents give “unspoken permission” for couples to speak during their engagement:

[In our caste community], some people’s parents don’t have an issue with their children meeting each other [before the wedding], but most parents don’t allow them to meet. However, there will be an unspoken permission. There will be someone in the house who will be supportive. This person will take the contact number. Suppose my [engagement] ceremony is going to happen, and if I’m comfortable being frank with my sister-in-law… then I can tell her to ask for the girl’s number. Once I have the number, I can talk to her, and then I can meet her outside somewhere. But parents can’t be told, on either side. So basically, it isn’t allowed.

While some parents may allow the couple to meet, many parents refuse to give legitimacy to this contact through explicitly endorsing it. Regardless of whether it was endorsed by parents, the interviews suggested that this type of contact during the roka engagement was common. The role of interlocuters who help facilitate clandestine contact between the betrothed during their roka came up in several interviews besides Sumit’s. According to some respondents, it is common for female relatives such as a sister-in-law or aunt to play this role.

The Roka Period as Courtship within an Arranged Marriage

The interviews with middle-class married individuals suggested that many couples treat their roka period as a courtship where they get to know each other, test out their compatibility, and develop a romantic relationship before their wedding. This section describes the experiences of two couples whose roka engagements illustrate typical experiences of middle-class couples in arranged marriages.

Preeti and Arun were married two years before our interviews in a lavish wedding attended by hundreds of guests. They both worked in management. Preeti was 27 when they married, and Arun was 29. A mutual contact between their families had suggested the match and so the two families arranged a meeting in a local mall. In the thirty minutes that Preeti and Arun spoke to each other alone that day, Arun felt a connection. He explained that “one thing just clicked after another… we were comfortable talking to each other.” In the car ride home, he told his parents that he was ready to move forward with marrying Preeti. Preeti needed more time to decide. She found Arun on Facebook and they had several conversations on the phone and through Whatsapp messages over the span of two weeks. They even arranged a meeting alone. Preeti explained that “I want[ed] to discuss my priorities… so that we are on the same page.” After spending a day together discussing their families, friends, lifestyles, and life goals, Preeti was ready to say yes to Arun. Their roka ceremony took place two weeks later. Preeti and Arun’s roka ceremony was attended by 40 friends and family members. As part of the festivities, several gifts were exchanged. Preeti received diamond earrings from Arun’s family and Arun received a gold chain from Preeti’s family.

During the three-month period between their roka ceremony and wedding, Preeti and Arun continued their regular calls and messages, met each other’s friends, and planned romantic daylong dates. The way that they discussed this courtship period reveals how heavily they were drawing on romantic dating scripts, despite having a fully arranged marriage. In our interview, Arun described their roka period in detail, explaining how his emotions for Preeti deepened as they spent more time together. Arun described one special day with Preeti during their roka:

We went around for the whole day. We had lunch and then we had dinner… and that was where we got even more close because we went to some old fort… We sat over there. We talked for a really long time. It was the first time we kissed… so that became a connection spot itself. After that, everything else escalated.

Arun’s description of this date with Preeti highlights the romance of his engagement period. In addition to getting to know each other, they also explored physical intimacy by kissing.

Arun and Preeti treated their roka as a courtship and therefore he sought advice on how to act with Preeti during his engagement from a confidant who had more experience with courtship, a friend who had a love marriage. He explained that “I never had a close girlfriend… this was very new to me so I got help from my friend’s wife. They had gotten a love marriage… At every point, I used to ask for her assistance.” He explained how this friend’s wife gave him advice on what gifts to bring Preeti and where he should take her on their dates. Arun’s description of his roka engagement reveals how important it was to him that his betrothal conform to dating norms and expectations. As a result, he experienced the type of excitement and anxieties often associated with a new dating relationship.

Preeti and Arun did not tell their parents about their meetings or conversations during their roka. While they were not openly dating, they did have a few confidants within their families who knew that they were in contact. Preeti confided in an aunt about her dates with Arun whereas Arun sought advice from a sister-in-law, in addition to the advice he received from the friend’s wife described above.

It was important to Arun for Preeti to meet his friends and for them to develop a friendship of their own. He explained:

The first time she met my friends was at a friend’s house…. I think it was a one-to-two-hour meeting, and then after that we went for dinner. She said, ‘yeah, I like your friends. It’ll be a good circle.’… When I dropped her off… it was like any two friends chatting… but I had a feeling also that I like her and I’m going to marry her.

Meeting each other’s friends and making sure that they would be able to merge their social lives was important to many of the couples interviewed. Overall, Arun and Preeti’s roka period was filled with the romantic moments, time spent getting to know one another, and a process of integration into each other’s lives that was akin to romantic pre-marital courtship. Even though their marriage was arranged, Arun and Preeti were able to incorporate many elements of dating into their roka period. In doing so, they created a hybrid marriage form that drew from both the cultural scripts of traditional arranged marriage and those of romantic love.

Another couple, Nishita and Sagar, had a similar experience of courtship during their roka period. Nishita and Sagar had been married almost two years before our interviews and had just recently had their first child together. Nishita was 24 when she married Sagar and left her office job after marriage. Sagar, who worked as a business owner, was 25 when he was married. Nishita and Sagar’s roka took place on the same day that their families first met. Like Arun and Preeti, their match was suggested by a mutual family friend. Nishita explained that their families met at a local mall in the late morning and she and Sagar were given some time to speak privately to each other. Then, they were asked if they wanted to move forward with the marriage and both agreed. That evening, the very same day that couple first met, the families met again at Sagar’s family home for a small roka ceremony which involved the exchange of a few small gifts between the families.

Nishita and Sagar’s roka set off an intensive period of getting to know each other in the two and a half months before the wedding. Unlike Preeti and Arun, Nishita and Sagar’s families knew that the couple was in contact and supported the couple getting to know each other. They met three to four times a week during their engagement at the mall food court for coffee and snacks. Nishita and Sagar even attended a wedding together with Sagar’s family while they were engaged. Nishita explained how she used the roka period to get to know her husband and his family through regular phone calls:

I used to talk to my in-laws on the phone every day, to [my mother-in-law], and to him, [Sagar]…I was really curious to know… what is the taste of the family, and what all will they like and dislike… what does their family believe in … more than [Sagar] I think I spoke to my [mother-in-law] … She’s actually very sweet. She used to tell me, ‘Your husband likes this type of food, I like that type of food’… [She told me] what is the [family’s] dressing sense, and what all they believe in and who all of the relatives are.

Nishita was eager to learn about what kind of family she would be joining after marriage and what their expectations would be for her as a daughter-in-law. Rather than using their engagement just to get to know each other and their friends as Preeti and Arun did, Nishita and Sagar used their roka to get to know each other’s families. As a result, they entered their marriage with an already established relationship, a departure from the more traditional practice of getting to know one’s affinal kin only after marriage.

Many couples had private conversations during their roka period in which they shared information about their life or their past which was not divulged at the time of arranging the marriage. Most commonly this included a history of romantic relationships and whether they drink alcohol or consume non-vegetarian food. Since these things are often considered taboo, parents were sometimes unaware of these aspects of their child’s life. Thus, individuals exercise caution when divulging this information to their fiancé.

Sagar had previously been in a serious romantic relationship with a woman that he had wanted to marry. However, the relationship did not work out. Sagar explained how he shared this information with Nishita, saying, “I thought she should know… anyone would feel bad…I told her, I think, fifteen or twenty days before our wedding. I said, ‘I’m hiding something from you, which I don’t think is good. If you want to break [our roka], it’s okay.’” While Nishita was initially surprised by Sagar’s admission, she eventually accepted it and decided against calling off their engagement, often called “breaking the roka.” She also had a secret she had kept from Sagar, that she occasionally drinks alcohol, something taboo in their community. Nishita explains how she told Sagar about her drinking:

During our roka we had a huge fight over [my drinking]. He told me that, ‘you never told me that you drink!’, and I said that I thought you’ll feel bad, that’s why I didn’t tell you. There were actually a few fights in our roka time… he doesn’t like it when something is hidden from him… my parents always told me that whatever is in your past, don’t tell your husband and I followed that blindly which actually disturbed my life a bit… that hurt him a lot.

Like many couples who spent a significant amount of time getting to know each other during their engagement, Nishita and Sagar experienced their first fights during their roka. Because Nishita and Sagar wanted to base their new marriage on companionship, it was important to Sagar that Nishita be open and honest with him, an idea which seemed to contradict the more traditional advice that Nishita was receiving from her parents to hide potentially taboo dimensions of her past. Eventually, Nishita and Sagar learned to move past their conflicts as they established a relationship based on honesty, trust, and companionship. Nishita explained that “slowly, things came into place and our understanding increased, and of course eventually, the love also increased.”

While most couples interviewed had experiences like the two couples shared here, a few of the couples had more limited contact during the roka. Limited contact during the roka was more common with couples from conservative families. For example, Ashwini, a 31-year-old working for the government, explained that she only met her husband once separate from their parents during the three months between their engagement and wedding. After their meeting, she decided that it was better to wait until after marriage for them to get to know each other. Ashwini explained that this decision was partially due to her fiancé’s extreme shyness in interacting with women. For most couples, however, sharing private details of their lives and experiencing conflicts during the roka engagement are part of treating the engagement as a courtship. Along with going on dates, exploring physical intimacy, and meeting each other’s friends and family, these practices blur the lines between arranged and love marriage.

Finding Incompatibility during the Roka Period

For some couples, the roka period does not go smoothly and they find themselves to be incompatible. Arjun and Deepika had been married for nearly two years when I interviewed them. When I met them, they already had a newborn baby. Both Arjun and Deepika worked for multinational companies. Their families lived in the same region far from where Arjun and Deepika had built a home together in an apartment complex in the Delhi suburbs. Arjun was 29 when he got married and Deepika was 27. While visiting home two years ago, their parents arranged for them to meet alone at a local restaurant. Shortly after, Arjun and Deepika agreed to move forward with the marriage and an engagement ceremony took place a few weeks later.

Arjun and Deepika’s engagement period was longer than those of some couples. They were engaged for around six months before their wedding. Recent survey evidence that the average ideal length of a roka engagement in the Delhi metro was only six to seven weeks (Reed, 2021). During their engagement, Arjun and Deepika spoke on the phone regularly and met many times, though without the knowledge of their parents. Unfortunately, they encountered issues with compatibility. Deepika explained that “after the engagement there were a lot of differences between us… we both thought that we shouldn’t go through with this marriage, but for our society, our family, once the engagement has happened, nothing can happen.”

Deepika felt that their “mindsets weren’t matching;” but, unfortunately, both agreed that breaking the engagement would be too stigmatizing for themselves and their families so they continued with the marriage plans. Arjun draws a distinction between families which are more open towards calling off an engagement and his own family:

[For our families], it’s not like it was the Delhi-type concept where we would meet, talk to each other, find out the nature [of the person] in three months, and then in the fourth month we would say no… ‘No’ is a very big thing. I could have said ‘no.’ My parents also wouldn’t say anything, but it’s very difficult to do after the engagement… Whatever is in your destiny is what will happen, frankly speaking.

His community was more traditional, Arjun explained, and a broken engagement would be scandalous and shameful for their families in their small town. The incompatibility that had emerged during the engagement continued into their marriage and both Arjun and Deepika described their marriage as unhappy. Deepika explained that “even now it comes to our minds that we should separate, but that’s not an option…that is not possible practically.”

Breaking a Roka

Arjun and Deepika felt forced to move forward with their engagement due to a strong taboo within their community on breaking a roka. A number of respondents spoke about the stigma associated with a broken roka, both for the betrothed and also for their families. Another concern that may hold families back from breaking off an engagement is the money already spent on the roka and for the wedding, including deposits on a wedding venue, invitations, and other expenses that may not be refundable.

Surjan, a 29-year-old unmarried office worker, explained that the stigma of a broken roka is often primarily born by the woman who was engaged. He said, “rokas break a lot.. if any woman’s roka breaks off, then finding another match for her, through a relative or a third person is difficult… even if one is found, people will call her names and say things about her.” Several respondents made comments similar to Surjan’s that women whose roka had been broken face negative reputational consequences. These reputational consequences did not seem to also apply similarly to men in broken rokas. This is also clear in the quotes from Arjun and Deepika, as it is only Arjun who felt that he “could have said no” without his parents objection. Ultimately, Arjun still felt there would be significant social ramifications of saying no, leading him to decide that this marriage was simply his “destiny” that he should accept.

Despite these costs and the potential stigma, some interview respondents agreed that it was still better to call off an engagement if it appears that the couple will be incompatible. Ruchita, who described herself as a housewife, had already arranged her daughter’s marriage and was currently in the process of searching for a bride for her son. She explained:

If [my daughter] had told me that she didn’t didn’t want to marry him, then we would be more concerned with the child’s happiness, obviously. We’ve already told our children, I told her even on the day of the engagement, that she shouldn’t worry about how much money we have spent, we’re more interested in her happiness, so that later she shouldn’t accuse us of forcing her to do something, we would only agree if you’re absolutely sure.

Being open to their child deciding to call off the engagement is part of the move towards a “joint-arranged” marriage where young people have a say in marriage decisions. Ruchita did not want her daughter to feel “forced” into marriage, nor did she want to be blamed later if her daughter ended up unhappy in her marriage. She also emphasized the importance of her daughter’s happiness over the financial costs associated with breaking a roka. Ruchita’s view is not uncommon in Delhi as previous survey evidence found that almost half of those in the Delhi region felt it was better to break off an engagement than risk an unhappy marriage (Reed, 2021).

Interview respondents also spoke about the link between engagement length and broken rokas. Many of the parents interviewed explained that they recall that engagement periods used to be longer in the past. According to them, families were now choosing to have shorter engagements because they feared that, with the couple speaking during the roka, the risk of breaking an engagement had increased. Ruchita explains:

It used to be that way earlier, engagements would go on for a year or more, but now no one sticks around… It breaks if someone says something to the other or some relative says something… See, nowadays the [betrothed] talk to each other on the phone all the time, nothing wrong with that… the moment the engagement happens, the phone calls start. Someone says something, they fight, and they end up breaking the engagement.

Ruchita’s quote emphasizes the role of phones in facilitating contact, and potentially conflict, between the betrothed during their engagement. Another mother, Vaishnavi, was a doctor with an unmarried son and daughter both studying in college. Vaishnavi expressed a similar sentiment to Ruchita:

I’ve seen a lot of negative effects of waiting so long… If it’s a love marriage, it’s fine to wait for a year or more, but in an arranged marriage set up, it’s best not to. Because in a year, there are many things you find out about each other, good and bad, and then there’s no interest left. The beauty of an arranged marriage is that there are so many things you learn only much later about each other, and whether they’re good or bad, we can adapt to them, we can accept them. [With a long engagement], that gets over… The excitement is over.

Vaishnavi’s revealing quote highlights the potential of long roka engagements to dramatically alter the meaning of arranged marriage. Allowing the couple to meet during the engagement and being open to breaking a roka reflect significant expansions of the definition of arranged marriage to incorporate personal autonomy and choice into the process.

Roka as Legitimacy for Love Marriage

Roka also has significance for couples in what are often called “arranged love marriages”, where a couple in a romantic pre-marital relationship gets full endorsement of their marriage intentions from both sets of parents. This endorsement of parents for their children’s self-chosen match allows them to treat the marriage as though it were arranged. For these couples, the roka ceremony is often an important symbol which signifies that the families of the bride and groom fully support the match and will move forward with the steps and customs associated with a traditional arranged marriage. In this way, couples combine the courtship of a love marriage with the family involvement and formal rituals of an arranged marriage.

Krishna and Shreya, who were married only a few months before our interview, were one couple who had what could be called an “arranged love marriage.” They were both 26 when they married after nearly five years of dating. They had met in the office where they both worked in management for the same company. Krishna and Shreya had kept their relationship secret from their families until they were ready to approach their parents about marriage. Shreya explained the process of delicately approaching their parents about the potential match:

He told his parents, and during our friend’s wedding reception, I met his parents. But before meeting his parents… I made sure that I told my mom and dad about the guy, about everything, and only once they approved [me meeting Krishna’s parents], I decided that I’ll meet his parents…. I knew my father would have certain questions, so I already made sure that I had the answers to those questions … but quickly he said yes… [Shortly after the friend’s wedding], my parents came to Delhi, and they met Krishna for the first time, and then both families met, and we decided that we want to do a roka.

Shreya had taken great care in approaching her parents for their approval of the marriage because she valued and respected their perspective. However, in the end, she explains that “we decided that we want to do a roka,” illustrating how she felt that the decision to move forward with the match was a collective one involving both sets of parents, Shreya, and Krishna. This reflects a deviation from a more traditional arranged marriage framework where parents are usually seen as the only or the primary decision-makers. Shreya and Krishna’s engagement helps illustrate one way that joint decision making might manifest within families.

Shreya and Krishna were lucky to receive the wholehearted support of both of their parents for their marriage, even though it was an inter-caste relationship. Beginning from the roka ceremony, Shreya and Krishna’s parents began planning the wedding jointly as though it were an arranged marriage, coordinating and planning the traditional rituals and festivities together. By following the traditions associated with arranged marriage, such as having a roka ceremony, Shreya and Krishna were able to transform their secret romantic relationship into a socially respectable joint-arranged marriage. The marriage rituals, such as the roka, served as an important public signal that Krishna and Shreya received full parental support of their self-chosen match and, therefore, their marriage should be treated as though it were fully arranged.

DISCUSSION

This study contributes to our understanding of how arranged marriage is changing in urban India by focusing on a part of the arranged marriage process that has received little attention in the literature, the roka engagement. Drawing on 48 interviews conducted among the middle class in New Delhi, I sought to describe the current functions and practices of marriage engagement and show how engagement practices fit within the larger trend of hybridizing arranged and love marriage.

For those in more traditional arranged marriages, the roka engagement period was found to often be one of courtship. This period of courtship allows couples to enact the cultural scripts of romantic love by going on dates, sharing secrets, meeting each other’s friends, having their first conflicts, and exploring physical intimacy. These couples develop a narrative of their “love story” through this period, reflecting their desire to understand their relationship within the logics of romantic love, individual compatibility, and personal agency. Often these roka engagements involve an intense amount of contact and relationship-building over a condensed period averaging only two to six months. These findings build on previous research on the attitudes of young Indians which shows that they often juggle a desire to experience romantic compatibility with their desire to respect parental authority and tradition (Netting, 2010; Twamley, 2013b, 2013a). As has been found in other settings (Swidler, 2001), young Indians draw from a wide range of cultural repertoires to make sense of and give meaning to their lives and relationships. I have shown that the roka engagement often provides cover for young people to experiment with different cultural scripts, like those associated with dating. Through facilitating this experimentation, the roka becomes a site for the hybridization of arranged and love marriage.

Some families appear to support their child speaking to their betrothed during the engagement and are open to calling off the wedding if the couple find themselves to be incompatible. This openness to young people’s opinion of their marriage partner and respect for their right of refusal up until the wedding day reflects the collaborative approach that many Indian parents now take towards arranged marriage. Similar to the preferences documented by Fuller and Narasimhan (2008) in South India, this shift indicates a move towards more choice for young people.

For individuals who have selected their own marriage partner through premarital dating, the roka was found to serve an entirely different function. In this situation, the roka is often a source of legitimacy for their relationship within the structures of arranged marriage. Couples aim to secure legitimacy for their union by showing respect for the cultural scripts of arranged marriage including deference to parental authority and Indian cultural traditions. Parental support is especially important in the Indian context where intergenerational co-residence is common and filial piety is socially valued (Bowman & Dollahite, 2013; Esteve & Reher, 2021; Wurm, 2022). There remains persistent taboo surrounding love marriage in India, including within the urban middle class (Chowdhry, 2010; Mody, 2008). Couples in “arranged love marriages”, who have followed marriage traditions like roka, are seeking to avoid the stigma associated with marrying without parental approval. These couples may even refer to their marriage as arranged, as a few couples in the study did. The interviews revealed how these couples navigate a delicate balance between their desire to maintain family relationships, avoid social stigma, and enact autonomous decision-making regarding their marriage.

Whether the couple’s parents publicly endorsed the match through a roka engagement may be an important mediator of how the marriage is perceived by the community, even long after the wedding. Conformity to socially expected marriage rituals is important for social legitimacy, especially in contexts where the relationship may be perceived as non-normative such as in the case of same-sex couples (Cast & Schweingruber, 2022; Mamali & Stevens, 2020) in the US or love matches in India. This may help explain the slightly divergent findings in the literature on whether arranged love marriage couples are treated the same as arranged (Donner, 2016) or if they continue to face a stigma (De Neve, 2016; Grover, 2018) as this may depend on how the social legitimization process unfolded around the time of marriage. Future research in this area can further parse out the different pathways and experiences of couples across the spectrum of love/arranged marriage.

Limitations

An important limitation of this study is that the interviews were conducted only with the urban middle class, constraining the generalizability of the findings. The literature on ideational diffusion tends to see the elite and middle class as the bellwether of cultural change due to their higher levels of education. However, studies in the Indian context have sometimes challenged the idea that the poorest are the most traditional or “conservative” in terms of cultural practices (De Neve, 2016; Lessinger, 2014; Parry, 2001; Reed, 2022). More research is needed on how marriage attitudes and practices vary by social class. It remains unclear how the experiences of rural and non-middle class young adults might differ from those found in this study. The interview sample also does not reflect the full caste and religious diversity of India as the sample is skewed towards historically privileged Hindu caste groups, which are numerically dominant in the urban middle class. While all five of the couples in love or arranged-love marriages included in the study were intermarriages, more data is needed to understand how joint arrangement may vary by the caste and religious composition of the couple. Caste endogamy is a very important part of marriage practices in India (Ahuja & Ostermann, 2015; Goli et al., 2013; Vaid, 2014). Future research with a more diverse population may be able to shed light on how hybridization practices intersect with these strong endogamy norms.

Implications

Work in the East Asian context has sometimes described a “transitional” phase in the decline of arranged marriage. For example, Tsutsui (2013) uses longitudinal survey data from Japan, China, and South Korea to show changes over time in the degree to which parents play a role in the search and decision-making process separately. Separating the different components of arranged marriage and using a scale of involvement allows them to identify a “transitional” phase when parents influence decreases in one or both dimensions of the process. It is impossible to determine from the current study if the hybrid forms of joint-arranged marriage documented in this text are part of a transitional phase in the eventual decline of arranged marriage in India or if they reflect a new more permanent set of “hybrid” family processes. Further study of the phenomenon of broken rokas, which some described as a growing threat to the very premise of arranged marriage, may shed light on this. New survey evidence suggests a small but continued trend towards more favorable attitudes towards love marriage in the youngest urban cohorts (Bhatia & Devulapalli, 2020). Future research should track whether these shifts in attitudes will results in changing practices for the next generation by using detailed measures and consistent longitudinal data collection.

The findings of this study suggest a need for caution when interpreting survey data on marriage arrangement type. In the Indian context, survey questions asking people to classify their marriage as arranged or not suffer from social desirability bias due to a strong and persistent taboo on love marriage. Surveys which provide only two options, arranged or love marriage, are unable to capture the nuance and complexity of marriage decision-making in contemporary India (Banerji & Deshpande, 2021). Even the third category of “joint-arranged” fails to fully capture the diverse ways in which couples are hybridizing arranged and love marriage. Other options such as asking the degree of involvement of parents in different parts of marriage decision-making, like the surveys utilized by Tsutsui (2013), may do a better job at measuring the experiences of couples in India today.

Finally, this study has implications for our understanding of the role of new technologies in cultural change. Interview respondents acknowledged that it has become nearly impossible for parents to prevent betrothed couples from contacting each other during their engagement because mobile phones and social media allow them to find and initiate contact with their betrothed without the knowledge of their parents. This study extends the growing literature on the social implications of information and communication technology (Billari et al., 2020; Pesando, 2022; Rotondi et al., 2020) by showing how technology can impact marriage practices. Others have acknowledged the role of technology in the diffusion of marriage ideologies (Ahearn, 2001; Thornton, 2005) or in facilitating clandestine romantic relationships (Huang, 2018; Maqsood, 2021b) but this study shows how technology has changed the calculus of arranged marriage. Though this communication transgresses traditional norms barring contact before the wedding, parents seem relatively powerless to stop it. While some parents appear to have responded by trying to shorten engagement periods, others have responded by shifting their own paradigm on what arranged marriage can and should look like.

CONCLUSION

This study makes an important contribution to the literature on global family change by documenting the changing practices within Indian arranged marriage which have been concealed in large survey studies. Indian arranged marriage is undergoing a process of redefinition and adaptation. The complexity of these family changes only becomes apparent when we shift from seeing marriage arrangement as a discrete event to seeing it as a complex multi-stage process. I focus on one period in this process, the roka engagement, and show the important role it plays in the broadening definition of arranged marriage in India. I find that the roka engagement period is frequently used by couples as a cover to experiment with alternative marriage scripts such as those associated with romantic love. These betrothal courtships increasingly lead to broken engagements, a phenomenon which reveals the growing importance of compatibility and autonomous choice in marriage decision-making. Couples in premarital romantic relationships, on the other hand, utilize roka to obtain the social legitimacy of their relationship within the structure of arranged marriage. Overall, these findings challenge the idea that cultural change is a linear process of cultural imitation and reveal how cultural practices adapt and change in ways that are unique to the social context. The result is often an entirely new set of hybrid practices. By studying roka, I have been able to uncover how arranged marriages in India are being reconceived as the definition expands in the face of changing social values.