This book deals with the system of exchange marriages in South Punjab Pakistan. This system
does not only regulate mate selection but it is also an institutional guarantee of reciprocity
welfare and social cohesion. It connects families by means of one marriage and also creates a
double bond between two (or sometimes more) couples. This establishes specific conditions for
stability and possible changes in marriage pattern. Valuation and stigmatization as social
mechanisms are used to maintain the system of the exchange. It also shows to what degree new
forms of cultural values and new patterns of social exchange come into play create
contradictions and undermine the traditional cultural norms. The study focuses on the interplay
between structure culture and agency (Archer 1996). Thereby not only the functions and
dysfunctions of the system come into view but also the conditions under which the system is
actively being maintained by different actors the tensions that it produces between individual
and collective perspectives as well as the cultural and structural conditions under which
marriage practices and concepts are gradually being transformed.
