Education, Marriage Market and the Urban Middle-Classes in India: Understanding Strategies and Functioning of Education-Based Matrimony Websites

Educational attainments impact the processes of mate selection as well as the organisation of marriage markets by defining the broad strata within which persons with certain levels of education prefer to marry, indicating the value and desirability of each person in the marriage market. While sociologists in India are yet to acknowledge the growing demand for highly qualified spouses and how that impacts family structures, the market of matrimonial websites have been quick to capitalise on this requirement. There are matrimony websites such as the IITIIMShaadi.com, an exclusive service for graduates of IITs, IIMs and other such premier educational institutes. Other similar websites too offer exclusive filters where one can choose from not just the desired qualifications but also the educational institutions from which those qualifications are acquired. There are also matrimonial websites in India that are dedicated solely to alumni of ivy leagues and premier business schools. These technologies of matchmaking characterise education as the symbol and marker of modern individualism and agency, however they do not attempt to contest the traditional ideas, values and requirements of a ‘suitable’ spouse ingrained within the family system. This paper is based on a detailed analysis of two such matrimonial websites, their registration processes, marketization, advertising, profile curation as well as in-depth interviews with a sample of customers who had been availing these services. Findings reveal that while the strategies of education-based matrimony websites are geared towards portraying high educational qualifications as a marker of the changing aspirations of the modern Indian middle classes, yet their processes are dedicated to upholding the caste endogamy and traditional expectations of gendered roles. They reflect the making of a social context within which middle class identities are constructed in a way that their globalising tendencies merges with the traditional value system of marriage and family.