Introduction: Marriage, Gender Relations and Social Change

This symposium of articles argue that marriage does not have a fixed relationship to gender inequality, nor does it simply reflect gender relations external to households, but is better seen as an institution which mediates social change and gender inequality. The collection of articles here show this symposium through empirical case studies of marriage, gender and wellbeing in contexts of social change. Together they problematise the connections between intra and extra household gender relations, analyse changing masculinities and marriage, consider how women's agency is deployed in reshaping marriage, and indicate a richer approach to understanding intrahousehold relations within particular contexts and temporal frames, and with fuller conceptions of breakdown positions and conjugal interdependencies.