EXPLORING MARRIAGE PRACTICES OF KALASH COMMUNITY IN DISTRICT CHITRAL

Abstract

Marriage is a kind of social institution that helps to fulfill the biological and social needs of human beings. It is also a kind of social contract among both partners to process the life circle. Marriage is an important element of a functioning society as well as an individual’s wellbeing. It is a process that enables an individual to become independent and form a family. The whole processes of change in any perspective depend on marriage as it gives way to extend society and increase people’s living with specific identities. Marriage has many types but the common types are monogamy and polygamy. Love, arranged and elopement marriages are commonly found in the Kalash community. Love marriage is one of the important and most common types of marriage in the Kalash community. The way of living of Kalash community is distinct and their cultural practices are unique at the world level. Their women have complete freedom to choose their life partners. A mix method was used for collection of data. For this purpose a well-designed open and close ended questionnaire was used and data was collected from different respondents in the target area. Qualitative data was interpreted in description while quantitative data was analyzed through SPSS version 20.0. From the study it is concluded that most of the people commonly practiced monogamy along with endogamy marriage in some families.