Unveiling the Mail-Order Bride: Mutated Arranged Marriages in Chitra Divakaruni's "Clothes" and Linh Dinh's Love, Like, Hate

Abstract

[Abstract] This Master's thesis explores the impact of contemporary globalisation on the nature of the arranged marriages in the Asian diaspora. In order to highlight the differences between the old tradition and the mutated form of arranged marriages—the term I use to refer to the renewed method—, I have organised this paper using a contrasting, comparative structure. After a brief sociohistorical contextualisation of the evolution of the arranged marriage procedure, I explore the main ways in which globalisation may have affected the latter and, subsequently, I point out the major transformations of the mutated phenomenon. Finally, I illustrate those changes in the close analysis of the proposed textual corpus. In order to accurately portray the greater placement of the arranged marriage business in recent years in the Indian American and Vietnamese American diasporas, I have selected two narratives that deal with such ethnic minorities: "Clothes," by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and Love, Like, Hate, by Lihn Dinh. The aim of this study is not only to stress the mutations of the arranged marriage phenomenon through its depiction in the literary field, but also to evidence the need for urgent action in order to regulate the current mail-order bride industry.