Dating websites are embraced by Muslim's Muslim women in India are increasingly taking to the internet to find a husband, a study has found. The research was conducted jointly by the University of Delhi, the Indian Institute of Management and Pennsylvania State University and found that the online profiles created by these women adhered to gender stereotypes prevalent in India.
Some 75% of the female profiles stated they had been posted by a member of family, highlighting the importance of family involvement during spousal selection in Islam.
"Throwing oneself open to premarital online interaction in a community which often does not provide space for unmarried men and women to meet without supervision sends out a dual message: we are modern, yet we are traditional," the study says.
The findings found that history of education was the most important aspect on advertisements, while income proved to be less important for both men and women. 68 percent of the female profiles failed to even mention their salaries.
"Few Indian Muslim profiles in our study highlighted external manifestations of religiosity, such as praying five times a day, wearing a hijab or burqa, and observing Ramadan. Relatively more Muslims, 35 percent, in our sample portrayed themselves as internally religious, that is, they referred to general declarations of Islamic faith," the researchers said.
Overall, women claimed to be more religious than men. Nearly 23 percent of all profiles included an Islamic greeting, while more women's personal ads than men's were accompanied by a photograph of them.
The evidence suggests that a woman advertising herself in a traditional community might be afraid of being perceived as too modern or “forward” and will compensate by making more explicit references to her religious values.
"The internet, through association with pornography, online gambling, political extremism, and such assorted vices, is also a profane medium, and those advertising themselves on it might place their traditional and conservative identities under question,” the researchers added.
“To counter this negative stereotype of the Internet, advertisers might have been tempted to display their traditional religious values in their profiles and that also explains why women felt more compelled to use Islamic greetings than their male counterparts, especially when advertising for themselves.”
The findings concluded that searching for a spouse online adhered to the aspects of traditional matchmaking, such as lack of physical contact, which may be the main reason this new medium has been embraced by the Muslim community.