In societies where marriage is nearly universal, and the fertility process is almost entirely through marital union, the factors associated with the occurrence of marriage, and through it the reproduction and rearing of children, need to be continuously assessed. Except for prohibited relationships, marriages between close and distant relations, as well as between those not related have been practiced among the muslims. The high incidence of close kin marriages (consanguineous marriages),t including those with first cousins, is a well-known feature of a muslim society. Marriages between close relatives are not only practiced by muslims but also by the people of many other religious. affiliations. Within the South Asian subcontinent, besides muslims, christians and other communities, consanguineous marriages have also been practiced by hindus, especially in the south Indian states, and in the central state of Maharashtra. In the northern states of India the prohibition on such marriages is more strictly enforced.2 In the south Indian state of Andhra a high proportion of maternal uncle-niece in addition to cross-cousin marriages (especially among maternal cross-cousins) have been in a high propor..........
The 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (lCPD) in their Programme of Action calls for promoting gender equality and equity and the empowerment of women. Furthermore, the conference also recognises the basic rights of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing, and timing of their children, as well as the right to the information and the means to do so [Sadik (1994)]. The need for such a programme of action arose in view of the fact that in many countries, including Pakistan, women are generally least empowered and hence they have negligible rights to decide about the number of their children. According to the 1990-91 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey, over 54 percent women either wanted to stop having children or wanted to wait at least two years before having another child [Ali and Rukanuddin (1992)]. However, in practice, all of these women were not protected; instead, only 12 percent were practising contraception [Shah and Ali (1992)]. The low incidence of family planning practice on the part of the women is not so much due to the dearth of family planning services; rather it is due to resistance by husbands, in-laws, and other peer pressures. Demographers like Caldwell (1982) and Cain et al. (1979) also contend that in patriarchal societies it is the patriarchy which militates against the fertility decline.
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