Most marriages are arranged by the household heads of the bride and groom, neither of whom have any great say in the choice which has been made for them. These choices can thus be discussed, as the Maduzai themselves do, in terms of the household standing of the principals. Equally, because the interests of both men and women are intimately tied to the success or failure of the household in which they live, men and women of a household are likely to agree in their accounts of marriage, whether they are discussing their own marriages in particular or commenting on the institution in general.

At one level, the Maduzai maintain that the choice of a spouse, as with everything else in life, is a question of fate (qismat): ‘Whatever is written, that is your destiny (takdir).’ Within the Durrani group, outside the range of relatives proscribed as partners by Islamic law, there are no preferred spouses. People accept that the choice of marriage partner and the brideprice paid are arrived at by juggling three sets of factors: the personal characteristics of the principals, the social distance between their families, and their wealth.

Behind the immediate calculations between these three factors involved in marriage is the cultural imperative for adult men to marry and remain married throughout their lives.