The Commodification of Marriage: A Marxist Critique of Soniah Kamal’s Unmarriageable

Abstract

The present paper highlights how the commodification of marriage has emerged as a significant social issue in Pakistan. It aims to explore how individuals are reduced to mere commodities and how the institution of marriage gets commodified. The present paper adopts a qualitative and analytical approach and employs Lois Tyson’s Marxist critique to examine the commodification of human relationships and the institution of marriage within contemporary Pakistani society, as depicted in Soniah Kamal’s Unmarriageable (2019). This transformation is largely attributed to the pervasive influence of capitalist ideology, alongside values such as materialism and consumerism, which are deeply embedded in Pakistani culture and society. In light of the findings, the present paper calls for a critical examination of societal norms and stereotypes associated with marriage, urging a process of unlearning and re-learning the ideologies and practices that commodify and dehumanize individuals within the institution of marriage.