Rishta culture has long been a part of coming-of-age in Pakistan, with parents searching for eligible partners through their own personal networks. But with the prevalence of technology in every sphere of life, young people are increasingly shifting to the internet to find their own perfect match.
For some, the internet represents a new frontier that shifts away from traditional matchmaking, which is often underscored by unrealistic demands and interrogation-like questioning. Traditional Rishta has faced increased criticism from the internet generation for the unduly judgmental nature of the practice. The rejection that young adults face can be justified for anything from skin color to height to career choice and salary.
Many young people have grown frustrated by this cycle of rejection and are turning to Facebook groups to match with like-minded people. In doing so, they are opting out of the matchmaking process and the process of arranged marriage all together. Some of the bigger Facebook groups for matchmaking have more than 50 thousand members and success stories that prove this method works for some people.
Fakiha Khan, the administrator of ‘Two Rings,’ a Facebook group where people look for partners for their children, said she never thought her group would be used to connect families – she started it to help a few of her good friends meet each other. When she got married in 2018, Khan said her friends and their parents consistently asked her to keep an eye out for potential matches. She started the Facebook group as a community-building space where people might connect on their own.
At first, the group was only women, since Khan was concerned about security of her friends if they shared their information online. But after a few months, she started getting requests to add men, since women weren’t comfortable partaking in a Rishta search on their own, and their brothers or male cousins would do it for them. Khan added male cousins of two women, who posted to say they were seeking potential matches for their family member. “They succeeded in finding a better proposal from there instead of searching through conventional methods,” Khan said.
In starting such a network, Khan is aware that she has taken on a big responsibility, since families can easily blame the person who connected their children if something goes wrong with their marriage or engagement. “I was very clear about these things to everyone since the beginning that it is just a platform to get connected,” she said. “I won’t be responsible in any way.” After some time, Khan said she started getting requests to expand the platform since people were having more luck getting engaged on it than through traditional matchmaking.
She opened the group in 2019, which allowed people to submit requests that would be approved by administrators if their accounts proved to be genuine. Khan said the group found renewed success in March 2020 when coronavirus lockdowns started. She said the group gained around 2,000 members in a few days. After that, she set strict rules and criteria about what details are required for posts about Rishta searches.
Khan said the success of the platform stems from its nontraditional approach, which does away with uncomfortable meetings. She said it helps give equal opportunity to both genders to get to know the basic details of potential matches. Khan said parents, siblings, cousins and friends sometimes post on behalf of women seeking a partner if they are too shy to post about themselves. In these situations, admins also scrutinize posts to make sure they come from authentic and genuine profiles.
In addition to ‘Two rings,’ there are several other Facebook groups being used for similar purposes, including one called ‘Skip the Rishta Aunty.’ In this group, only single people can be added, and they are required to post about themselves. The group has a zero-tolerance policy for mean and hateful comments, which allows people to post confidently in their search for potential matches.
Successful matches online
Admins say the success stories that have come from these platforms are helping spread awareness and dispel stigmas surrounding nontraditional methods for finding matches for marriages. Ahsan Almani, who got married through the ‘Skip the Rishta Group,’ said he went online because he was tired of using a traditional matchmaker with little success. “It used to be so awkward to go sit there and judge a girl where her brothers, father, and other family members are sitting [there],” he said. “How am I supposed to even look at her in such situation?”
In Pakistani society where people are often judged heavily based on their material wealth, Almani said he was rejected by many families who didn’t think he had a sustainable plan for his future. After many failed in-person meetings with potential matches. Almani said he got to know about Facebook groups that were offering something different. “I didn’t dare to post about myself for a very long time,” Almani said. “But after seeing so many success stories I thought to give it a try.”
He posted about himself and received a few replies. After connecting with one of the women through the group, he met her for coffee and the couple clicked. Within 15 days, he had decided who he wanted to marry. Alina Amjad similarly had success online after starting her Rishta hunt there. Since she is the only child in her family, Alina said her parents cared less about finding her a partner the conventional way – they didn’t want her to go through something that would damage her self-esteem or make her doubt her physical appearance.
When Amjad graduated, she knew her mother wouldn’t try to arrange traditional Rishta meetings for her, so when she heard that a friend of hers got engaged through a Facebook group, she decided to broach the subject with her mom. “I told my mother that a platform like this is doing wonders for people,” Amjad said. She said her mother’s main concern was security; She worried that if her daughter married someone from the internet her might turn out to be a fraud or a liar.
Amjad tried to quell her mother’s fears by sitting down with her, explaining the details, and adding her to the group so she could see how it worked. Her mother later consented and Amjad is now happily married, thanks to the online matchmaking group, along with two of her friends. “My mother keeps telling everyone in her circle about these groups and encourages them to post themselves,” Amjad said.
Potential dangers of meeting online
Although online matchmaking groups have numerous positives, they still pose some risk to users, providing a platform for people to post false information, lure girls into meeting them or to con their families. Since Pakistan’s digital cybercrime laws are not very strong, most people are unaware of how their information online could be used against them.
Khan said to her knowledge, there haven’t been any cases of fraud on her platform in the past two years, but she acknowledges the risk is there. She said the group has made it very clear that they are not responsible for investigating group members or for the outcome of meetings. They encourage people, especially women, not to meet strangers without first informing friends or family members, and to meet potential matches in public places like restaurants.
Advocates of this method for matchmaking say social media platforms help families skip the awkwardness of first meetings. They say the process still allows families to gather information about each other before finalizing their decisions. Rida Riaz, a moderator for the ‘Skip the Rishta Aunty’ group said they try to make the platform safe by having criteria for what members should include on their profiles to prove they are legitimate. She said as soon as people are added to the group, they are required to post their profile, and can’t post on someone else’s behalf. Any post without pictures will not be entertained.
“These are the basic things that the group can do,” she said. She encourages people to do due diligence on their own to get to know the potential match and his or her family. Riaz got married through the same group.
Other dating platforms
In Pakistani society, the idea of stepping out of the box is difficult and despite the success of Rishta Facebook groups, finding matches through dating applications is still an alien concept for many. G, who asked to remain anonymous, said she has used Tinder and Bumble but became frustrated since many people weren’t looking for serious relationships, only flings. On these platforms, she knows many married men who either register with fake names or their real names and real pictures.
She said these applications can quickly be manipulated by people who don’t appreciate the boundaries of the application – reaching out to women they meet on Instagram and other social media sites as well. “We aren’t ready for such platforms yet as there is a big class divide where people think it is okay to abuse anyone who is putting up their profiles,” she said. Because of this, she said there is still a stigma that comes along with online dating. “Women, especially from decent families, do not do this.”
Although their popularity is growing, the hesitance of women to join dating applications remains. Tinder, Bumble and Muzmatch, a Muslim dating service, remain less popular among women than Facebook groups. Users say the reason is largely cultural, as people who register for these applications are put in a specific box. “These apps [are] misunderstood among people in Pakistan,” said Ghania Asad, who has tried dating from both Facebook and applications.
Many male users on Bumble or Muzmatch have the idea that women there are not looking for serious relationships, only flings, which creates problems and mismatched expectations. “I joined Bumble after a friend of mine encouraged me but after 15 minutes into it I realised that people there are just passing their time [and] I deactivated my account instantly,” said Kiran Butt. She decided to forego Rishta culture after a few bad experiences where she was rejected for impractical reasons.
Muzmatch has recently come under fire from religious political parties who demand the app be banned since they claim connecting on dating apps is un-Islamic. The demand came after
Muzmatch put up billboards around Karachi, prompting the Sindh Office to write a letter to the officials banning the app and its promotion of dating culture.
Still, women in Pakistan have few options if they opt out of traditional Rishta culture. Many who do this are seen as rude or unmarriable. Women using dating applications face a number of potential hurdles, which go as far as stalking. Asad said men she has chatted with on dating apps don’t have a clear idea of boundaries and won’t take no for an answer, even when she has said it explicitly.
She said women are more likely to use Facebook for matchmaking since it allows family members to post on their behalf but still has some reservations about posting personal details online. “The whole concept of dating or relationship apps in Pakistan is flawed,” she said. “Awareness and education for such platforms are the need of time”.