“The Shadi season is in full swing in Islamabad, and so is the cult of Rajput matchmakers’. This was the opening sentence of a friend’s email.

Beginning on a light note, it turned into a longwinded whine that he was dreading the idea of meeting girls his mother had short-listing at various functions.

Though not averse to the idea of marriage, the Rajput friend insists he is facing a dilemma. “I cannot hurt my mother’s feelings but she will go mad if she finds out I like a Kashmiri girl,” he wrote, his impassioned plea a stifling reminder that when it comes to tying the knot, clans are no less than cults.

To an outsider, all Punjabi speakers will simply seem ‘Punjabis’ but that is not always the case. Jatt, Rajputs, Gujjars and Arains are clans that are found on both sides of the now divided Punjab. Though the stocks mostly consist of Muslims and minorities on this side of the border, and Sikhs and Hindus on the other side, the primary identities still remain strongly rooted with the biradari.

A question on whether a Jatt/Arain/Rajput/Gujjar will marry a man/woman from the other clan was posed by this writer to a number of young and old Punjabis. The replies ranged from interesting and insightful to down right racist and plain sad.

A young Arain woman from Rawalpindi confided that she wanted to marry a Jatt boy but both families were against the match. “His family threatened to cut off all ties with him and that was the end of our romance,” she says.

Another middle-aged Kashmiri man says that the girl he fell in love with was a Jatt. “Her brothers, though educated and urbane, refused my proposal.”

“Real Rajputs don’t marry outside their caste, particularly with Jatts, because we are superior then others,” was one reply, while a matchmaker from Rawalpindi said that the general perception of Gujjars and Jatts was very negative. “They are uncouth and I avoid dealing with them.”

“We only got Kashmiri girls into our family because of their fair complexion,” was the reply received from some Jatt and Arain families.

A Jatt family says that the idea of marrying their sons or daughters to Arain is a big no-no.

“No outsider has married into our family in the last five generations,” the aging patriarch said. A young one from the same house chimed in sarcastically: “See how a minority is discriminating against its own people.” Talking to Dawn, Aslam Sandhu, a retired senior government official in Islamabad, says that marrying within the same caste, particularly the Jatts and Rajput clans, is not going to end anytime soon.

“Right from Jhelum to Rahimyar Khan, you have this entire belt populated by the Jatts and Rajputs. There are so many of them and the families seek their own kind,” he says.

A Jatt himself, he says that the stereotypical image of Jatts is wrong, adding: “There are decent, educated boys and girls from Jatt families and there is no harm if they get married. However, consanguineous marriages are being avoided now, particularly by educated families.”

He went on to explain that inbreeding had led to children being born with mental disabilities.

Mr Sandhu’s wife Shafaq Munawar is well-known in Islamabad and Rawalpindi’s Jatt families and her active social life has led to many Jatt boys and girls getting hitched.

Offering free matchmaking service between suitable Jatt families, she says that the prime reason for Jatts choosing to marry within their clan is ‘tradition’.

“Rasm-o-rawaj aik hay sab Jatt families ka!”

“The families feel at ease this way. Also, Jatts still prefer arranged marriages for their children but at times the new generation rebels,” she added.She went on to explain that in most cases, the will of the Jatt mother prevails eventually and the son ends up marrying the girl of her choice.

She further added that Urdu-speaking families had no qualms in marrying their daughters into Punjabi families, regardless of the Jatt, Arain or Kashmiri background.

“If a Jatt man marries a girl from another clan/ethnicity/race, his wife and children will be accepted over a period of time,” she said.

While Jatt men choosing to marry women from other clans and ethnicities, eventually find acceptance within families, it is not the same for Jatt girls.

“We don’t marry our girls outside. A Jatt girl who marries an outsider is practically shown the door; she is simply cut off. Even if ties aren’t severed, her children will not find acceptance,” Mrs Shafaq said solemnly.

“Each and every time a Jatt/Rajput/Gujjar girl marries an outsider, the delicate balance of the universe is disturbed,” opines a fiery young Jatt woman while highlighting the plight of females caught in a web of societal norms and caste system. Sadia, who calls herself a victim of double standards, says that the biradari mentality is not only limiting the physical and mental gene pool, but is also increasing the number of emotionally unfulfilled individuals, particularly women.

“My brothers and male cousins have married women of their choice. One’s wife is a Mexican who converted to Islam. However, the minute I said I wanted to marry a Jatt boy, my mother threw a nasty fit and said he was not a match worth considering,” she says.

His only fault was his clan, the Rajput girl says. She married the man of her choice but has no contact with her family.

“At a recent wedding of a family friend, my mother left the venue in anger the minute she saw me,” she says.

While the Jatts and Rajputs are often accused of being rigid in their ways and suffering from an extreme superiority complex, are they alone to be blamed for the cult of ‘marriage within clans only’?“Arains have the same disease,” exclaimed noted travel writer and Fellow of Royal Geographical Society Salman Rashid when this writer asked him for information.

Probably one of the few Pakistanis to have travelled all over the country, he offers an interesting insight, not only as an anthropologist and geographer but also as an Arain.

“All over Pakistan, almost every caste/clan/tribe prefers marrying within the family,” he says.

He recalled that on a trip to Swat, he came across many mentally challenged young men in a village where cousin marriages and inbreeding was the norm.

“Zameen butt jaye ge,” is one of the biggest fear in the agrarian society, he says, adding that the pressure to keep land within the family led to an increase in cousin marriages.

“Also, the concept of cousin marriages took root when Islam came to the subcontinent else in Hinduism and even Sikhism, marrying a woman from the same village was considered a sin. Some people knew the dangers of inbreeding 2,000 years ago,” he says.

Rashid says that it’s more of a social issue as well and superiority complex does come into play.

“I am amazed that we haven’t turned into monkeys with cousin marriages being a norm in this country,” he says in jest. On a serious note, he is hopeful that the younger generation from these clans and caste system will change things.

“A few decades ago, a Jatt marrying an Arian was a big no. But now so many young people are marrying into other clans and it’s a positive sign,” he says.