Marriage Bolan
The majority of the marriages in the district is arranged, particularly in rural areas. In urban areas, such as Bhag, Dhadar, and Mach, educated girls may express their willingness or unwillingness for a match, but they nonetheless remain under the patriarchal set-up, where their fates are determined by their fathers, brothers, or near kin. It is widely observed that, unlike uneducated girls, girls with an education, whether they are from rural or urban areas, have at least some influence on their marriage affairs. The girl’s age for marriage is between 15 and 20 years. Early age and adolescence marriages are more common in cases of uneducated girls. In areas with lower female literacy rates, there are more marriages at adolescence age and more cases of girls given in marriage to 80-89 year old men.
Vulvar (bride-price) is practised in Bolan, but less frequent than in the Pashtu speaking belt. The payment of vulvar is imputed to the male side by the female members at the time a proposal of marriage is made. There are no fixed rules for the amount of vulvar to be paid. It varies from case to case and situation to situation, but it usually is not very high. Vulvar can be paid by the bridegroom, his parents, guardians or relatives. The demand for vulvar is usually raised, when a proposal is made to the bride's side.
Similarly, there is the more commonly practised system of Ata Wata (exchange marriages). In case of Ata-Wata, a girl marries a man in exchange for a bride for her brother. This system is more common in rural areas, where people are poor and cannot afford to pay a bride price. Under the Ata Wata system, the choice for matrimony is more imposed on the female side. It includes a large number of cases each year where the bridegroom is younger than the bride.
Under the vulvar and Ata Wata system girls, who have been proposed to, are left with no choice but to bow their heads for the marriage. After their daughters’ marriages, parents
become almost indifferent to their welfare. Married women are at the mercy of their husband and his family. It is observed that under the system of exchange of marriages, the husband may retaliate upon his wife, in case his sister is not happy with his wife's brother. A second marriage on one side may result in marriage break-up, ill-treatment of wife, or tit for tat in retaliation. One form of retaliation upon the wife may result in Siahkari, where she is murdered for having entered into a sexual relationship with another man. Women who are forced to flee from their homes because of ill-treatment and excessive beating may be targeted for Siahkar. Siahkar is quite often reported in Bolan district.