ABSTRACT
Away from the court, and inside the home, love-marriage couples seek to obtain the consent and legitimacy of their two families. This chapter is the ‘other-half’ of the court-marriage, as it explores some of the more intimate strategies that love-marriage couples use in order to complete the marriage (through a negotiation with community). However, in a large proportion of cases, opposition to the choice of an offspring leaves the latter little option but to leave home and chart their new life without their families. This chapter examines elopements, abductions and kinship relations evidenced in love-marriage cases, and through this explores the ways in which gender conditions the agency of love-marriage individuals.
