This article presents in-depth ethnographic evidence of women’s lived experience of arranged marriages and love marriages, their agency and constraints in a working class neighbor hood of New Delhi.

Reproductive health [1] practices among Muslim women in India have been little researched perhaps because of the widespread notion regarding the tight Islamic control over sexual behaviour and the sanctions against contraceptive use.

As women become more involved in public life and break patriarchal control in the process, they also deal with the backlash of cultural, traditional and religious reaction. Various interpretations of Muslim law are promoted by different groups in the struggle over women's rights.

Reproductive Health Matters has until this issue of the journal focused almost exclusively on secular threats to women’s reproductive rights.