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.

Indian society consists of immensely varied political, social, ethnic, linguistic, religious and community groups, which, by and large, reside in villages, where poverty, misconceived religious notions, social customs, illiteracy, ignorance and superstitions prevail.

The tribal population groups from 7.95 percent of the total population of India. About 67.76 million persons have been enumerated in the country (excluding Jammu & Kashmir) as members of the Scheduled Tribes (1991 census).