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.

The focus on mother and child health as a key element in Indian health policy evolved out of what was identified as one of the strongest explanatory factors for continued high fertility, viz., the high infant mortality rates.