The Implicit Economy
The title forces you to think that maybe this is a topic of drug dealing and or a hidden illegal market. Under our noses, many transactions happen without our consent. We disguise these transitions in a very alluring manner which enables them to be conducted. In everyday life, we perform transitions through different means. These transitions happen to be as simple as bringing water for someone or as big as buying a house. Makes you wonder, how is that bringing water would be a transition? If your elder brother asks for water, you would obey their orders out of respect and in hope that when you some younger under you would work. The first time you will, but as the frequency of work increases, you start nagging about it. One day, your brother catches you smoking and threatens you that he will tell on you. You use your past services as a tool to create a soft corner in his heart and monetize your services through a favour of silence.. A transaction took place but unconsciously. The transaction was of services, you bought your brother’s silence or ignorance on smoking through your work.
Marcel Maus described quite the same thing by mentioning that there is reciprocal to everything you provide or take. There is an obligation to return a gift and if you don’t then the person ahead would have an upper hand. In layman terms, there are no free lunches in this world. I would use Marcel Maus’s theoretical framework to build upon my idea.
The constitution of marriage certainly seems like a beautiful bond between a husband and wife where they care for each other and parent their children to be successful in life. The word “care” and “love” seems to unite the family together. There is another way to perceive marriage and family. To start from the root, when you are searching for a spouse, you are finding a good investment in the groom’s market. The universal ideal or basic requirement to be a groom is to earn well. Your wealth would determine your so-called “soul mate”. Your wealth allows you to have a family. The girl takes a bird’s eye view of how much her spouse would invest in her and determines to marry him. Either it’s by service or by the wealth that she is satisfied. The so-called “love marriage” is a service industry I believe. Makes you wonder how it could be a way transaction? Well, men offer their wealth in return for her services and good looks. Men measure their investment as good or bad through women’s good looks. They agree to spend on that flesh of blood and demand their obedience in return. Pakistani man complains that working women are disobedient is a reason that they bought freedom through money in away. They are no longer dependent upon their spouse thus they are not accountable. The ritual of a marriage celebrating lavishly to have a good time is one of the biggest deals of one’s life. We celebrate marriage not to have blessings from people rather it’s a way to show how much we have in the pocket. It’s a way in which people display their status in a materialistic society. There are 2 transactions being conducted when a marriage is being celebrated. The first transaction is to gain respect and powers in society by displaying our social circle to other people. It isn’t a rare sight to find famous yet distant relatives in marriage. The purpose of this act is to elevate social status. In marriage, this is done by different acts like how many dishes are served or how expensive the bride’s dress is. All this defines where you stand amongst others. The other transaction is that people pay for their own food. No matter how expensive a Pakistani wedding may seem but is covered up by huge amounts of salami and gifts from the bride’s side. You only pay for yourself at weddings and for your own get-up. Modest people don’t ask for “jahez” yet we see that the bride’s side gives many gifts to the bride. The reason is that they try to buy the groom as much as they can. If they don’t “gift” or give anything to their daughter’s then she would have to provide her services to cover up. A perfect example is portrayed by the Batwa memon community where they buy their grooms openly.
However, the transaction is disguised in a beautiful manner of the house or a car being gifted. Now it makes that the girls is at loss and as they don’t get anything in return. However, they earn in the long term. They give away their daughter’s at a certain price to avoid further expenses. Girls are instructed to keep care of their beauty so that they could be a good investment in the future. There is even a time or a certain time when the demand for women is hyped that is the age of 20 to 25. Before the parents face loss, they try to find a good investor. The first time a man is with a spouse offers her a gift. In my view, that’s an implicit manner to ask for sex the first time. I wasn’t surprised to see the major reasons for divorce being financial issues (lack of investment) or lack of effort to put in marriage (services). The marriage institute quite much reflects the potlatch example used by Maus.
Now I have defined the universal constitution of marriage nothing as trade. Now, something from something so strong as friendship or parenthood is a transaction and nothing more. I studied myself to identify the difference. I belonged from a good and strong financial background but for a certain time, there was a downfall in our family. I had friends from the elite and upper-middle-class families. As my financial background deviated, I felt my bond with them reduced as well. They didn’t call when they used to sit in a café because they knew that I wouldn’t order anything or if I did I would request them to share the food with me to divide the bill. This was considered as something as insulting for them which affected our bond. After a few years when we got out of that situation, they became good friends again. A perfect contemporary example could be that rich people prefer to be enrolled in IBA’s city campus rather than Main. A friend of mine from the hostel takes the shuttle in the morning to take classes in the city campus when he can walk to the main campus and have classes with ease. His argument for my question was that he couldn’t integrate or be with the people of the main campus. He labeled them as “Mailay”. He did spend a semester on the main campus yet he has no friends there at all. The opposite could be observed when he went to the city campus. Friendships are a commodity that is bought.