Introduction

Since the end of the Second World War the field of migration has been studied through neoclassic and macroeconomic theories that depict migrants as rational individuals whose decisions to migrate were based on cost–benefit analysis, divorced from emotions at all stages of the migration journey (Montes 2013). Initial explorations around emotion in migration studies focused on stay-at-home women and the psycho-emotional implications of their husbands migrating for labour opportunities, including anguish, anxiety, guilt, and sometimes suicidal thoughts. More recently the focus has shifted to women as migrants, due to the increased feminisation of migration catalysed by the demand in the global care industry (Parreñas 2001, 2005b; Piper 2009). By becoming transnational wives, mothers, and breadwinners, recent studies demonstrate the ways in which male self-esteem has been jeopardised (Gamburd 2002: 190; Parreñas 2005a; Gallo 2006; Hoang and Yeoh 2011). Men’s experiences of migration and the resultant changes to their masculine practices and identities have received little attention, however.

In recent years ethnographies have emerged that have documented migrant men’s experiences in the competitive global marriage market. For example, in documenting the experiences of Vietnamese migrant men in the United States and Vietnam, Thai (2008) demonstrates that, whereas in Vietnam these men were able to enhance their social capital as a result of having migrated abroad, in the United States their status within the racial hierarchy positioned them at the bottom of the socio-economic, and employment, ladder. Similarly, Broughton (2008) finds Mexican rural migrants negotiated their masculine ideals and gender practices in line with the economic, social, and cultural changes that had taken place over the last two and a half decades as a result of neoliberal policies. The negotiation of masculine practices has also been documented among British expats in Dubai, who began to conform to hegemonic masculine ideals in relation to their wives within the domestic space (Walsh 2011). Kleist’s (2010) work with Somali fathers in Canada finds that they felt emasculated in relation to the state, as a result of welfare payments made to their wives and families. In the migration of South Indian migrant husbands to Italy (Gallo 2006), the emotions of migrant husbands are also little explored (see also Dwyer, Shah, and Sanghera 2008: 127). In both ethnographic case studies, inferences can be made about the men’s emotional states. For example, the migrant husbands who took part in Gallo’s (2006) study reported that they occupied socially lower positions than their wives since they had obtained citizenship and employment through marriage, rather than on their own merit. They also endured taunts from extended family members in India, who often made claims about the sexual promiscuity of their wives who lived in Italy alone, prior to securing their husband’s visas. Although these ethnographic accounts focus on the interplay between transnational migration and gender relations with regard to masculine identities, the role played by emotions of emasculation are yet to be examined in greater detail. Addressing this gap would enrich the study of men and masculinities in migration, in important ways, including providing insights into how gender power relations are impacted outside hegemonic masculinity frameworks.

More broadly within migration studies, existing scholarship considers the push/pull factors of migration, leaving the thick description of the emotional costs of migration poorly acknowledged and scarcely documented. In masculinity studies the prevailing explanation for men’s emotional inexpressiveness has been attributed to the gender role socialisation paradigm, which asserts that boys and men internalise cultural messages about what it means to be a male (Wong and Rochlen 2005; Montes 2013: 478). Montes’ (2013) work among Guatemalan migrant men shows that the emotional cost of migration was devastating for them, due to the separation from their children and families. The often multiple emotional attachments of migrants to their homelands and new places of residence and the emotional interactions between migrants and members of local communities (Savesk 2010: 867) are crucial to understanding experiences of migration.

Further illuminating the study of emotions have been the emotions evoked and invoked in indigenous poetry (Abu-Lughod 1986; Wyrtzen 2015), songs (Raheja and Gold 1994), music, sound symbolism (Feld 1984; Schieffelin 1976), and dance (Hanna 1983). A number of anthropological works have provided insights to the role of laments in funeral cultures around the world. Loring Danforth (1982) traces the laments sung by older women in the village of Potamia, Greece, during death rituals, which express intense grief and sorrow. She describes how these laments are usually sung by women who are not deeply affected by the death, which allows those who are close kin of the deceased, and therefore directly affected, to be afforded an avenue to process their grief in a structured way, as opposed to wildly crying, wailing, and shouting. Over in the southern Peloponnese region of Greece, Nadia Seremetakis (1990) explored laments among Maniat women in mortuary ceremonies. The laments, she writes, were a way to ‘cry one’s fate’ (1990: 482), a process in which self and sentiment were constructed. During laments, women expressed their pain by beating their chests, taking their scarves off, pulling their hair out, and scratching their arms and face, separating them from the social order (491). In this way, laments constructed a performance of space (Baumann 1977) alternative to the normative social structure, which validated expression of grief without being marginalised, in the everyday experiences within the women’s social worlds. Similarly, Anne McLaren (2008) highlights the performance of grief through bridal laments in China, which were also performed as death rituals and protest suffering. Reserved mainly for women, these laments signalled women’s virtue but could also be performed by men to express grief and sorrow and to protest publicly against the emperor (McLaren 2008).

In my own Kashmiri community within Birmingham, I too have witnessed laments being sung by women in the Mirpuri or Pothwari language at funerals. Such laments are a common aspect of processing grief. Often structured in couplets, women will cite the pain of their friend who has lost her husband, referencing the way the crown over her head has been lost – a metaphor to describe the importance of her husband. Folded within the laments is the public recognition of a lost status for the grieving woman, her prime years now behind her, and the saddening arrival of a new social status in the community, such as that of a widow. The space of the lamentation transcended the lived social reality, like a social cloud whereby old identities were transacted through song, for new ones. I particularly witnessed the singing of these songs in 2017, when I lost my uncle (mother’s brother), to whom my father’s sister was married. Gathering together in the local mosque in Birmingham with women from our extended kin network, while awaiting my uncle’s body to be released from the coroner’s office in order for the janazah (Islamic funeral prayer) and burial to take place, elderly female relatives would begin singing laments while my aunt would cry intensely. Often like lullabies soothing the pained infant, laments both provided ointment to numb the grief and an avenue for its expression. They also provided comprehension for understanding the gravity of what had taken place: the loss of a loved one, as well as what was to unfold in all our social lives.

Although laments and music of resistance (Abu-Lughod 1990; Raheja and Gold 1994) are often associated with the experiences of women, a number of authors have documented resistance through musical form among men. In the case of a Palestinian hip-hop crew from the Shu’afat refugee camp in Jerusalem, for example, Greenberg (2009) documents the ways in which marginalised male youth are actively borrowing and adapting from African American hip-hop culture to their socio-political contexts. Hip-hop, then, becomes a tool through which expression of their opposition to the Israeli occupation can be made while also reclaiming their masculinity, as the occupation has led to the widespread emasculation of Palestinian men. In a similar way, Schade-Poulsen (1999) shows that, for Algerian men, the lyrics of Raï songs – a form of resistance music that is a blend of Western and Islamic music featuring male–female relationships, inter-generational differences, the problems of youthhood, and the struggle experienced by Algerian men to find a place in a conflicted society – are crucial in navigating adulthood. The musical space, then, allows for identities to be transacted and exchanged, irrespective of whether they materialise in lived reality.

Within the Indian subcontinent, Qawwali music is a popular musical form, with a group of men singing in Urdu or Punjabi, of whom one is the lead singer (Grover 2015). The lyrics are sung against the backdrop of instruments such as the sitar and tabla and are often rooted in Islamic stories and the experiences of the Prophets. A second musical form is Sufiana Kalam, songs that are typically sung solo with instrumental accompaniment in regional languages including Punjabi, Sindhi, Kashmiri, and Gujarati (Burney Abbas 2007). Both musical forms are avenues through which men become involved in emotional expression, which commonly occur in collective mehfils (gatherings) (Marsden 2005; Grewal 2014), during which men can become overwhelmed with spiritual connection. Historically, Sufiana Kalam and Qawwali have been produced and performed as forms of political and social resistance (Burney Abbas 2007), particularly against the backdrop of the growing persecution of Muslim religious identity in the Indian subcontinent, as well as intra-community sectarian divisions that consider Sufi practices as outside the remit of Islam. Thus, masculine emotion for Pakistani men embedded within musical forms may not appear as forms of resistance at first sight. For the Pakistani migrant husband, who we know experiences increased vulnerability, precarity, and even abuse, the endeavour to explore possible forms of emotional expression and/or resistance that is expressed through musical performance can provide insights to the (re)workings of masculinity in and through migration. Specifically, what can we learn about masculinity in and through migration if historical musical forms that are culturally embedded within the Indian subcontinent afford migrant husbands the space to express their emotions? My research shows that the parameters of such cultural forms of musical expression are expanded to include migrant experience, which is directly born out of the lack of inclusive spaces within the new home country, wherein migrant husbands feel safe to express their emotions and experiences.

When my maternal uncle passed away in 2017 and I witnessed the singing of laments by women during his funeral rites, I was briefly aware of the migrant husband songs of sorrow, although I had not defined them in this way. As a PhD student at the time, I continued to explore these emotional expressions in conjunction with interviews with my interlocutors, and was struck not only by the similarities between the laments of women during funeral rites but also by the differences. Both forms created enclaves of communities wherein pain and healing processes were engaged (Comaroff 1985; Taussig 1987), and consisted of categories of persons who were in conflict with the social structure, as expressive mourning was frowned upon as it indicated a lack of emotional and bodily control. At the margins of the dominant social structure, then, the laments enabled the construction of alternative spaces, wherein categories of persons could perform resistance and agency but, more significantly, initiate, engage, and enact the process of the reworking of the self. For women in funeral rites, laments assisted the transcending of the grief process to reach a new self, born in and through the funeral rites. In the case of migrant husbands who engaged in what I term ‘songs of sorrow’, it was resistance to the dominant social structure wherein migration processes had inverted their social positions as powerful men in control of their lives and the lives of those around them – typical of patriarchal societies. Instead, their identities were reconstructed and transacted through the constant encountering, and eventual acceptance, of their weak and vulnerable positions.

I found that, through the songs of sorrow, migrant husbands opened up a part of their inner worlds to me, revealing a range of emotions experienced both personally and collectively as part of their daily migrant experiences. These songs were shared in video form, which were entirely edited by the migrant husband(s), performed by men who were migrant husbands and/or sympathisers of migrant husbands. It is not possible to say where in the United Kingdom these were recorded and edited. They were listened to widely by my interlocutors in Birmingham, however, and there are indications, through comment posts on YouTube and what my interlocutors shared with me, that they had reached Pakistan and parts of the Middle East. Male migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in the Middle East from south Asia, who are subjected to difficult working conditions, also engage in performing similar songs of sorrow, which are available on YouTube. Many of my interlocutors frequently listened to the male MDW songs of sorrow in the Middle East, as they were able to draw out the similarities between their experiences (see also Archer 2003: 49). This chapter is guided by the question: to what extent and in what ways do these songs enable migrant husbands to negotiate and reassert their masculinity, which has become unsettled through their migratory experiences? The chapter illuminates our understanding of emotion in expressions and (re-)formations of masculinity through music and resistance in new ways, enriching the field of ethnic language and music, specifically the anthropology of lamentations. More broadly, the chapter also provides insights into the ways in which aspirations of migrant husbands can be revised and retransacted in and through migration.

Performing sorrow

Writings of migration by migrants expressing their emotions about journeys, arrivals, and departures have been beautifully captured by prose and poetry for centuries (Skrbis 2008: 241). The experiences of Black and Afro-Caribbean migrants on slave ships, for example, gave rise to blues and jazz music (Gilroy 1991). When such genres of music are considered, they are usually associated with a community’s collective expression of resistance as opposed to gendered expressions, which is also in line with conventional understandings, both in academic fields and within public perceptions, that men do not express emotion – or, at least, find it more difficult to express emotion (Wong and Rochlen 2005; Montes 2013). In contrast, migrant husbands expressed their emotions during interviews by telling me how they felt inferior and taken advantage of by their wives and/or in-laws. It was only when I was introduced to their songs of sorrow that I began to better understand the significant presence of emotions for migrant husbands’ social worlds. In other words, songs of sorrow became a medium through which some migrant husbands were able to express themselves without having to lose their masculinity or male status, as the style and format of the songs – albeit not exclusively on the topic of migrant husbands – had been sung for generations by both migrant and non-migrant men in Pakistan and Kashmir.

The lyrics of the songs were profoundly telling of the role of feelings in migrant husbands’ experiences, and thereby the emotive power that songs held, especially with regard to operating as an opening for migrant husbands to channel their feelings. It is important to note that songs of sorrow are not sung by the migrant husbands themselves but by singers sympathetic to the cause of migrant husbands. A particular song, which is available on YouTube, is titled Mungaitra da Haal (The State or Condition of Migrant Husbands). Although no subtitles are available, the lyrics are complemented with frozen, slide-show-like images. Perhaps counterintuitively, the song was uploaded to YouTube under the comedy category and titled ‘Funny Song’, which suggests that some within the Pakistani and Kashmiri community deal with the complex situation of the migrant husband through humour. One of the links for the video has over 42,000 views, while another link has over 74,000 views on YouTube. The song¹ is punctuated with a melodious narrative followed by the main couplet.

I have translated this song of sorrow as follows.

This particular song is performed by a popular Pakistani singer called Chaudhry Munir, and recounts the temporal and spatial changes the migrant husband experiences, before, during, and after marriage and migration to the United Kingdom, including the full range of its social implications. This is crucial for the later stages of this chapter, as it forms the crux of my argument – namely that migrant husbands revise aspirations in and though migration, which speaks to Carling and Schewel’s (2018) argument that aspirations and desires underpin migration journeys. It is these temporal and spatial shifts that cause migrant husbands’ emotional landscapes to also shift, causing them to re-evaluate the resources available to them, for the transacting of their image and reputation as migrant husbands. For instance, the lyrics indicate feelings of hope during the visa application process, which prompt the families of migrant husbands to sacrifice animals at the holy shrines of Sufi saints. The excitement experienced when the visa was granted is described through laughter, joy, and the sharing of the news with uncles and aunts. The excitement quickly shifts to family conflict between wives and in-laws upon arrival in the United Kingdom, however, which is further characterised by long hard days at work and completing domestic chores at home, such as childcare and dishwashing while the wife enjoys visits to the gym. In this section of the song, the lyrics point towards negative emotions due to the shift in household and gender dynamics, mainly associated with men having to complete tasks that are traditionally seen, within the Pakistani community, as falling within women’s remit (see also McDowell 2003; Hopkins 2006: 340). Low-paid work and demands from the father-in-law are also cited as sources of hardship. Although the song traces the typical unfolding of events experienced by many migrant husbands upon marriage and migration, the stark difference between the before and after of the ordeal is performed as the source of emotional turmoil.

Heavily laden with sadness and hopelessness, a second song, titled Mangetar [Migrants], includes the following couplets:

The chorus (highlighted in bold) employs the term daadiya, which can be translated as ‘harshness’, or ‘strictness’, referring to what is inflicted on the migrant husbands by their wives and in-laws. Furthermore, this portion of the verse is followed by ‘they have become weak’, which is indicative of their perceived emasculation. The second verse in the chorus refers to the migrant husband losing his mind, which points to both the surprise to the ‘outsider’ (most likely men whose hegemonic masculinity has not been disrupted surrounding the migrant husbands’ lack of resistance), as well as the way in which the process of migration has led to the inverse of gender power dynamics, which warrants the losing of his mind. The ‘mind’ is also loaded with the notion of hegemonic forms of masculinity common to the Pakistani community – its loss signifying the emasculation of migrant husbands.

One of my informants, Saleem, explained how the songs created a space for him to grieve without having to appear weak to his family:

Saleem’s narrative shows that songs of sorrow created a space for him in which his emotions and experiences were acknowledged and enabled him to address these emotions. Moreover, the songs of sorrow for Saleem and other migrant husbands proved to be a medium through which emotion could be expressed, particularly as there was an absence of spaces available via community or state structures. The songs held a dialectical effect for migrant husbands: although, on the one hand, they allowed for an acknowledgement of the migrant husband’ plight, they also provided a safe space for migrant husbands to channel their bottled emotions. In this way, migrant husbands can be seen to carve out spaces of resistance to engage in transacting components of their new migrant identities, which often included heightened emotionality as a result of increased vulnerability and precarity.

The songs also include lyrics, visual signals, or references that can appear to be unkind to women. The reference to carrying out kitchen duties in one of the couplets of the song is followed by a reference to a leash being placed around the migrant husband’s neck, which suggests that lamentation around emasculation is concerned with the equalisation or imbalance of gender power dynamics in the United Kingdom, where men are expected to perform household duties. Indeed, Katie Walsh (2011) observes that, among White British expatriates in Dubai, wives told her that their husbands were less likely to perform household duties upon migrating to Dubai, despite them previously being comfortable to do so in the United Kingdom. Walsh infers that the culture in Dubai informs the household division of labour, to which husbands were conforming despite their British upbringings. In this way, the lamentations of the migrant husbands indicate upset towards increased household duties, which they were not familiar with while growing up in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. Although this could form aspects of their upset and cultural shock, the entirety of their experiences are not channelled through such songs. For example, in the videography of this song, which complements the lyrics, we see the migrant husband being physically abused by the father-in-law when he brings him some water, which he accidently spills. In this scene, we see the wife and mother-in-law sat beside the father-in-law eating dinner. The issue, it seems, is not the equalisation of gender power dynamics but the servitude and expectations around household duties, to which the migrant husband’s lamentations are directed. The migrant husband is then seen to be crying in the following scenes as he washes the dishes.

Figure 3.1 and 3.2 Still images used in the videography of the Song of Sorrow depicting an emotional migrant after he was physically abused by his father-in-law.

Solidarity with fellow migrants

During interviews, migrant husbands shared that listening to songs of sorrow helped them feel better, as they became aware that their experiences were not unique but, rather, experienced by a collective of migrant husbands who also had similar experiences. Shoaib told me:

Shoaib made mention of the silence around migrant husband experiences due to stigma, shame, and the clash of ideas between sending and receiving states. He told me the songs would be shared through WhatsApp with fellow migrant husbands, some of whom had a group with which they shared information about new job opportunities in the community, and any new updates about citizenship and immigration rules. He also told me he would attend monthly mehfils (gatherings) at a friend’s house, which involved the sharing of food, collectively listening to ‘songs of pain and sorrow’, and reciting poetry in Urdu, Punjabi, and Pothwari, which embodied the personal and emotional challenges they confronted in their daily lives.

Omar’s narrative provides a deeper insight into the significance of the mehfils:

Participants’ narratives around songs carried overtones of their expectations before and after marriage and migration. Shoaib told me:

The expectations of what life in the United Kingdom would be compared to the lived realities migrant husbands experienced upon migration were channelled through the performance of songs of sorrow. The songs act as a tool for communicating personal and collective hardship, and represent the destabilising and unsettling tone of the migrant husband experience. At times some migrant husbands even turned to the songs as a form of supernatural medium, with powers to interpret or forecast their most intimate turmoil. The songs form a type of protective armour for participants, who often relied on and felt comforted by the distance between the songs and their personal positionality, which protected their masculine identity – or, at least, their visions of masculine identity. There were also subtle tones of the temporal aspect of the hardship, as the migrant husbands aspired to overcome their difficulties and become the men they were ‘supposed to be’.

The visual aspects of songs of sorrow also constructed solidarity among migrant husbands, as they were able to see men visibly upset and in vulnerable situations similar to their own. For instance, in the song titled Mangetar, the YouTube video begins with the migrant husband elated to have received his visa; as the song proceeds, however, we see a repeated image of a migrant husband in tears. The lyrics, together with the images, tell a powerful and evocative narrative of the migrant husband’s circumstance, creating a sense of solidarity between migrant husbands, who can relate to one another.

Figure 3.3 A still image used in the videography of the Song of Sorrow depicting an emotional migrant husband as he makes a call to kin in Pakistan.

The videography tells the story of the migrant husband in a powerful visual format, particularly underlining the multiple and chain-like transactions that underpin the migrant husband experience. In the opening scenes the migrant husband is shown to arrive at Birmingham Airport. He is then shown arriving at the home, where his father-in-law greets him first, placing a flower garland around his neck and congratulating and welcoming him on his arrival in the United Kingdom. The scenes that follow show the migrant husband working in multiple jobs. First he is shown to be chopping meat in a butcher’s shop, where he wipes the sweat on his forehead. He is then shown to be working a second job as a tailor, sewing traditional Pakistani clothing (salwar kameez). The migrant husband is then shown to be working a third job at a Pakistani supermarket, where he diligently stocks onion bags on to the outdoor vegetable display. When customers present him with a receipt to prove payment for a bag of onions, he is seen to transport the bag of onions to the customer’s car.

The migrant husband is then shown arriving and handing over his wages to his wife, who keeps the cash and returns the change, with which the migrant husband purchases a few cigarettes from the local shop. This scene is especially evocative of emasculation, as it implies that the migrant husband is given a meagre allowance from his wife rather than sharing the earnings as co-equals in a marriage.

Figure 3.4 and 3.5 Still images used in the videography of the Song of Sorrow depicting the migrant husband handing over his salary to his wife, and the wife returning the pennies.

The video continues, showing the migrant husband smoking a cigarette, after which he returns home to prepare dinner. In these scenes, the migrant husband kneads the dough, makes chapattis, and cooks curry, all while the wife is applying lipstick. It seems that at least one part of the upset for migrant husbands is their engagement in household chores, which are usually seen to fall within the woman’s remit. Some aspects of his emotional distress are premised on the rupture of the traditional division of labour determined by patriarchal norms. The inverse gender dynamics in his new home leads the migrant husband to perceive himself as being emasculated. Given that the following scenes show the migrant husband serving dinner to his wife and in-laws and subsequently being physically abused by the father-in-law after accidently spilling a glass of water, however, it is more likely that the experience of violence is the major cause of grief for the migrant husband.

The final scenes of the music video show the migrant husband tiptoeing down the stairs carrying luggage. He is seen wearing the traditional Pakistani attire of salwar kameez, whereas in previous scenes he wore a shirt and trousers. This scene reflects a rejection of English life, which interweaves the legacy of colonialism and, specifically, colonial masculinities (Kalra 2009: 113), as the English man wearing a trouser suit is a symbol of power on the Indian subcontinent. The migrant husband is then shown to be running towards the entrance of the departures gate at Birmingham Airport, from which the viewer gathers that the migrant husband is returning to his homeland of Pakistan – an escape from his perceived tormenters and his disillusionment with life in Britain.

The depiction of the role of the father-in-law in this music video is an important one to highlight, as much of the transacting of the migrant husbands is carried out, or negotiated, by him. The father-in-law is the first to greet the migrant husband at the airport and celebrates his arrival by placing a colourful garland around his neck. Scenes of the father-in-law relaxing and enjoying life by eating sweets and smoking hooka punctuate the scenes in which the migrant husband is shown to be labouring away at several part-time jobs, with little training or proper labour protections. It is also the father-in-law who the migrant husband pours water for at the dinner table, and, finally, it is the father-in-law who raises his hand to slap the migrant husband. The father-in-law is shown wearing a formal blazer, shirt, and tie, which is representative of higher class and accomplishment compared to that of the migrant husband, and can also be seen as imitating the colonial legacy set out by the British in their rule of India (see Dumont 1980). The stark juxtaposition between the migrant husband and his father-in-law – in activities, employment, level of authority, attire, and emotionality through visible portrayals such as crying – is indicative of the generational and age differences in masculine experiences in the British Pakistani community. Further, it supports the concept of the ‘transnational patriarch’ being achieved by the father-in-law, who retires to his leisurely activities while still asserting control over his kin and assets. The negotiation or transacting of citizenship through the father-in-law by means of giving his daughter to the migrant husband carries overtones of the way the once colonial powers used to subject people in the Indian subcontinent.

Makings of a community

A third song available on YouTube is titled Pothwari Sher Mangaytaran na Hal Pardesiya (Pothwari Song about the State of Migrant Husbands Abroad). This song is ten minutes and 20 seconds in duration and, unlike the previous two songs, a static image of a rose appears throughout the song.² Also, unlike the first two songs I examined, this song makes specific reference to the genre of the song as Pothwari Sher. Although Qawwali music has received attention within academic discourse, Pothwari Sher have not. Since similar musical instruments such as the sitar and a main singer are present, Pothwari Sher can be viewed as derivatives of Qawwali music. There are key differences, however. For example, these songs usually involve three people: the singer, the sitar player, and the drummer, who uses a clay water pot to produce drum beats similar to the tabla. Qawwali, on the other hand, is produced by a large team of musicians – often more than ten men – who have received classical musical training. Moreover, although Qawwali originates from central Pakistan and has a reach both across the Indian subcontinent and around the globe, Pothwari Sher originate in the northern areas of Azad Kashmir, where Pothwari (a dialect of Mirpuri, and also known as Pahari] is spoken (see also Lothers and Lothers 2010, 2012; Hussain 2015; Rosowsky 2015, 2016, 2017). As many of the Pakistani and Kashmiri communities in cities such as Birmingham and Bradford migrated from this region, Pothwari Sher are popular particularly among the elder generations. I grew up with Pothwari Sher, as my father often listened to them on cassettes, and later, as technology evolved, via YouTube. The songs he listened to were of the stories of the Prophet Muhammad or the Prophets. It is only now, as I write this book, that I remember a diverse range of Pothwari Sher beyond those the migrant husbands shared with me. Perhaps the boundaries of academia and fieldwork compress us as academics to focus solely on what lies within, when that which lies beyond may be just as important in understanding dynamics in the field.

I have translated the third song as follows:

There are a number of significant aspects of this song that open a window to the experiences of migrant husbands, especially how they forge together to build a community. First, the inclusion of various positions and voices in the narrative not only add a theatrical aspect to the song but demonstrate a coming together of men to speak on the issues that shape their new, post-migration lives. From the outset of the song we are introduced to the narrative of the lead singer, who declares that the song is a compilation of his verses along with the verses of two friends: Jhangir Afzal and Qasism Wahid. Throughout the song the narrator (lead singer) – whom we have no name for – regularly punctuates the song with narration against slow mellow music. In his narration, he is supportive of the plight of migrant husbands and reverts to communal prayer. He calls on God to bless the wives of the migrant husbands with ‘good manners’. Although no prayer or passage from the Qur’an is quoted in this prayer, which is a short sentence, it suggests a moral and religious high ground that the singer asserts over the British Pakistani wives of migrant husbands. The lyrics demonstrate a possible (re)structuring of gender power dynamics, drawing on misogynistic tropes, and indicate community-making practices that draw on dominant forms of masculinity common to the Pakistani community.

The second voice we hear is that of Jhangir, the main protagonist. We are first introduced to Jhangir in the fourth stanza, when his friends respond to his troubles as not knowing what to do. This indicates that Jhangir, who also co-authored some of the verses of the song, may have been a migrant husband and turned to his friends for advice. The second time we meet Jhangir is in the 11th stanza, through the narrative of the wife, which is sung by the male singer. Here the male singer includes the wife’s narrative, and she is requoted as complaining that her husband Jhangir is concerned only about his migration to England. Jhangir is therefore shown to recite ‘England, England’, like a prayer he has memorised.

We learn a great deal about Jhangir’s position throughout the song. For instance, we learn of his expectations before marriage and migration, namely that he would be treated well because he married in the family and kept the honour of his parents and wider family members. He expected this to work as a ‘good deed’, but he finds that he has actually brought harm to himself. The immigration laws are referred to as being passed by the queen herself, and so the migrant husband is juxtaposed against not only his wife but also the head of state, who is also a woman. This has a profound impact, as the migrant husband says ‘This law will cause me my death’ but also refers to the wife ‘owning’ him when he arrives in England, whereas in Pakistan she was a silent, shy bride, ‘appearing to be innocent’. This dichotomy between women of the East and women of the West seems deeply embedded in migrant husband views within this song. It is further supported by the multiple references of the migrant husband having ‘fair skin’ and describing his wife to also be ‘fair-skinned’, which is yet another feature of the colonial legacy among the British Pakistani and Kashmiri communities rooted in British colonial rule of India, during which the British established hierarchy among different groups (see Dumont 1980). Most of these hierarchies interweaved physical attributes such as fair skin, which was common among higher castes/classes, as their exposure to the sun was minimal due farming roles being predominantly assigned to, and performed by, the lower castes or classes (Dumont 1980). Through migration and the settlement of diaspora communities, such ideas, deeply entrenched in the colonial legacy, have travelled (see also Clifford 2001; Kalra 2009) as part of the cultural migration, continuing to thrive among the third and fourth generations of the British Pakistani diaspora. The reference to being slapped by his wife does not include any mention of being protected by the law, which corroborates the views expressed by many migrant husbands during my interviews: that women are protected by laws against domestic violence while men have no safety net. This is further highlighted in stanza ten, in which the wife calls the police over trivial matters such as not taking a liking to the migrant husband’s ability to converse. The chorus also provides an insight into the migrant husband’s situation, as he repeatedly refers to the marriage and migrant experience as a ‘horror’, and calls on God to alleviate his situation. The makings of community in this song oscillate between the past and present, changing social landscape across the transnational plane, particularly changing gender dynamics, and the proximity and distance to the state and law, all of which are threaded together by colonial legacies.

The third voice we are introduced to in the song is that of the wife, who is quoted in the song by the male singers, and who we first meet in the ninth stanza, in which she is presented as an unsatisfied wife who had ‘lost her sparkle’. The sentence structure implies the wife blames the husband for losing her sparkle and not being able to travel. We then meet the wife once again in the 11th, 12th, and 13th stanzas, which describe the wife having called the police, who respond by enquiring as to the cause of the marital breakdown. She tells the police he cries ‘England, England’, as though he is an obsessed man, which provides the impression to the police that the migrant husband is interested only in acquiring citizenship. She is then quoted as identifying the problem behind her marital breakdown as refusing to wear the burka as per her husband’s wishes. The migrant husband at this point of the song is a bystander and is stripped of his voice, indicating that the arrival of the police leaves him with no rights, and in no position to fight an already lost battle. The wife is therefore presented as employing tropes and ideas around the ‘oppressed Muslim woman’, who is forced to wear the burka by the husband (see also Hopkins 2006: 343). In highlighting the wife’s ability to use tropes to her advantage, we come to learn in the following stanza that the migrant husband (Jhangir) did not ask her to wear the burka. She is then presented as complaining that her husband does not know how to cook or drive, or speak English, which is a cause of great distress to her. The song ends with the presentation of the wife’s position, which is symbolic of her voice being the only one that matters to the law and the police. In this way, the migrant husband’s ‘horror’ and distress are muted as a result of the wife’s ability to use oriental (Said 1978) tropes of the oppression of Muslim women by Muslim men to her advantage. Community making, then, is carved in and through the tension between wives, who are supported by the state, and migrant husbands, who are ostracised and vilified by the state, not only through immigration policies but also through portrayals of the Muslim man in newspapers, which speak to the discourse on Islamophobia.

The second important aspect to highlight is the way in which God is called upon throughout the song, which points to the employment of religious symbols and practices as a common and reoccurring theme. One of the verses calls on God to bless women with good manners, which speaks to the wealth of studies that have documented the extent to which men can employ religion to control women, especially within Pakistani Muslim communities (Hopkins 2006: 338). As Thapar-Bjokert and Sanghera (2010: 261) note, however, Pakistani Muslim women are not always victims of oppression (see also Hopkins 2006: 343), which are often viewed within a Eurocentric interpretation of freedom (see Thapar-Bjokert and Sanghera 2010: 254). It is also crucial to remember that songs of sorrow can offer a safe space within which men express their feelings. Such expressions are documented by Raheja and Gold (1994) in songs sung by Indian women, wherein discussions about skinning their husbands alive as a punishment for cheating also featured. Songs of sorrow, as found in my fieldwork, should be interpreted in the same way: as a space in which men can express their feelings and exercise resistive agency (see Holland et al. 1998). We can argue, however, that expressing feelings is a reflection of an individual’s inner psychological state, desires, and anxieties, and thereby an extension of the individual. Thus, for the migrant husbands to be pleading with God to give women good manners is suggestive of the realignment of control and subordination they may wish to have over women, and, broadly, their desire to restructure the gender power dynamics in their favour (see also McDowell 2003; Dwyer, Shah, and Sanghera 2008). Cultural forms of masculinity encased within religious calls seem to bring together men as a community.

The third aspect to highlight is the way in which the song demonstrates the communal dimension of marital life. We hear the migrant husband asking his friends for advice, the involvement of parental honour and shame, the transnational dynamic of the marriage as being subjected to the norms of Pakistan and the United Kingdom, and the involvement of British law, the British state’s queen as symbol of sovereignty, the role of the police, and female power. This aspect is indicative of the sheer range of stakeholders involved in the marriage and husband’s migration experience, which provides an in-depth nuance to the feeling of entrapment migrant husbands have shared with me during fieldwork. In this way, we learn about the different spaces in which migrant husbands can feel subjected and/or feel inferior, and how these intersect and affect the masculinity of migrant husbands. The mehfil (gathering) for one is a safe space, whereas the space of the home is a hostile space in which the wife is abusive, and the state can intervene if the emergency services are called.

Through this song we also learn of multiple aspects forming a powerful narrative that outlines different characters in a migrant husband’s life. In this way, the migrant husband’s lived reality is recreated in this song, as per the migrant husband’s truth (see also Seremetakis 1990). In doing so, migrant husbands form a community of support, as the oppressive roles that in-laws and wives can play in the private sphere are brought out into the public sphere. In other words, the behaviours of wives and in-laws, which are often concealed in the domestic sphere, are revealed through song and made public knowledge. The impact of this is twofold: first, migrant husbands come together as a collective, publicly reclaiming their presence; and, second, they are juxtaposed against the ‘oppressors’, perceived variously as the in-laws, wives, and the state. The state is referred to as the ‘White’s law’, and later the ‘queen’s law’, which is difficult to meet the requirements for in order to obtain citizenship. Once more, this positioning of the migrant husband in contrast to the ‘Whites’ or the ‘queen’ carries overtones of us and them, ‘other’ (Said 1990), and a feeling of not fitting in and/or being accepted. This is further telling of the way in which migrant husbands view themselves as a community marked by ‘othering’ through identity markers, such as ethnicity and citizenship status. Songs of sorrow, then, become tools of resistance and agency employed by migrant husbands to counter the transacting they have been subjected to, retransacting their identities, narratives, and – ultimately – masculinities.

Reassertive space(s)

Collectively, songs of sorrow, combined with the narratives of migrant husbands I interviewed during my fieldwork, underline the importance of song and music for migrant husbands, especially against the backdrop of a lack of support from relevant British institutions after marriage migration. Songs of sorrow are not only employed as a tool to carve out a social space for migrant husbands to discuss their difficulties and support one another; they are also used to maintain ideas of hegemonic masculinity that exist as part of the patriarchal cultural notions in the Pakistani community. I question, however, the extent to which, and how, these songs enable migrant husbands to negotiate and reassert their masculinity. I have previously suggested that songs of sorrow provide acknowledgement of the plight of migrant husbands, which in turn allows for the expression of their sadness, depression, anxieties, and grief. It is this process of acknowledgement and comfort, as well as the provision of a space in which these emotions can be expressed, experienced, and shared, that facilitates the negotiation and/or reassertion of masculinity.

The singers, who also exercise the role of the narrator of the plight of migrant husbands, are crucial mediators in providing acknowledgement and comfort to migrant husbands. These performers affirm that this is a reality for migrant husbands, and that, if there was any suspicion relating to the plight of the migrant husband, as in the first song, he would be happy to accommodate the hands of those who suspect the genuineness of the story around his neck. Although this is a figure of speech, it is important to note that the singer opens himself to violence to be able to tell the story of the migrant husband. Furthermore, it is also important to note that the narrator specifically evokes an image of being strangled, which is where, physically, the voice box and vocal chords are situated. Thus, the narrator is also saying that one would have to physically destroy the source of his voice to prevent him from speaking out about the truth of migrant husbands. Such a commitment to speaking the truth of migrant husbands, particularly in public, allows migrant husbands to feel supported and experience solidarity.

Importantly, the acknowledgement of the plight of migrant husbands simultaneously pertains to the abuse they experience and to a rigid set of masculine ideals, which can view women as home makers situated in the private sphere. A large part of the acknowledgement and comfort that songs of sorrow provide for migrant husbands, therefore, is directed towards the shift in gender power dynamics, and the emotional instability that arises as a result. In the first Song of Sorrow I translated earlier in this chapter, the opening stanza describes a migrant husband going to work early in the morning and returning from work to find that the wife has cooked lentils for dinner. This is an eye-opening stanza, as it illustrates the dissatisfaction of the migrant husband at lentils for dinner, which is seen as a basic food type in the Pakistani and Kashmiri community, especially by British diaspora standards. We learn about the (unmet) expectations of migrant husbands, which includes having a basic dinner cooked for them by their wives when they return from a long day at work, as opposed to a luxurious dinner probably consisting of a chicken or meat dish. Due to references to the expectation of the wife cooking dinner and being in the kitchen, this stanza reinforces patriarchal views of men’s and women’s roles, and, as a result, it informs us of the nature of the grounds of emotional instability for migrant husbands. In some ways, the role of patriarchal views and ideas may underline migrant husbands’ trauma.

The patriarchal and traditional views of the role of men and women are carried forward in the second stanza, in which the migrant husband describes sitting and crying alone, washing the dishes, and then crashing into bed. The lyrics are complemented with images, which help illustrate the migrant husband’s plight. One could also argue that this stanza is reflective of migrant husbands being overworked, as they return home after a long day’s work to wash the dishes. Egalitarian couples of the twenty-first century will work and share household duties (Walsh 2011), however, which relegates this stanza to lean more towards carrying patriarchal overtones. The third stanza describes the nature of young Pakistani women who work and attend the gym to get into shape/stay fit, as a result of which childcare responsibilities fall to the husband for this time period. Once more, it appears that the source of the migrant husband’s distress is the progression of women’s independence and autonomy, and the husband having to care for his children inside the home, while the wife performs outside the house (see also McDowell 2003; Hopkins 2006: 340). The fourth stanza also follows on such overtones, as migrant husbands are referred to as having to make breakfast for their wives.

The melodious chorus is then followed by a storytelling narration with a soft beat, which details the nature of the low-paid jobs, and the migrant husband being prevented from entering the home after work by the wife if he is late. The wife’s ‘voice’ is included in this section – ‘Beloved son of your mother, stay outside today’ – which places the wife in direct contrast to the migrant husband’s mother, as well as carrying overtones of the conflict between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law common in Pakistani communities. There is also a reminiscent aspect to this line in the song, when migrant husbands have left the comfort and care of their mother, to experience ‘harsh treatment’ by their wives. The music peaks again, and the final stanza reifies migrant husbands not being allowed home due to coming back late from work.

In the second song, titled Mangetar (Migrants), the sixth stanza refers to migrant husbands called to England and being made to carry burdens, as a result of which they forget about their homeland. In these verses, there is a subtle attempt to give the impression that the migrant husband migrated as a result of the wife’s wishes. For example, stanza seven begins with ‘First wives call them to England, then for the rest of their lives they make them carry burdens’. It is important to note that, in transnational marriages involving migrant husbands, there is in fact involvement of the family of both the wife and the migrant husband, as well as the migrant husband’s own desire to migrate. The construction of this verse in stanza seven to suggest that the migrant husband is imported by the wife is telling with regard to the direct relationship of trust and dependence in the marriage, as a result of which the migrant husband embarks on the migratory journey to the United Kingdom. Furthermore, this verse is also indicative of the intimate relations and conversations between a migrant husband and his wife. A husband speaking in this way demonstrates that the wife provided assurances to the husband before marriage and during the visa application process, easing his anxieties about migration to and settlement in the United Kingdom after marriage. This also resonates with the many migrant husband interlocutors who told me about the conversations they had had with their wives-to-be before marriage.

In the eighth stanza of the second song, wives are also described as putting a ‘leash around the migrant husband’s neck’. Here, the migrant husband is likened by the singer (narrator) to a dog under the control of its owner, thereby illustrating the migrant husband’s social and emotional position. In this way, this is closely reflective of the migrant husband’s view and self-description of being treated like a dog – a vulgar description. In interviews, migrant husbands often described their experiences in such a way. Another common trope and term that was employed during interviews was that of the ‘slave’. In a similar way to the first song, both the second and third songs carry overtones of traditional patriarchal views about gender roles, with the third song also prominently making such references to wives. For example, in stanza seven the wife is referred to as the ‘simple-minded’ ‘innocent-looking woman’ who was in fact a ‘madam who took all my wages’ and who ‘owns me’. Stanza eight is a prayer to calling on ‘God and his messenger Muhammad to bless women with good manners’. In stanzas ten and 11, the wife is referred to as strategically playing on stereotypes of the oppressed wife in order to have the migrant husband arrested by the police.

A close textual analysis of these songs of sorrow thus provides deeper insights into and understanding of migrant husbands’ sources of distress, from which we can begin to analyse the roots of the reassertion of masculinity. Whereas, on an individual level, the migrant husband may have experienced distress as a result of changing gender dynamics and, at times, different forms of abuse, securing collective and public acknowledgement of the migrant husbands’ feelings helps establish their plight as a social truth: the truth that their situation does indeed warrant distress, but also, and perhaps most importantly, the truth that the shifting and changing gender dynamics that emerge from marriage and migration are perhaps not warranted.³ The establishment of the plight of migrant husbands as a social truth sets the course for the ways in which they can reassert their masculinity, thereby preventing the transacting of their identities as migrant husbands by various social actors.

Moreover, these videos were probably edited by migrant husband(s), and the music was performed by men who were migrant husbands or their sympathisers. The social position from which these music videos emerge is important to acknowledge. Turner (1992: 10) argues that the Kayapo people of Brazil viewed video documentation as a means of establishing social facts, and Banks (2001) stresses that the power of photography is to legitimise social facts. The role of being a camera operator or video editor also has a social power associated with it (Turner 1992; Banks 2001), and can be employed to establish ‘social truths’. This is particularly salient in the context of the songs of sorrow, as women do not appear to be involved in the lyrical composition of songs or in the video-editing process, and thus their voices are eliminated from this (re)telling of the experiences of migrant husbands. I acknowledge that, although the social truths of the migrant husbands’ plight through songs of sorrow provide a unique way in which to reassert masculinity from a disadvantaged position, we cannot ignore the fact that women are referred to in these songs within a patriarchal social framework. It is important to be aware of this juxtaposition of a multitude of socio-cultural matrixes at play: gender power dynamics, gendered religious expectations and ideals, migration aspirations, masculine ideals, and marriage expectations and realities.

An important recurring theme through the songs of sorrow is religious symbols, which are the focus of the next chapter. Indeed, religious symbols are particularly embedded within the stories and narratives (Riis and Woodhead 2010: 91) of migrant husbands in songs of sorrow. Although perhaps not immediately apparent on first sight and/or when listening to the songs, a ‘multivocality’ (Banks 2001) is present, which – when read at its deeper levels – demonstrates that the images employed in the videography serve as determined compact symbols (Ortner 1973) that not only communicate emotional dispositions approved by a religious regime – namely conservative Islam – but also become entwined in autobiographies and anchor personal emotional mood, and memories (Hoskins 1998). Obeyeskere’s studies (1981: 46) reveal how symbols are appropriated and creatively reinterpreted by individuals, who use them not only to make sense of their own situations but to negotiate complex social relations, and very often to attain some leverage within them, thereby effecting the changes in personal standing and circumstance that would otherwise be impossible (Riis and Woodhead 2010: 68). Similarly, ‘multivocal’ (Banks 2001) symbols used in the songs of sorrow are creatively employed by migrant husbands to negotiate the complexity of the migrant husband experience, and to attain leverage in the British Pakistani community context. Examples of such multivocal symbols include physical markers of religiosity (such as turbans), which transform into a socio-religious capital that migrant husbands employ in establishing authority. These multivocal symbols are considered in more detail in the following chapter.

Reworking of gender power in marriage

In analysing songs of sorrow, the chapter thus far has highlighted how a large part of the acknowledgement and comfort that songs provide for migrant husbands speaks to the shift in gender power dynamics, and the emotional turmoil that arises as a result. Indeed, we must ask broader questions as to what this means for gendered power in marriages. What implications are there for the way in which we view household dynamics? Should we be viewing marital relations and household dynamics solely through hegemonic masculinity forms?

There are a number of studies that provide some insight into the impact of changing gender power relations and household structures. For instance, within the Indian household, Wadley (1994: 63) reports that young daughters-in-law are expected to touch the feet of senior women as a way of paying their respects and seeking their permission and counsel in everything they do. The mother-in-law’s role can even extend to assigning sleeping places on a nightly basis, giving her immense control over the sexuality of her sons and their wives (Wadley 1994: 60; Mirza 2017). Although there is some research in India that explores women’s roles in the household with greater nuance, there is little if any research conducted with south Asian communities in the UK diaspora (Rew, Gangoli, and Gill 2013; Mirza 2017: 394). There are indications in the literature that suggest that south Asian women are not always subjected to abuse by male perpetrators but can also be powerful matriarchs during the later stages of their life cycles (Shaw 2006; Thapar-Bjokert and Sanghera 2010: 252; Kumar 2012; Rew, Gangoli, and Gill 2013; Mirza 2017). Age, therefore, can widen the space within which women can transact greater power.

Raheja and Gold (1994) find that women have been performing hidden acts of resistance and subversion through the singing of songs within the patriarchal structure, and there is a wide body of literature that acknowledges this more broadly (Abu-Lughod 1990; Mahmood 2001; Jaschok 2003; Bano 2012; Obermeyer 1995; Alexander 2013). One of the ways through which women may be able to exercise greater agency is migration (Espiritu 1997: 75; Luu 1989: 68), which has been echoed through studies undertaken with British Pakistanis (Shaw 2006: 336; Charsley 2013; Qureshi 2013: 13). Transmigration has broadened the spaces in which women can assert themselves and transact greater power and autonomy, particularly within marriage (see also Qureshi, Charsley, and Shaw 2014; Mooney 2006). Since the middle of the twentieth century developments in family planning and technological innovations in the home are widely acknowledged to have contributed to the shift in gender roles enabling women access to spaces in which they can assert themselves (Greenwood, Seshadri, and Yorukoglu 2003; Propenoe 1993). Within the broader literature, there is some indication that transnational marriages among South-Asians can cause continual renegotiations of patriarchal relations for both men and women during the immigration and settlement process (Espiritu 1997: 8). As a result, the sense of independence and well-being of both women and men can be subjected to considerable pressure from shifting gender roles, translating into a higher incidence of abuse (Espiritu 1997: 75; Luu 1989: 68).

Since the family has a significant role in shaping and even orchestrating the experiences of the migrant husbands, it is important to consider the implications of the case of migrant husbands for gender dynamics, household structure, and marriage as an institution. In other words, if migrant husbands’ weakness is defined in relation to the power exercised by wives and in-laws, we must interrogate the implications entailed for the British Pakistani family, and for wives, who are usually portrayed as victims. The control of men has been found to generate the highest form of honour (see Fischer 1991), which not only disrupts our traditional understandings of honour, as associated with the control of women’s bodies, but also contributes to theories of masculinity that have framed masculinities as multiple and complex (see Connell 2005; Donaldson and Howson 2009). We certainly see aspects of this in the second song, in which the father-in-law is seen to raise his hand against the migrant husband, after which the migrant husband escapes to return to his homeland. I now advance this further in order to be able to understand how migrant husband masculinity is shaped and determined in this context, by focusing on the changing nature of gender dynamics, patriarchy, and household structure. This allows for insights into the micro-level processes involved in the construction and transacting of the masculinity of migrant husbands.

Multiple patriarchies

The sociologist Sylvia Walby defines patriarchy as ‘a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress, and exploit women’ (Giddens 2006: 403–404; Gordon 1996), but also involves men and older women who oppress women and younger men (Joseph 1996). Within this traditional understanding of patriarchy, the masculine and feminine are defined in opposition to one another by assigning provider roles in public spaces to men, while constraining women to nurturing roles confined to private spaces (Brittan 1989; Hoang and Yeoh 2011). Patriarchy, as per this definition, has been observed in most societies (Joseph 1996; Meagher 2011; Hennessey 1993), including Muslim societies common to the Middle East and south Asian countries such as Pakistan, where it is assumed that Islamic doctrine and culture are oppressive towards women (Hopkins 2006: 343; Nagra 2018: 266). Some scholars, however, have argued that patriarchy invokes an essentialist, ahistoric analysis that is insensitive to the range of experiences of women of different cultures, classes, and ethnicities (Barrett 1980; Rowbotham 1981). There has been a growing wave of scholars who have taken a contextual approach, primarily through an intersectional framework (Crenshaw 1991), demonstrating a range of experiences that men and women from different socio-geographic and historical trajectories can have (Collins 2005; Mahmood 2001). Patriarchy has remained a relatively static concept over time, however, creating a one-dimensional and homogeneous image of men and women in most societies around the world (see also Frias 2010). The case study of migrant husbands in the British Pakistani and Kashmiri community can, in my view, provide new insights relevant to the way in which patriarchy is traditionally understood.

Pakistani and Kashmiri society is widely understood to be patriarchal (Al-Maskari et al. 2011), a social norm that has been maintained by their respective diasporas in the United Kingdom (Ballard 1994; Shaw 2000), and evident in the community’s settlement practices (Werbner 1990; Shaw 2000; Ballard 1994). Honour killings and forced marriages testify to the intensity of the patriarchy within the British Pakistani and Kashmiri community (Kalra 2009: 115; Gill 2009; Werbner 2005; Afshar 1994). As discussed previously, however, ethnographic glimpses point towards a degree of fluidity in patriarchy triggered by the transmigration process – an indication as to the agency of British Pakistani and Kashmiri women in what appears to be a changing society (see also Thapar-Bjokert and Sanghera 2010), in which, ultimately, migrant men and masculinities can be transacted.

Songs of sorrow form a unique blend of visual and musical forms, showing that migrant husbands who marry British Pakistani and Kashmiri women came to occupy weak positions, lead precarious lives, and experience heightened levels of vulnerability. Supplemented with the ethnographic interviews with migrant husbands, we have learnt that their weak positions can translate into domestic violence perpetrated against them by wives and/or in-laws. These findings disrupt the traditional understanding of patriarchy, as we come to learn that migrant husbands are not always powerful and do not always (or only) subordinate women, and that there is some public acknowledgement as to the turmoil they experience (see also Dwyer, Shah, and Sanghera 2008: 127). The interviews and the songs of sorrow alike afford us nuanced insights into the role of age, seniority, and – in some ways – citizenship in constructing direction of power, as it is senior men and women of pioneer generations, and sometimes wives, who can play a role in subjugating migrant husbands. A key outcome of the intersection between these factors is the ‘multiple patriarchies’ that can occur in different contexts, but also within the same context. The former has been demonstrated through the presentation of the case study of the Pakistani migrant husbands to the United Kingdom. The latter requires further explanation, however.

Migrant husbands become subjected to patriarchy at the hands of their in-laws, particularly their fathers-in-law. In their narratives, however, migrant husbands often indicated that their wives were also being subjected to patriarchy, as some had been forced into marriage to save the family’s honour (see also Joseph 1996). Furthermore, in some cases in which migrant husbands had married a relative, there were indications of obligations that parents felt towards their siblings, thereby reinforcing transnational kin relations through transnational marriage (see also Shaw 2006). Common relationships were characterised by the obligations a man felt towards his sister, or sisters felt towards their brothers, which suggested that current practices of transnational marriages were a manifestation of kin relations forged within a patriarchal society re-evoked by diasporic memory, for instance. Migrant husbands were often married to the children of their parents’ siblings who had migrated to and settled in the United Kingdom. In some cases, when migrant husbands were married to their father’s brother’s daughter or mother’s brother’s daughter, wives of their parents’ brother were unhappy due to the forging of their children’s marriage alliance within the patrilineage. Some interlocutors told me they felt their mothers-in-laws were sabotaging their marriages as a result. There were also cases of migrant husbands who experienced difficulty in obtaining passage to England due to ongoing family feuds between parents of spouses. In this way, multiple and multi-sited patriarchies constantly unfold simultaneously, alongside the unfolding of migrant husbands’ social lives.

Home and household structure

The migrant husband’s taking up of matrilocal residency (see Turner 1979) after marriage and upon migration to the United Kingdom demonstrates an unconventional family arrangement for the norms of both British society and British Pakistani society, from which we can interrogate the notion of ‘home’. For this notion in particular, the migrant husband’s experience of matrilocal residence helps us reconceptualise home as fluid. It is common in the British Pakistani and Kashmiri community for the parents and extended family to help a newly married couple by providing them accommodation in the form of an extended family household residency arrangement, and/or providing them with a property (albeit in virilocal marriage) that is usually in close proximity to the parents’ household – a familial hub over the course of married life and life stages. The joining of the migrant husband to the household in matrilocal form is indicative of the home serving the community not as a destination for its cultural practices but as a vehicle for the in-laws to achieve broader goals that transcend the confines of the home (see Turner 1979), such as additional income, and controlling land in Pakistan or Kashmir.

Second, in both the Pakistani and Kashmiri community and mainstream British society, there are particular notions of home and family, wherein the husband and/or father is the main breadwinner (Davidoff and Hall 1987: 229; Collier 1995). As I have demonstrated in the previous chapter, however, not only is the migrant husband physically, verbally, and mentally abused but he can also be denied fatherhood and breadwinner status. As a result, I argue that we can begin to reconceptualise home as detached and independent of gender roles and ascriptions. Moreover, since some women (including wives and mothers-in-law) also perpetrated violence towards migrant husbands, the ‘private’ sphere of the home can serve to conceal such behaviour performed by women, and therefore maintain the often one-dimensional grand narrative that women – especially in the British Pakistani and Kashmiri and/or Muslim community – are oppressed (see also Hopkins 2006: 343; Thapar-Bjokert and Sanghera 2010: 261). Certainly, although this can be the case in many lived social realities, we must acknowledge that there can be an array of subjugations that play out in the transnational household.

In addition, the home has been viewed as a place that has been inscribed into social imaginations and socio-cultural codes of practice as a ‘safe’ place, a site of security (Capers 2011), a place liberated from fear and anxiety, and a place supposedly untouched by political and natural processes (Kaika 2004; Brickell 2011). Within the literature, the home has been illustrated as a turbulent sea of constant negotiation rather than simply some haven for the self (Miller 2001: 4), which is evident through the function of the home as a place that enables abuse of many forms perpetrated by cohabitants (husbands, wives, and in-laws), thereby acquiring the properties of both refuge and prison (Kaika 2004). The social and gender inequalities, power relations, and violence that were meant to be kept outside the modern home are (re)produced within the ideological prison (Millett 1977) of this private space (Brickell 2011) of the home. For the migrant husband, then, this space of the home, which was viewed as a safe haven prior to marriage and migration, becomes a place in which migrant husbands struggle to achieve respect, masculine identity, rights, and citizenship.

Third, since the British government stipulates a number of conditions as part of the migration process and successful application for the indefinite leave to remain, one of which is remaining with the wife for a minimum duration of two years in the United Kingdom, the home becomes a site for the struggle of citizenship – a concept vital for public life, which for the migrant husband is located in the private sphere. Due to this struggle for citizenship, the migrant husband is more vulnerable to experiencing domestic violence, as I showed earlier. The broader political contours of power on a national state level flowing through the home in the form of immigration laws are evidence of some of the most intricate invasions (Bhabha 1994: 3; Brickell 2011: 5), underlining the notion that hegemonic masculinity (Connell 2005) may be better understood as exhibited by states and/or governments. This helps us to reconceptualise home and the household as permeable and porous (see also Kaika 2004: 273). Further, the violence occurring within the home has introduced the emergence of the policing of families (Donzelot 1980). What happens between a husband and wife within the space of the home is not purely a private matter but also a matter for the state, which suggests that the boundary between the public and private is permeable (Capers 2011: 980). Taking this analysis a step further, songs of sorrow show that the private relations of a husband and wife within the household can also become a source of social media entertainment, and knowledge production. The policing and surveillance of violence in this way (Capers 2011: 989) causes the home to be imbued with public sphere characteristics – an arena in which the public sphere stages the play of citizenship, morality, and law by controlling intimate relationships. Many migrant husbands told me of incidences when the police had entered their homes and arrested them despite their pleading that they had not abused their wives; the police would ‘side with’ the wives, however, who had, my interlocutors stressed, wrongly claimed being victims of abuse to further control their husbands, and ‘teach them a lesson’, as Asif told me. The permeability, the porosity, and the opening up of the home as a site of struggle in many aspects is a blurring of spaces (Milligan 2000: 54), as a result of which the application of liminality theory (Turner 1967) can be applied, but not in the way it was originally proposed, as the liminality of space(s) extends beyond a ‘state’. It is within this liminal space of the household that migrant husbands experience liminal masculinity, and, since space and body are intertwined (Borden 2001: 11), the migrant husband, I argue, becomes liminal himself.

Gender dynamics

Honour and shame have been defined as the need to guard female sexuality (Werbner 2005). Present in often extreme forms in Muslim societies, Muslim women are expected to veil before ghair mahram (strange/not-kin men with whom marriage is permissible). Pakistani women have been known to wear light chiffon scarves or chadors (a heavy shawl), draped around the head and the upper part of the body (Khan 1976; Werbner 2005), which are a symbol of modesty, and thus an aid in the maintenance of honour and shame. This way of veiling is more characteristic of the pioneer generation of Pakistani and Kashmiri women, however, as younger generations of British Pakistani and Kashmiri women have increasingly donned the hijab, which is firmly pinned to the head and (usually) does not show any hair. This form of veiling is no longer seen as part of an ethnic identity but, rather, as part of a global Muslim identity.⁴ Veiling has broadly been considered to be a symbol of the protection of women’s chastity (Abu-Lughod 1990; Mahmood 2005; Werbner 2005). Scholars have reported, however, that the Pakistani community holds conservative views towards female dress and behaviour, which are inextricably linked to concepts of honour and shame (Afshar 1994; Kassam 1997), dubbed as ‘policing women’. In their extreme forms, such views can translate into so-called honour-based violence in the form of forced marriages (Kalra 2009: 115) and honour-based murders (Gill 2009). Honour and shame are, therefore, excessively associated with the control of women’s bodies in the United Kingdom – or, at least, this has been the conventional scholarly position since ethnic communities have been studied.

Honour and shame in the British Pakistani and Kashmiri community are also deeply embedded in the politics of marriage and the (extended) family (biraaderi), as well as in the politics of the community (Werbner 2005; Shaw 2000). Reputation and loss of face have been shown to be important factors for the parental generation when considering marriage proposals for their sons and daughters (Shaw 2000, 2006; Charsley and Shaw 2006; Werbner 2005), and, as a result, transnational marriages continue to be seen as desirable options to maintain, and also increase, familial honour among the wider community and kin network (Charsley and Shaw 2006). A daughter married with honour is seen as the primary means for her father to increase his honour (Fischer 1991: 104), reinforcing the narrative that women are seen as exchange material at the disposal of men. Fischer’s contention that the ‘highest form’ of honour is the control of men has not featured to date, however, in the debates and discussions of honour and shame within the British Pakistani and Kashmiri community.

The way in which the migrant husband is subjected to extreme forms of control and even domestic violence, often by pioneer migrants, demonstrates that the control of men generates the highest form of honour. In particular, it is the older generation of transnational patriarchs that benefit from the control of the migrant husband, as he is able to withhold family wealth in the form of land in Pakistan and Kashmir. This communicates, to the wider kinship network in the homeland and in Britain, that the pioneer-generation transnational patriarch withholds another family’s breadwinner. The symbolism of controlling another family’s breadwinner, heir, is a sign of wealth, strength, respect, and honour. Therefore, the traditional notion of honour and shame as associated with women’s bodies is ruptured through the case of the migrant husband, as we see that honour and shame, in their highest form, are associated with the male body. This also widens the ways in which we can understand Thapar-Bjokert and Sanghera’s (2010: 261) contention that Pakistani Muslim women are not always victims of oppression. It is important to note that the ability to transact migrant husbands is interconnected with the British state, by way of granting citizenship to senior migrant husbands who become fathers-in-law, and upon which the securing of further citizenship is relied on through the act of the giving of British daughters, in transnational marriage.

The case study of the migrant husband demonstrates that, contrary to conventional understandings, the British Pakistani and Kashmiri community is not strictly patriarchal, in that all women are at the mercy of all men in the community, but, rather, that there are ‘multiple patriarchies’, in which men and women of different ages and socio-cultural capitals experience, exercise, and engage in differently. In other words, experiences within the community are not defined along one-dimensional gender lines. Second, although the household and the home are usually seen as the women’s domain, in which household chores, cooking, raising children, and domestic abuse can occur, the case of the migrant husband shows that both migrant husbands and their fathers-in-law engage in cooking and cleaning, and women can also perpetrate abuse in this sphere. In this way, then, there is greater fluidity and dynamism in men’s and women’s performances in the private sphere within the British Pakistani and Kashmiri community.

As part of the broader spectrum of inverse gender performances, the fieldwork demonstrated glimpses of increased choice exercised by women. For instance, Sarish, who was betrothed to migrant husband Armaan, refused to marry him, which meant that Armaan and his family’s aspirations were truncated, as a result of which their aspirations experienced severe revision, as Armaan’s family sought another marriage proposal from Britain for him. Migrant husband narratives, such as those from Rehan and Arshad, also detailed wives’ demands for oral sex, which, while causing considerable personal and marital stress and internal conflict of moral and religious values for migrant husbands, indicates a marked shift in our understandings of the sexual attitudes and preferences of British Pakistani and Kashmiri Muslim women. Furthermore, we learn that Asad’s wife was able to file an Islamic divorce independently of her family’s wishes and support. Not all migrant husbands experienced abuse by their wives; some experienced love, support, and companionship in their marriages. For instance, Asif shared that his wife supported him when her parents abused him and helped him realise his dream of opening his own barber shop. Asif’s wife then supported her husband against the wishes of her parents, who were keen for the newlywed couple to remain under their control.

Together, these cases demonstrate a widening of the agency that women can exercise within marriage, and particularly in an upward power direction relating to pioneer generations. Transnational uxorilocal marriages can also endow women with greater autonomy and power, suggesting that there is a reworking of gender power in marriage as a result of migration. For theories of masculinity (Connell 2005), this reworking of gender power in marriage demonstrates that masculinities are diverse, multiple, and complex, and are not only challenged by competing masculinities, such as that of senior men who have greater authority and power, but can also be up against increasing female autonomy. More specifically, the migration process in this particular context causes the interaction of intersecting social factors such as greater female authority, age, and generational differences, which create a unique space in which migrant husbands struggle to define and, by extension, achieve their aspired masculinity.

This chapter has also traced the intimate ways in which marriage and masculinity are interconnected in and through migration. Put differently, movement through migration impacts gender relations and gender performativity. I contend that gender is not performed, as Judith Butler (1990) puts it, as this denotes agency. Rather, gender is performed on, through power and control. Butler’s concept of performativity is a remote dream for migrant husbands, as they carve out spaces of resistance and agency to become closer to their desired position, from where they can then perform in their gender. The chapter has shown, however, that the position from where gender can be performed is not always achieved, as the changes brought about through migration have lasting impacts.