The work of time: personhood, agency, and the negotiation of difference in married life in urban Pakistan

Abstract

What is the work of time on a marriage, and how does it transform people as they struggle to change and leave traces on others? Through reflections of middle-class women in Pakistan who married men who did not share their religious aspirations, I focus on how difference is negotiated and conceived in these marriages, and on the unexpected outcomes in the religious outlook of both spouses. The work of time, articulated through the concept of sabar (forbearance), emerges here as a canvas for a confluence of human and nonhuman interventions, influences, and motivations, urging us to think of individual agency neither as autonomous action, as theorized in the liberal tradition, nor as wilful submission, as elaborated in Islamic contexts. Rather, agency, the capacity to assert one's own visions and hopes, depends on the malleability and openness of persons to time, leaving those who desire change in others equally exposed to transformation.