LAHORE, Pakistan — A good man is especially hard to find in this deeply religious country, where bars are nonexistent, unchaperoned conversation between single men and women is frowned upon, and immigration has frayed the neighborhood and family ties that have nurtured arranged marriages for centuries.
So when Amber Khan's parents told her it was time to get married, the 23-year-old fashion student turned to a new matchmaking resource: the Internet.
Khan posted an ad for a husband on Mehndi.com, a "matrimonial" website tailored to Pakistanis. A few weeks later, she was drowning in marriage proposals -- 20 at last count. Her mother is helping her sort through the offerings, and Khan is giddy about the change in her life and her society.
"Everyone has the right to choose their own life partner," Khan said. "They can choose, they can select, they can communicate with them -- they can even meet them before they're married."
The enthusiasm with which increasing numbers of Pakistanis such as Khan have embraced online matchmaking casts a spotlight on the constant tension between modernity and tradition in this overwhelmingly Muslim country.
Even as hard-line religious parties pick up seats in Pakistan's parliament and local headlines are dominated by fears of fundamentalist terrorism, cable television replete with uncensored Western entertainment has become widely available. Clerics bemoan an upswing in "love matches," divorce, liaisons between unmarried couples and an overall decline in morals.
One new television program, in which men and women go on the air and describe their soul mates, then receive e-mail proposals from viewers, has swiftly gone from must-shun to must-see TV. Nadia Mazhar, a producer of the "Shaadi Online" show, says it is part of a revolution that has brought to Pakistan's masses the sort of power over their personal lives that was once available only to the country's more secular elite.
"If you go to the middle class," Mazhar said, "this is a big deal to them -- 'We can do this!' "
With increasing numbers of Pakistanis exposed to Western culture and ideas through the media, study abroad and emigration, as well as better education at home for women, many think a liberalization of sexual attitudes was inevitable. But the scene here is a long way from the freewheeling romantic marketplace of the Western world, as Pakistanis try to adapt new resources to their customs.
