While cross-regional and cross-cultural marriages appear to be occurring more often, it is Bengali brides who seem to be migrating to far-flung and culturally strange, rural destinations away from their own homeland. This article uncovers reasons for this bridal diaspora and finds that in West Bengal, a consumption smoothing strategy of the family is to marry one daughter in a socially approved dowry marriage in the state itself and send the rest out as marriage migrants. However, migrating as a bride achieves both marriage and work. Sexual and reproductive labours combine with economic labour, pointing to the increasingly complex forms of migrating in which women are imbricated.

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