Using data from the Asian Marriage Survey and ethnographic material for the Punjab and South Asia we examine the contribution of social organization and marriage processes to the explanation of female marriage age in rural Pakistan. The perspective is that marriage constitutes an alliance-building strategy involving whole households and patrilines and that kinship distance between families dowry values landed status of families and direction of wealth flows at marriage have significant effects on marriage timing separate from those of more standard indicators. The analysis is shown to support this hypothesis. Implications extend to perspectives and variables used to explain marriage behavior and potential for combining survey data and ethnography in analysis. (EXCERPT)