Any consideration of courtship rituals in the Caucasus must first take account of the temporal context. If the discussion is situated in the pres ent, it becomes difficult to provide an overview of courtship rituals for cultures which have been so altered by developments which have taken place since the end of Soviet rule, and prior to that, by the discourse of Soviet anti-traditional modernity. In the case of Chechnya specifically, the years of war from 1994 onwards have greatly changed the ways in which men and women find partners.

It should also be noted that there are many differ…