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Making the Right Choice unravels the entangled relationship between marriage, morality, and the desire for modernity as it plays out in the context of middle-class status concerns and aspirations for upward social mobility within the Sinhala-Buddhist community in urban Sri Lanka. By focusing on individual life-histories spanning three generations, the book illuminates how narratives about a gendered self and narratives about modernity are mutually constituted and intrinsically tied to notions of agency. The book uncovers how "becoming modern" in urban Sri Lanka, rather than causing inter-generational conflict, is a collective aspiration realized through the efforts of bringing up educated and independent women capable of making "right" choices. The consequence of this collective investment is a feminist conundrum: agency does not denote the right to choose, but the duty to make the "right" choice; hence agency is experienced not as a sense of "freedom," but rather as a burden of responsibility.
Sommario
Series Foreword by Péter Berta
Introduction
1 - Sinhala Marriage Practices: Then and Now
2 - Making the 'Right' Choice
3 - Structuring the 'Right' Choice
4 - The Virtuous Self: Failed Marriages
5 - The Valued Self: Singleness
6 - The Vindicated Self: Divorce
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Info autore
ASHA L. ABEYASEKERA is a senior lecturer in the faculty of graduate studies at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka.
