
- 252 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
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.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Series Foreword by Péter Berta
- Introduction
- 1. Sinhala Marriage: 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
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- References
- Index
- About the Author