Sri Lanka

Linguistic and Ethnic Divisions

The majority language is Sinhala, and Muslims and ethnic Tamils speak Tamil. English is the language of higher education, administration, and commerce. Language is a divider, particularly the Sinhala Only campaign after independence that aggravated Tamil desires for separation. The law mandated Sinhala, which is spoken by over 70 percent of the population, as the official language of Sri Lanka. Supporters of the law saw it as an attempt to gain distance from colonial rule after independence, while opponents objected to what they saw as an attempt by the linguistic majority to subjugate minorities. Since independence, the nation's leaders have relied on support from the Sinhala and the Buddhist monks, creating marginalized non-Sinhala and non-Buddhists who are less likely to have access to state-provided benefits.

Since independence in 1948, ethnic differences have proven stronger than common culture and beliefs, particularly as the Sinhala have dominated government to the disadvantage of the minorities, particularly the Sri Lankan Tamils fighting for their independence. Separate villages or neighborhoods, as well as separate Tamil and Sinhala-language schools, divide communities. Each develops its own network of businesses, religious services, and sports teams. Government policy is to promote nondiscrimination in its programs, which helps create cross-ethnicity networks, as do day-to-day contacts within neighborhoods or routine friendships among individuals.

Women remain subordinate even as arranged marriages give way, to an extent, to those based on love. Even in those marriages, the castes must match and the groom must be taller, older, and educationally and professionally better situated than the bride. The nuclear family is more important, even when it lives in its own portion of the extended family household.

When a nuclear family is forced to live with the extended family, each wife maintains her own cooking [Page 818]area and prepares her husband's food. Although the emphasis is on the nuclear family, both husband's and wife's relatives provide an important social network that constitutes the majority of significant social relations. Kin are those with whom eating or marriage is permitted.

Students are seen learning to sew, thanks to the 2008 efforts of the Joint Apparel Association Forum, the private apparel sector, and vocational training authorities that placed vocational school graduates into jobs in Sri Lanka's apparel industry.

Fragmentation is due to ethnicity, caste, and kindred ties. Monogamy is preferred, but polygamy and polygyny are legal. Some minorities observe descent and inheritance through both spouses as well as ownership of property by each spouse. Other minorities are matrilineal. In general, however, the man is in charge of the property and represents the family in public spaces, including places to bathe, such as wells and rivers; places of worship and education; and places for marketing and shopping. These spaces are important for socializing.

...