Traditionally, the division of labor in Sri Lanka has been largely based on caste, gender, and ethnicity. Although members of all ethnic groups participate to some degree across the range of occupations, particular ethnic groups are thought to predominate in certain occupations, for instance, the Sinhala in rice cultivation and the public sector, and the Muslims, Tamils, and recent immigrants in trade.
Different castes are also associated with particular occupations, which is not necessarily reflected in the actual work that people do. Symbolically associated with occupations such as rice farming, the largest and highest status Sinhala castes are typically land holders and recipients of service obligations from the lower castes. The lower status service castes are associated with hereditary crafts such as mat weaving, jewelry making, and clothes washing.
Increasingly, these hereditary statuses are being replaced by education and command of English as the most important determinants of employment. Classes and Castes. Even though the ideal of social equality is widely diffused in contemporary Sri Lanka, stratification according to caste and class, as well as gender and ethnicity, continues to be very important.
Class is determined by attributes such as wealth and education while caste, a traditional part of Hindu and Buddhist society in Sri Lanka, is determined by birth into a predetermined status hierarchy, typically understood as a matter of reward or retribution for one's deeds in previous lives.
The traditional correspondence between these statuses was upset by years of colonial rulers who often privileged members of certain, relatively low-status castes, effectively raising their class status and that of their offspring. The importance and legitimacy of caste continues to be undermined by political and economic developments.
Class differentiation, on the other hand, is increasing both in day-to-day social interaction and manifestations of disparities. Symbols of Social Stratification. Traditionally, caste identity was extensively marked by ritual roles and occupations, names of individuals and places, networks of social relations, and regulations of dress and housing.
Degrees of difference within the caste hierarchy were also marked by forms of address, seating arrangements, and other practices of deference and superiority. Today, where these hierarchical relations continue, there is a degree of uneasiness or even resentment toward them, particularly among the educated younger generations. Class status, in contrast, is increasingly manifested in speech, dress, employment, education, and housing. In general, elite classes can be identified by their command of English, education in exclusive schools, executive-level employment, possession of valued commodities, and access to international networks, whereas the lower classes are associated with manual labor, minimal comforts, and a lack of social contacts with the elite.
Sri Lanka is governed by a democratically elected president and a member parliament. The president serves for a term of six years and has the power to dismiss the parliament, out of which the president selects cabinet members, a prime minister, and a chief justice. Although regular elections at all levels of government have been held since independence, there are increasing allegations of tampering and violence.
The current leadership is considering a new constitution in which greater powers would be reserved for the provincial governments, a move calculated to address the ethnic conflicts and end the nation's civil war.
Leadership and Political Officials. Although a spectrum of political parties campaign within Sri Lanka, political leadership is almost exclusively drawn from the traditional, propertied elite. Family lineage and caste affiliation figure prominently in selection of candidates at all levels. Since independence, only two parties have drawn the majority of their leadership from the lower classes and challenged the control of the elite: the ultraleft Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, who staged armed insurrections that posed a significant threat to the stability of the nation in and again between and , and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam LTTE.
Since political leaders distribute state-controlled benefits and resources, such as access to employment, quality schools, and even passports, their constituents work to stay in their good graces. These elected leaders, who typically distribute resources preferentially to their supporters, make an effort to be seen as benefactors and are often more personally accessible than many bureaucrats. Social Problems and Control.
Although crime rates are rising, Sri Lanka's citizens are generally respectful of both formal and informal laws, as well as of each other. Throughout the nation's history, however, there have been periodic explosions of violence and lawlessness. Since the s, there have been massive riots, bombings, and insurrections that have effectively challenged the authority of the state and resulted in massive bloodletting.
Large portions of the island are not under the control of the state but are in the hands of the LTTE rebels. In response to these challenges, the government has periodically declared states of "emergency rule" that extend its constitutional authority. The police, the military, and the judiciary system are in place to maintain government control.
Imprisonment is the main legal sanction for those who are convicted of violations of the law. The death penalty, suspended for many years, is being considered for re-introduction in response to the perceived rise in crime and violence. Informal sanctions also provide strong deterrents against socially unacceptable behavior. Rumor and gossip are particularly feared, whether these take the form of village talk, anonymous petitions to the newspapers, or posters mounted in public spaces.
Acceptance in the family and other important social groups to which one belongs and how one's behavior reflects on the reputation of these groups are among the most powerful motivators of social compliance. The threat of sorcery or divine retribution on an injured party's behalf, as well as more earthly threats of violence and revenge, also act to ensure good behavior.
Military Activity. There are three branches of the all-volunteer national military: the army, the navy, and the air force. Since independence, Sri Lanka's military, once largely ceremonial, has been called on to counter civil violence and terrorist activities, as well as provide more peaceable services, such as coastal supervision and surveying.
Since , they have been fighting a full-scale civil war against the LTTE army which is reportedly well-trained and internationally funded. Between and , defense spending made up the largest portion of the national budget, comprising over 20 percent of annual expenditures. A man operates a Heidelburg printing press at a printer shop in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has often been referred to as the model welfare state.
With free and universal education and health care, subsidized transportation, and a wide range of public sector programs to assist the poor, the quality of life is high in comparison with other developing countries. Since the change in economic policies of which emphasize private sector growth, however, the quality and availability of these government services have been eroding and have been increasingly replaced by private resources accessed by the middle and elite classes.
Besides the difficulty posed by reductions in state funding, the civil war has created additional challenges to the welfare system as up to 1. Since , foreign-supported nongovernmental organizations have proliferated, providing welfare services and promoting social agendas such as human rights, fair elections, conflict resolution, and peace initiatives. Other civil organizations that are more locally led and membership-based, such as trade unions and cooperatives, are largely dependant on or part of the political sector of Sri Lankan society.
Religious organizations are the primary exception to this, and are independent from political society, which tends to regard them with fear and respect.
Another notable exception is the Sarvodaya Movement which has been active since , mobilizing volunteer labor for community service. Division of Labor by Gender. In Sri Lanka, there is a strong tradition of both men and women working, with men focusing more on income opportunities and women focusing on the household. Currently, women's participation in the paid labor force is significant, although not evenly distributed, concentrated in professions such as nursing, teaching, tea picking, and garment construction.
In manufacture and agricultural work, men are typically assigned tasks considered more physically demanding, while women are assigned the more repetitive, detail-oriented work at which they are thought to be better than men. Opportunity for foreign employment for women, while relatively available and well-paying, is restricted to domestic work, whereas opportunities for men are more varied, ranging from manual labor to engineering.
Within the home, regardless of their engagement in paid labor, women and girls do all food preparation and most other domestic work. Although most schools are segregated by gender, education has always been important for both boys and girls in Sri Lanka. The literacy rates for men and women are similarly high; the last census in found that 87 percent of females over the age of ten years were literate, compared to 91 percent of males. Leadership roles in Sri Lanka are largely held by men, with some important exceptions.
Sri Lanka elected the world's first female prime minister in , Sirimavo Bandaranaike, whose daughter is the current president of the nation. While this is not indicative of the political power of women in general, it is true that Sri Lankan women have held voting rights since they were instituted in and have long held certain property rights.
The large majority of religious leaders and officiants are also male, while women tend to be overrepresented among their followers. The Relative Status of Women and Men. It is a widely held position among social scientists as well as lay people that the status of women is relatively high in Sri Lanka, especially in comparison to other South Asian nations. There has never been the practice of child marriage or the burning of widows in Sri Lanka.
Even though most groups on the island prefer for new brides to move into their husbands' homes, women traditionally retain strong ties with their own natal families. Additionally, although it is expected among most groups for the bride's family to give the groom a dowry, in practice this property commonly remains in the possession of the wife until she passes it on, typically to her daughters.
Despite these traditional practices and the full rights of citizenship that women in Sri Lanka enjoy today, women consistently defer to men across all domains of life, including the workplace and the home.
Women also bear the greater weight of social expectations and sanctions for noncompliance. In addition, sexual harassment and assault, while seldom reported to the authorities, are common experiences. In all ethnic groups, marriages are traditionally arranged by the families of the couple. Regardless of who initiates the marriage, the bride and groom are expected to be of the same socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and, for Buddhists and Hindus, caste status, although the groom is expected to be slightly older, taller, and educationally and professionally more qualified than the bride.
Additionally, there is a preference among Tamil and Sinhala groups for cross-cousin marriage, which is marriage with the child of one's father's sister or one's mother's brother. Among Muslims, the preferred match is between parallel cousins, the children of two brothers. It is also considered best if the couple are of similar ages. The age at which people marry is on the rise, especially for women.
According to the census, over a quarter of those over twenty have never been married. Divorce, while increasingly common, still occurs in less than 1 percent of marriages. Remarriage following divorce or the death of a spouse is possible for both men and women, although it is uncommon for previously married women to marry never-married men.
Domestic Unit. Ideally, a husband and wife live in their own household with their unmarried children, even if that household is actually a small section of an extended family home. In Sri Lanka, individual households are identified by cooking practices, so that, even within a larger house, a wife will cook for her husband and children independently from others who may live within the structure, perhaps sharing the same kitchen.
While women may have a great deal of power within a family, ultimate authority belongs to the oldest male member of a household, whether that is the father, husband, brother, or son. Sri Lankans express a preference that their first child be a girl, whom they believe will help care for and be a disciplining influence on younger siblings.
While overall there is a preference for sons, this is not as strong as in other South Asian countries. The majority of Sri Lankan families practice bilateral inheritance, giving a portion of the family possessions to all children in the family.
In practice, fixed property such as land and the family home go to sons and mobile property such as cash and jewelry go to daughters, usually in the form of her dowry.
Kin Groups. In Sri Lanka, the notion of ancestral place and the kin group associated with it is very important, even as people move to other areas because of employment opportunities or displacement. This hereditary home is the site of life-cycle A woman picking tea at a plantation in Sri Lanka. Approximately one-quarter of the workforce is employed in the agricultural sector.
It is most common for this kin group to belong to the father's family, as there is a preference for women to move to the homes of their husband, raising their children among his relatives. It also happens, however, that husbands join wives' families instead, particularly among the matrilineal people of the island's east. Infant Care. In Sri Lanka, young children are highly adored, fondled, and indulged by everyone, both male and female. Infants are traditionally kept with their mothers or female relatives.
Babies are carried until they can walk and sleep with mothers until they are school-aged, at which time they are encouraged to move into a bed with their siblings. Nearly all mothers breast-feed their children, commonly through the first year.
Child Rearing and Education. Throughout childhood, important rituals are conducted around culturally significant milestones, such as the first feeding of solid food and the introduction of the letters of the alphabet.
The coming of age ritual following a girl's first menstruation is an important marker of her entrance into the adult world, although there is no such similar rite of passage for boys. As children grow, they are expected to develop a sense of lajjawa, a feeling that combines shyness, shame, modesty, and fear. It is cultivated early in childhood and used to teach self-control, beginning with bowel-control training, which starts at one year, then with weaning and nudity, and later with school performance.
Although mothers perform most of the child rearing, they are more responsible for their daughters' discipline and tend to be more indulgent with their sons. Fathers tend to indulge all of their children under five, at which point they take on a stricter disciplinary role, particularly with their sons whom they are responsible for controlling. Corporal punishment is quite common, especially from older males to boys. In Sri Lanka, education has always been highly valued and encouraged.
School attendance is compulsory between the ages of six and fourteen, although children often attend preschool and typically continue until the completion of the secondary level. Academic competition starts early, as parents scramble to place their children in the better primary schools, and continues with three sets of standardized exams that determine access to subsequent Stilt fishermen in the waters near Weligama, Sri Lanka.
Fish are a large part of the Sri Lankan diet. To prepare for these exams and other academic challenges, almost all children attend private tutorial sessions in addition to their regular schooling. Higher Education. All of Sri Lanka's universities are government sponsored and attendance is free.
Admission is determined by exam, so that only 2 percent of Sri Lanka's children eventually are enrolled in the universities, although children from affluent families frequently gain admittance to foreign universities. Of those who enter the Sri Lankan university system, the majority go into the arts, which includes humanities and social sciences, a course of study taught in the vernacular languages.
Unemployment following graduation is high for these students, reflecting a disjuncture between market needs and university education. Opportunities for postgraduate education are quite limited within the country. Protests against authorities are well established among university students at all levels.
New entrants to the university student community are routinely subjected to "ragging," a form of collective harassment by the senior students in an effort to create a sense of common identity and an anti-establishment consciousness. Many of the most important rules of etiquette serve to mark differences in social rank. Both Sinhala and Tamil contain a range of linguistic markers for status as well as relative social distance and intimacy.
In routine social interactions, personal names are avoided in preference to nicknames, relationship terms, or other titles. Gender is also an important factor in determining appropriate conduct. Among all but the most urbanized, women are expected to defer to men of relatively equal status and to avoid all implication of sexual impropriety by keeping themselves well covered at all times.
They are also expected to refuse all alcohol and tobacco and to refrain from direct physical contact with men. Between members of the same gender and with children, however, there is a great deal of physical contact that emphasizes closeness. At meals, women usually eat last, after they have served the men and the children of the household, although visitors are served first, regardless of gender.
While the more Westernized may use silverware, food is commonly eaten with the right hand, a preference that extends to other domains as well. In public, people tend to speak in hushed tones if at all, although leaders and sellers are expected to shout.
Large emotional displays of any type are uncommon in public. Greetings are often unvocalized, with broad smiles exchanged between strangers and a friendly raised eyebrow to frequent acquaintances. When new people are involved in a conversation, the mutual acquaintance is asked questions about the stranger. Seldom does direct self-introduction occur.
Unusual behavior of any kind draws unconcealed observation. Religious Beliefs. Buddhism, the religion of the majority of people in Sri Lanka, is given a place of preference in the national constitution and public life, although Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity are also practiced by significant portions of the population.
You can explore these extensive ruins by bike. Please see our booking conditions for more information. ATOL protection extends primarily to customers who book and pay for their air holiday packages in the United Kingdom. Check our licence. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy. Learn More. Login with Facebook. Login with Twitter. Login with Google. Remnants of Indian culture are evident in Sri Lanka, largely stemming from shared Buddhist and Hindu traditions.
Over time, the cultural traits brought from the Indian subcontinent have independently grown and changed in Sri Lanka, contributing to the formation of a distinctive Sri Lankan culture and identity. Hierarchy and Social Stratification. Despite ethnic tensions in the past, Sri Lankans tend to interact and befriend those of different ethnicities and religious affiliations.
Divisions generally occur more in regards to social class. This is largely due to the hierarchies of the caste system that the society previously operated under.
This structure determines the social community into which one is born, often referred to in terms of vocation.
While Sri Lankans tend to be acutely aware of the social status they hold in relation to their peers, this attitude is more common outside of urban areas, particularly in villages. However, it is worth noting that the caste hierarchy differs among those of Tamil and those of Sinhalese ethnicity.
Regarding those of Sinhalese ethnicity , attitudes and ideas related to the caste system still prevail to an extent among the older generation, despite being abolished by law. However, the younger generation of Sinhalese Sri Lankans tend not to consider caste as a relevant factor when interacting with others. Indeed, a lot of the Sinhalese youth are unaware of their caste. Outside of the private sphere, most social interactions occur without reference to the caste system.
Members of different kulas can work together and interact freely with one another without feeling uncomfortable about the caste inequalities. The concept of face is evident in the way Sri Lankans behave and interact with one another. Sri Lankans may act in a deliberate and contemplative manner to prevent outbursts or conflict. The freedom to choose and express religious affiliation is guaranteed under the Sri Lankan constitution. Buddhism is the major religion followed in Sri Lanka, with The social landscape of the country tends to show an association between ethnicity and religion.
The Sinhalese majority generally follows Buddhism, which has seen the faith gain special status over other religions despite not being the official religion of the country. Those who identify as Hindu tend to be ethnic Tamils, while those who identify as Muslim are generally Sri Lankan Moors.
Christians are typically Burghers. For example, there are some Sri Lankans who identify as Christian that are of Sinhalese or Tamil ethnicity. Moreover, it is common to find the various religions coexisting. Buddhists may visit Hindu temples to pay homage to the Buddha, and churches may be in close proximity to mosques.
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