The culture of the Sri Lankan Tamil women and the law environment

Abstract

An attempt is made in this paper to present some serious thoughts in connection with law in the cultural background of the Sri Lankan Tamil women. Information obtained from field work, books, journals and websites form the data for this study. The Social structure of Sri Lanka comprised of Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Burgers and various others. Each community possesses cultural features that identify them as an individual entity. In this background, we have to look at the cultural identities of the Sri Lankan Tamil women and how far law influences them; what are the effects of it; and what kind of reforms that has to be introduced. This paper strives to examine this situation closely. The Paper comprised of four Parts. The first part classifies the women according to their status girl, women, wife, mother and widow and age. The second part describes the Tamil Women's Culture. It is very important to analyse to what extent their Cultural background plays an important role in their day to day life. The Cultural pattern of the Tamil Woman varies from District to District. Particularly in the Jaffna, Mannar and Vavuniya Regions the law is not playing an important role as against the Cultural influence. The third part looks at the type of law that plays a major role in their life. Various national and international laws are taken into consideration. In this context, Tamil women from Jaffna, Mannar and Vanni districts follow Thesavaiamai law for certain cases. Women from other districts follow the common law of the country. This paper studies what kind of problems faced by the Tamil women with regard to the laws related to the Child Rights, Marriage, Matrimonial Rights, Property Rights, Maintenance, Custody, Divorce and Violence. The fourth part of the paper is devoted to examine whether certain reforms have to be introduced to the existing laws for the betterment of the Tamil women especially from Jaffna, Mannar and Vanni districts. The aim of this paper is to make the Tamil women to understand the 'in and outs' of the Sri Lankan Laws pertaining to them and to make them to play a positive role in the Sri Lankan society.