Mixed Marriage in Colonial Burma
Mixed Marriage in Colonial Burma
National Identity and Nationhood at Risk
This chapter explores debates about mixed marriages between Burmese Buddhist women and Indian men in the rapidly changing social, psychological, political, and economic contexts of 1930s Burma. It employs a social psychological perspective to examine the motivational and psychological processes underlying public reactions towards Indo-Burmese marriages. Against the backdrop of an emerging national identity in colonial Burma, such marriages exacerbated national anxieties. Nationalists perceived Indo-Burmese marriages as a breakdown in the homogeneity of the Burmese race and the Buddhist religion, both of which were at the core of their national identity. An analysis of the print media in the 1930s demonstrates how this crisis of national identity influenced nationalist writers’ reactions to mixed marriages. Although they advocated for women’s education and participation in public life, nationalists confined women to the roles of wife and mother, assigning them the responsibility of preserving Burmese race and religion.
Keywords: mixed marriage, Indo-Burmese marriage, social psychological perspective, national identity, print media, race, religion, Burma
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