Religious Norms and Marriage Preferences

Abstract

This thesis seeks to explain the process of homogamy or why like marries like among young Muslim Singaporeans. Theoretically it seeks to reconcile the enduring problems of structure and agency through Bourdieub s conceptual framework. The major concepts used are habitus, field and strategy. Methodologically it uses the logic of the breaching experiment by proxy to illuminate the process via the triggers activated during different stages of the breach. The findings of the thesis concerned not only insight on the process of homogamy, but also that on the difference in the socialization process between Muslim men and women.