By analyzing contraception from a cultural point of view, the author interprets the popularity of sterilization among young women in the area. S v l 's study is based on 14 months of fieldwork in Andhra Pradesh, where fertility is rapidly approaching replacement level, with a total fertility rate of 2.7 children per woman in 1993.
Female sterilization is the most commonly used means of contraception in India.
What Gopalapalli women liked about sterilization is that it provides a permanent end to fertility and cannot be reversed, S v l found. In order to understand why young women consider these features of sterilization as positive characteristics, S v l examined the social relations that affect young wives and explored the cultural notions of the female life cycle. As years go by, young South Indian women tend to turn from timid and insecure girls into persons of considerable influence among their kin and neighbors. The corporeal change that sterilization brings about in the female body is regarded as favorable by young Gopalapalli women. The senior woman, freed from procreation, enjoys the best of female life, having responsibilities toward dependents, being in control of household finances, feeding, and ritual life, and being able to expand her world legitimately into the masculine social sphere.