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is lost for purposes of alliance. Ritual responses of outrage allow the
captured woman's group to deny any hypergamous implications. Romantic marriage
by mock capture, so frequent in present-day Bali, runs contrary both to
sacred ancestral interests and to political alliances. But even opponents
of a given elopement agree that individual will commands respect and that
denying love might jeopardize both the religious well-being and the political
advancement of the ancestor group anyway. In contrast, prearranged out marriage
reaps practical alliance benefits; yet it runs two risks - displeasing the
ancestors for not keeping a daughter and causing the storied psychological
repercussions of enforced marriage. The marriage sacred to the godly ancestors,
yet potentially dangerous for the mortal descendants involved and instrumental
as an alliance only to the extent the group in question is threatened by
internal sedition, is 'family marriage.'
Psychological ordeal To appreciate the real psychological conflicts implied in this scheme, consider the following 1972 case study of individual-romance versus enforced-family marriage. The case involves a high school senior girl from an elevated Sudra ancestor-group and a male age peer from one of the largest Brahmana groups in the district. Only the girl's elder brother's endogamous wife knew of her well requited love. This woman had long facilitated the couple's rendezvous in her houseyard., a romantic at heart and an incurable gossip, she supported their marriage plans to the end. The girl's parents adamantly opposed what might have been a desirable hypergamous union. Disregarding the rather ephemeral honor of placing a daughter in a Brahmana group, they chose instead to insure permanent contact with her by means of an ancestor-plea sing family marriage. She was betrothed to a thirty-two year old uncle (FFBS) and, lest she elope with the Brahmana, was packed off to Jakarta to await the wedding day in the uncle's company. The family thus hoped to stimulate her increased affection for this professionally promising relative. As reports of the daughter's ceaseless tears filtered back to Bali, the parents of the couple - both sets were in favor of the family marriage - deliberated over how to categorize the delicate situation. The fact that she was living away from home with her future spouse normally would suggest marriage by capture. But the enforced elopement had never been officially announced to the girl's parents, since intraancestor group mock-abduction is proscribed. The ever present danger of a counter capture by her high-caste true love precluded their allowing the couple home in time for the prearrangement visitations between the two ancestral divisions. A week before the projected wedding date, the failure to make the formal announcement was already raising many eyebrows. The elders were sore pressed to opt for one of two undesirable poses in order to save face. Was it capture, meaning that when the couple returned, the girl would proceed directly to the boy's house, making this appear to outsiders, and ancestors, an unprecedented rift in the group's internal affairs Or
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Manpower Ritual responses Individuals Structuralist Systematically Sudra Groups Conceptual Royal Blood Cultural argument Essential Dramatic Bali providing Brahmana Traditions God Guru Generalizations Raffles Chandala Guided Van Den Broek Polygamy Confessional The Revenues Champions Romance Authority European Temporal Perspectives Administrator Sociological Calculations Ownership |
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we must point out a very important distinction which the Balinese make between
two clearly separate groups of ancestors. The first of these groups consists
of the dead who are riot yet completely purified. This group is in turn subdivided
in pirata, those riot yet cremated, and pitara, those already cremated. The
former are still completely impure; the latter have been purified, but are still
considered as distinct, individual souls. The second group consists of the completely
purified ancestors who are considered as divine. Everything Bali Indonesia |
