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is most likely. Moreover, a populous ancestor-group would contain enough
second cousins to permit sonic individual choice.
But a second, and 1 think preferable, speculation returns to the logic of relationship mentioned earlier. If all goes well, first-cousin marriage - the nearest union that is not incestuous - confirms the sanctity of the parties involved and is thought to please the ancestors. It blends the ancestral qualities of father and mother alike in an ascendant collateral line. Yet this auspicious union is risky for the persons involved, who should be of exceptional merit to attempt it. Especially in groups which follow high-caste traditions, if the eldest son marries his first cousin, they produce superior offspring of the highest line who are titled accordingly. Eldest sons in particular might even practice patriparallel-cousin polygyny (cf. Belo 1936) which, if fruitful, concentrates ancestral power (sakti) and manpower in the most prestigious genealogical space. Thus, wherever optional rules against first-cousin marriage are applied to an entire level of society within a given locality, we can assume that the social segment in question is regarded as insufficiently elevated to sustain such a sacred match. Moreover, ad hoc rules in a particular ancestor-group apply the same principle, not to the group as a whole but to different individuals depending on their ritual and religious qualities. In this light, second-cousin marriage becomes an advantageous compromise not only in strategical but also in religious terms. It is not as incestuous, nor as godlike - both approximately the same thing. Therefore, it is less dangerous for the mortals contracting it than first-cousin unions. In short, patriparallel-secondcousin (mindon) marriage reduces the individual, social, and cultural drawbacks of a patriparallel-first-cousin marriage while retaining many of its advantages. Mindon marriage permits a range of choice and often avoids parental enforcement between the few qualified first cousins. It can strengthen endoalliances between collateral lines, and it combines in descendants ancestral worth through both the mother and father without overdoing it. In other words, experts in high-caste esoterica who place extra weight on the advantages of second-cousin marriage thereby free firstcousin marriage to represent a more sacred-dangrous union suitably only for relatively higher, more godlike sublines or individuals of a given group or for superior strata of the whole society. Sociological restrictions on the marriage norms thus harmonize with Bah's hierarchical cosmology and correlate with native views of the inadequacy of ordinary personalities to cope with a marriage so charged with religious implications. The primary significance of patriparallel-cousin marriage preferences is status differentiation.
Just how a Balinese actor approaches his culture's marriage predicament depends on his or her ritual-status ambitions or group interests. Values on individual love support the institution of marriage by capture, sociologically costly because the woman
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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 |
