Balinese Hindu Women: Long Struggling Against Stigma

EasyChair Preprint 1255

Abstract

Balinese Hindu women is being marginalized with the following features. Firstly, distributing inheritance asset goes to son only, whereas daughter receives merely gunakaya asset that acquired by her parent during their active working period. Secondly, one of the daughters is asked to pretending son, if no son. The family must get an adopted son from closest relatives as purusha, in case no descendant at all. Thirdly, the women can give birth a boy is favorable. When she cannot give birth to a baby, she will be called men bekung. In contrast, if women can give birth to a baby for several times, she will be called men brayut which means a woman is fertile but cannot look after her children properly. Fourthly, suputra interpretation refers to a boy for good children is contradiction with Manawadharmasastra. A daughter can become suputra as long as she devotes her parent. Such misinterpretation is affected by Jaratkaru a mythology which leads social structure. Fifthly, men of three upper classes (tri wangsa - brahmana, ksatria and wesya), can choose a woman whom he marries. Conversely, the women’ tri wangsa has not the right to marry men from lower class. When they do despite the husband has noble status, she will be called nyerod, or marriage to lower class. This article is resulted from a qualitative research about nyerod marriage. This article tries to explore how Balinese Hindu women struggling their equal status with men.

Keyphrases: Balinese Hindu Women, Cultural Repression, Equality, stigma

@booklet{EasyChair:1255,
  author    = {I Nyoman Segara},
  title     = {Balinese Hindu Women: Long Struggling Against Stigma},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 1255},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2019}}