Symbolic Power of Sasak Women as Reflected in the Sasak Marriage Processes

Abstract

The position of women in the Sasak community is often assumed to be weak by most people inside and outside of that community. A number of social and cultural events have been cited as evidence, ranging from soft voice, slow movement to a passive role in the family and domestic sphere. Wedding and its processes are the site in which women's personal and domestic roles symbolically represent women's actual position in the community. In the Sasak community, the wedding processes are labelled as merarik [elopement] and its stages have resulted in conflicting views on women's position. With more rights for groom-to-be to enact the elopement, women are seen as being deprived of their rights to stay single or to choose the grooms. Being eloped without the consent of woman and her parents led to the view that woman is being stolen, downgrading their level to nonhuman materials and prone to domestic violence. Closer, in-depth investigation to the core cultural ideology always reveals new inside perspectives. This is the merit of the article, investigating the actual position of Sasak women in their own cultural tradition. This paper revisits and reviews the true meaning and processes of merarik and how they have actually framed cultural expectations that they have to achieve in the course of life. Ethnography is used for data collection where Sasak weddings are observed and key informants are interviewed. With content and ethnographic analyses, the study shows convincing evidence that Sasak women have strong bargaining positions, stronger than generally assumed.