Christianity, colonization, and gender relations in North Sumatra : a patrilineal society in flux /

Christianity, colonization, and gender relations in North Sumatra : a patrilineal society in flux /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Bemmelen, Sita van, author.
Imprint:Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2018]
Description:xv, 574 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.
Language:English
Series:Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 1572-1892 ; volume 309
Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde ; 309.
Subject:
Toba-Batak (Indonesian people) -- History.
Toba-Batak (Indonesian people) -- Kinship.
Kinship -- Indonesia -- Tapanuli Utara -- History.
Christianity and culture -- Indonesia -- Tapanuli Utara -- History.
Sex role -- Indonesia -- Tapanuli Utara -- History.
Marriage -- Indonesia -- Tapanuli Utara -- History.
Ethnology -- Indonesia -- Tapanuli Utara.
Christianity and culture.
Ethnology.
Kinship.
Marriage.
Sex role.
Toba-Batak (Indonesian people)
Indonesia -- Tapanuli Utara.
History.
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11411362
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9789004345744
9004345744
9789004345751
Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:"Offers an account of changes in Toba Batak society (Sumatra, Indonesia) under the influence of Christianity and Dutch colonial rule (1861-1942). Sita van Bemmelen's research focuses on customs and customary law related to the life cycle and gender relations. The book's first part is a historical ethnography, describing society as it existed at the onset of colonial rule. The second part zooms in on the negotiations between the Toba Batak elite, the missionaries of the German Rhenish Mission and colonial administrators about the marriage customs. Each contestant had an evolving view on desirable modernity. Christianity and colonial rule changed the way the Toba Batak reproduced their patrilineal kinship system. This affected gender relations permanently"--
Other form:Online version: Bemmelen, Sita van, author. Christianity, colonization, and gender relations in North Sumatra Leiden : Brill, [2017] 9789004345751
Table of Contents:
  • Preface and Acknowledgements
  • List of Illustrations, Maps, Graphics and Tables
  • 1. Introduction
  • 1.1. Grand Narratives: Where Do Kinship and Marriage Fit In?
  • 1.2. The Toba Batak
  • 1.3. Discourse, Agency and Modernities
  • 1.4. Kinship: Structure, Process, and Issues
  • 1.5. Composition
  • 1.6. Sources
  • Part 1. A Historical Ethnography
  • 2. The Construction of Toba Batak Gender
  • 2.1. Batak Adat and Its Divine Origin
  • 2.2. The Origin of Mankind and the Creation of the Earth
  • 2.3. Gendered Hierarchies
  • 2.4. The Woman as the Intermediary between Clans
  • 2.5. Prohibited Marriages
  • 2.6. The Most Coveted Union
  • 2.7. Reciprocal Marriage Payments
  • 2.8. The Right Marriage is a Fertile Marriage
  • 2.9. Myth and Reality: Recurrent Themes
  • 2.10. Toba Batak Mythology as a Reflection of Gendered Interests
  • 3. Customary Marriage
  • 3.1. Hypogamy: The Ideal and the Practice
  • 3.2. Reasons for Forging Marital Alliances in the Nineteenth Century
  • 3.3. Fathers, Daughters, and Arranged Marriages
  • 3.4. Courtship and Premarital Sexual Relations
  • 3.5. Bypassing the Fathers
  • 3.6. Never Relinquished by Her Family of Origin
  • 3.7. The Crucial Factor: The Agency of the Daughter
  • 4. Fertility, Mortality and the Pinnacle of Life
  • 4.1. Fertility, Morbidity, and Mortality in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century
  • 4.2. The Concept of a Blessed Life
  • 4.3. Male Progeny and the journey of the Soul
  • 4.4. Joy and Grief
  • 4.5. Strategies to Avert Disaster
  • 4.6. The Male Strategy to Reach the Pinnacle of Life
  • 4.7. Gendered Odds
  • 5. Ruptures: Divorce and Widowhood
  • 5.1. Conflict, War, Mediation, and Jurisdiction
  • 5.2. Toba Batak Legal Terminology
  • 5.3. Unreasonable Dislike of the Spouse and the Material Settlement of Divorce
  • 5.4. Women's Acquiescence
  • 5.5. Adultery and Abduction of a Married Woman
  • 5.6. Children Born out of Wedlock
  • 5.7. Levirate and Sororate: A Mixed Blessing and Men's Convenience
  • 5.8. Gendered Rights and Legal Competence
  • Part 2. Negotiations on Marriage Customs (1830-1942)
  • 6. The Encroachment on the Batak World (1830-1883)
  • 6.1. The Batak World around 1800
  • 6.2. The Invasions of the Padri and Their Impact (1825-1860)
  • 6.3. Conversion to Christianity, Ostracism and 'Dutch Brides'
  • 6.4. Resistance and Conquest (1876-1883)
  • 6.5. Changes in the Balance of Power
  • 6.6. Modes of Encroachment and Their Impact
  • 7. Negotiating the Future Social Order (1881-1885)
  • 7.1. The Batak Mission's Dual Strategy for Transformation
  • 7.2. Rajas and Missionaries as Partners
  • 7.3. The Batak Mission's Aversion to the Brideprice
  • 7.4. The Abolition of the Brideprice Rejected (1884-1886)
  • 7.5. Reluctant Resignation (1885-1911)
  • 7.6. Women's Views on the Brideprice
  • 7.7. The Significance of the Debate
  • 8. Engineering Christian Toba Batak Marriage (1866-1913)
  • 8.1. Customary and Christian Marriage
  • 8.2. Rite de passage at Puberty: Suppression and Replacement
  • 8.3. Enforcing Virginity
  • 8.4. Free Will as a Condition for Marriage
  • 8.5. Crusade against Polygamy
  • 8.6. Divorce: Pragmatism Overruling Dogmatic Constraints
  • 8.7. Alleviation' of the Plight of Widows
  • 8.8. Inheritance Rights for Daughters
  • 8.9. The Process of Negotiation: Give and Take
  • 8.10. The Toba Batak Rajas' Reasons for Cooperation
  • 8.11. Christian Modernity and Toba Batak Marriage
  • 9. Shifting Alliances, Revised Strategies (1892-1913)
  • 9.1. The Lax Implementation of the Christian By-Laws (1892-1913)
  • 9.2. Unified and Codified Law for All Indonesian Christians? (1891-1913)
  • 9.3. The Annexation and Regional Policy on the Christian By-Laws (1906-1913)
  • 9.4. Resignation and a New Church Ordinance
  • 9.5. The Emergence of the Christian Elite
  • 9.6. Widened Horizons and the Elite's Demand for Dutch Education
  • 9.7. A New Strategy: Women's Work for Women
  • 9.8. Conclusions
  • 10. The Secular Takeover (1914-1934)
  • 10.1. Kielstra's Description of Customary Law for Toba Batak Christians (1914)
  • 10.2. Awkward Negotations
  • 10.3. Deadlock (1916-1923)
  • 10.4. The Indigenous or the Government System of Justice for North Tapanuli?
  • 10.5. Vergouwen: Causes of Legal Insecurity
  • 10.6. Vergouwen: Caught between Preservation and Revision of Matrimonial Laws
  • 10.7. Kielstra, Vergouwen, and Evolving 'Ethical' Modernities
  • 11. Administrative Zeal Eroding Customary Marriage (1912-1942)
  • 11.1. The Government's Introduction of the Marriage Registration
  • 11.2. The Batak Mission: Open Support and Tacit Defiance
  • 11.3. Optional Becomes Obligatory
  • 11.4. Effectiveness and Legitimacy
  • 11.5. The State versus the People
  • 12. Dynamite Disputes: Mirror of Change (1923-1939)
  • 12.1. The Irregular Marriage of the Widow Na Leoes (1922-1923)
  • 12.2. The Irregular Marriage of Deserted Nantalia (1936)
  • 12.3. Social Dynamics behind irregular Marriages
  • 12.4. First Wife Marianna Refuses Repudiation (1928)
  • 12.5. Christian First Wife Kamaria Requests a Divorce (1928)
  • 12.6. The Widow Mariam Defends Her Right to Manage the Estate (1930-1935)
  • 12.7. Becoming a Legal Subject in Her Own Right
  • 12.8. Naked Power, Veiled Contestation
  • 12.9. Toba Batak Women Centre Stage
  • 13. Matching Partners (1920-1942)
  • 13.1. Modern Times
  • 13.2. Hamajuon, Education for Girls, and Marriage
  • 13.3. Policies and Anxieties
  • 13.4. Partner Choice: Traditional and New Preferences and Objections
  • 13.5. Were Daughters Educated to Fetch a High Brideprice?
  • 13.6. Fathers' and Daughters' Converging Interests
  • 14. Conclusion: Toba Batak after All
  • 14.1. Evolving Multiple Modernities
  • 14.2. Altered Gendered Options and Entitlements and the Fate of the Toba Batak Patrilineal System under Colonial Rule
  • 14.3. The Long Shadow of the Colonial Past
  • Appendix: List of Interviewed Women
  • Archival Sources
  • Papers Presented at Batak Mission's Conferences
  • Bibliography
  • Index

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