Marriage Age for Girls
Mar 30th, 2010, in Asides, by Ross
How young can girls be married, NU issues fatwa allowing for marriage below the age of consent.
[post removed]
183 Comments on “Marriage Age for Girls”
-
realest says:
Apparently there’s something wrong with the posting sequence in this thread and i’m unable to edit my post. Regarding this line
Let me ask you a question: Do you tithe? I mean real tithe – a 10% of your income minus taxes – not a few voluntary notes you seal in an envelope.
I would like to retract this statement after i did a quick search on google and realize there’s a fast of david for the muslims too.
-
@Ross:
realest seems to think that children’s “rights” are paramount, so the girl-children should be able to agree to marry rich old brutes as an escape from doing chores on the farm or in the house.
Who are we to judge other’s people choices or methods of getting out of the poverty cycle? It’s more than manual labor – it’s getting out of the poverty cycle for the family, it’s getting a better life for her offspring(instead of marrying another village bum) and it’s definitely a shortcut for a higher social status even if it means by being someone else’s prize underage wife.
First, as a recent case showed, they may well not agree, and second, even if they say that such a life is just fine, should we permit it.
Who are we to dictate people that they should live their whole life(and their children and their grandchildren) being poor and hungry so the world could give them a thumbs-up for standing up against pedophile(here i’ll use a nice word which you’re comfy with)? For me and, i would like to believe, the majority of the world, money is a great deal of importance. An underage girl marrying a rich old man would endure at most a few weeks of pain and at most 5 years of shame before she became the envy of her circle. After those years, she would’ve forgotten how poor she used to be and by that time everyone would’ve forgotten she became a so-called victim of ‘pedophilia’.
I wouldn’t let my kids play on the jalan tol if they’d wanted to, nor would my Dad have agreed that I shoot the windows out of the hen-house though I then felt it was a grand thing to do.
Children are parents’ responsiblity, until lthey reach adulthood.
When does that begin? Some countries say 17, 18, 21, but does anyone truly think it starts at 10 or 12?
The converse of all this, of course, remains what parents shoould be able to do to or with their children.
Educate them as they see fit? Yes, and that should include home-schooling if the schools available are unacceptable.
Chastise them when naughty? Yes. Sell them for sex with rich creepoids? No.So you feel real smart about telling people how to live their lives. Let me give u a scenario:
Your son is getting bullied in school. Normally you’ve 3 choices – retaliate, ignore or tell the teachers.
Retaliate – ou’ll be teaching your son that violence solves problems
Ignore – you’ll scar deep traumas into your child and potentially create socio-phobias.
Tell the teachers – your son will be labeled a rat and alienated by his peers or even attract more bullying.
What’s your solution? Pick one or add your own independent answer, and i guarantee there will be reasonable counters i could shoot down your solution with.There are reasonable pardons why parents generally doesn’t like to be told what to do with their children –
a) it undermines their abilities as parents and
b) they’re the ones who will be suffering(or rejoicing) in the consequences they make teaching specific life lessons. They’re the ones who will share their children’s joys and sorrows, not the voyeurs telling them what they think they should do.@venna:
Let me ask you a question: Do you tithe? I mean real tithe – a 10% of your income minus taxes – not a few voluntary notes you seal in an envelope.
I would like to retract this statement cos i just did a quick search on google and realize there’s also a fast of david for muslims. In any case i hope you get the point i’m trying to make.
-
I don’t know, leaving the economy / poverty issue aside, I guess what annoys me most is if the parents think that letting their under-aged child be married is OK because the “religion” / “religious leaders” said it’s OK. If we just let this trend to continue at one point they will think it’s a norm / acceptable / part of culture…, no?
-
venna says:
Wow, I live on the moon? So each month I cut my income automatically for 2.5% as one of my compulsory thing based on what I believe, and still send some amount of money to help some in java (i don’t have to explain details, right?) and it makes me living on the moon? damn. I should knew it!
How is the way to go back to Earth? Oh, using my own money as what I want, except the tax. And hell with those girls and those good gold diggers. Hell too with those rich folks. I have my own money, I will keep it for myself.I don’t have maid, because I don’t need them, and I used to do everything by myself. But if I am back living in Jakarta and need a maid, I don’t mind paying her for 1 million if I have to, especially if I am satisfied with her work. Not big deal, it’s still cheaper than here anyway. And if I found a young maid that is smart and potential, I will support her to continue her school and let her fly away if she wants to. I always can find another maid, but ignoring a potential girl just because I want to keep her as my maid, that’s what you should call as retarded.
One more thing. If I am back to Indonesia, I will meet that local big shot guy again (a chinese moslem, coincidentally) who helped me long time ago. I’ll say to him that he was retarded by letting me go without taking advantage on me. Damn, how come he was so altruistic like that and inspired me to do the same thing now? He should used me! Oh, it’s just so wrong, wrong, wrong….
Sorry, but we are really have the opposite view on this topic. I insist that married young is not the only way to cut poverty. And if I’m in the position of those old rich men, I will use different approach. Rather than simply accepting them (young girls) that come to me and ask me to make them as my wife, I will encourage them to finish their school first and enjoy their childhood. If I can have more wives with my money, why I cannot spend a little just to help a girl finish her school and enjoy her childhood time? Is it too urgent for a man to have a 10 yrs old wife soon rather than waiting a little bit while, giving her a chance that she will never dream before?
But by the way, aside from this debate, I really appreciate you as a good debate partner. I can see from what you wrote there’s something exceptional about you, and that is nice. Nothing personal here, okay?
-
Bottomline it’s for the daughter’s own good. What’s wrong with wishing for a better life??
__________
Nothing wrong with that, except if people keep making excuse to continue this practice when they know there’s another alternative. As I said before, underage marriage is not only caused by the poverty. It is already a habit, and they keep doing it even they are rich enough to send their daughters to school! I really oppose this practice! It’s time for girls to have better chance, the same as the boys. There’s nothing to do with boys become sole breadwinner and girls doing the opposite. Point is: girls should have the same chance and access to education as boys. And if some people point fingers at me just because I oppose this and labels me as less-islamic because I oppose the old-fashioned practice, so be it. I don’t give a damn.
__________
I’m talking about maids, let’s leave corporate stuff to high-end folks.
__________
I know, I just emphasize the point about option between bad company and good company. Suppose I have a maid, I will try to apply the same principle as good company does; giving chance to my maid if she shows an interest to go to school, and if she wants to leave, then leave. Let her seek better chance. My world won’t be doomed just because I loose a maid.
__________
Trying to get out of poverty is survival, so stop all this “if they have an education” bullshit because they will never have one.
__________
Again, I don’t have any problem with people trying to survive. Me myself, at some point, also have strong survival instinct. But I got more advantage and better chance just because one simple subject in our educational curriculum: english.So, I keep saying “Education” here, it is not a bullshit. True, they will never have one. That’s because no one trying to open an access for them, especially people who have capacity and power to do that. That’s what you should call as bullshit. Nothing impossible in the world if you want to make a difference. You can puke now, if you want.
-
Arie Brand says:
ET, you might be interested in what the by now on this thread controversial Encyclopedia (dismissed by Odinius as a form of “Orientalism” in the sense of Edward Said – I will have more to say about this) says elsewhere (under the entry “Balinese”) about marriage in Bali (Vol.I p.89).
“The ordinary mode of marriage in Bali is ‘mepadik’, the purchase of the girl with the consent of both parents, in which the bride price varies from 20 – 100 guilders and can even rise to 600 guilders. It sometimes happens that the lover serves the parents of the girl for a considerable period to gain the bride price. Beside this there is ‘merangkat’, the abduction of the prospective bride with her consent, that is becoming more and more usual in many regions. ‘Melegandang’, the stealing of the prospective bride against her will is not rare either ”
Now, do we have a contradiction here with the other item dealing with ‘abduction’? Not if we see the earlier remark in this way that when it came to abduction the customary form of it was this ‘melegandang’. ‘Merangkat’ , abduction with consent of the girl, was, says the entry I am discussing here, becoming more and more usual. So it is conceivable that what the encyclopedia called ‘melegandang’ was more customary in earlier times.
The whole thing is related to another question: how customary was warfare? Because what I understand from your account of Hobart et al the violent stealing of the prospective bride was allowed in warfare. I read comments about continuous internal warfare but people of the ‘orientalist’ conviction tend to dismiss these as the colonial construction of Balinese society as violent and chaotic (Van Bloemen Waanders, the first Dutch administrator there, threw up his hands in despair on what he perceived as the chaos around him – but he was of course also infected with colonial ideas – it is a rather primitive form of the sociology of knowledge that insists on dismissing early observations of Balinese society in these terms).
-
Odinius, you who are so fond of referring people back to the school benches, might profit from a little period there yourself. Your facile sociology of knowledge that tends to dismiss early observations of ‘the East’ as fitting in the framework of colonialsm, paternalism and imperialism is of course very fashionable – or rather was because the debate triggered off by Said’s “Orientalism” has produced a somewhat more nuanced picture of the situation.
Though the believers in this ‘sociology of knowledge’ tend to refer to Foucault and the early Habermas their notions are mostly governed by a sort of vulgar Marxism in which knowledge is perceived as subservient to the interests of the ruling class – in the colonial situation the colonial overlords. What is totally dismissed here is the idea of knowledge pursued in a diasinterested way, the kind of knowledge that people who do not share in the productive process, Mannheim’s “free floating intelligentsia”, might gain – even though Mannheim’s concept ultimately also fits into a Marxist framework.
I have myself, in various publications, emphasized Weber’s (and Heinrich Rickert’s) distinction between value orientation and value judgment on which Weber’s conception of “value free” sociology was based.But back to Said (who of course mainly spoke of Orientalism in relation to the Middle East but whose ideas have been applied further afield).
Bernard Lewis has, in his polemic against Said, asked what the use of the deciphering of the early Egyptian language was to imperial interests. It could only foster among Egyptians an enhanced pride in their past and be conducive to nationalism. Building on this example I can ask how, for instance, the nineteenth century Dutch preoccupation with the Borobudur served colonial interests.
Its early further digging out was due to the care of the Jogya Society of Antiquarians – its detailed description and further restoration was a governmental concern. Lewis’s argument holds here as well. This restoration work could only enhance the pride of the Javanese in their own past and with it stimulate nationalism.
In India such governmental restoration and preservation work was undertaken during Curzon’s administration.
The fault of this vulgar Marxist sociolgoy of knowledge is that colonialism is seen as a monolithic phenomenon whereas in reality there was an amalgama of various and often contradictory interests here. The role of intellectuals was not rarely one of opposition (think of the Dutch “Stuw” group in the Netherlands East Indies of the thirties).
David Price-Jones has highlighted this attitude of opposition in a somewhat generalising (and exaggerated) fashion:
:“Intellectuals in Europe went much further, pleading guilty to all the accusations levelled against them by Third World nationalists. They and their predecessors had always been constant and enthusiastic critics of empire, and now were thrilled to have their diatribes against their own countries thrown back at them, as it were by clever students and disciples. Violence committed by the ruled against the rulers won their applause. This attitude of opposition starts with the delight so widely expressed in Britain over the loss of the American colonies—even the conservative-minded Edmund Burke supported the colonists. Innumerable nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers treated whatever reflected badly on the imperial power as a running scandal—the Indian mutiny, the Governor Eyre episode in Jamaica, Denshawi in Egypt, Amritsar, the Arab revolts in Mesopotamia and Palestine, partition in India, and so on” 1
So is knowledge of the colony closely interwoven with colonial power?
It is ironical that also under a new political dispensation Balinese intellectuals and civil servants seem to hark back to the ideas on Balinese society conceived during the colonial period. Henk Schulte Nordholt wrote:
“Despite the large number of anthropologists working on Bali and their impressive production of knowledge about its society it is striking that all this seems to have little impact on local perceptions, that is, the way Balinese intellectuals conceptualize their own society. Instead, old colonial conceptions about Bali are still being reproduced among modern Balinese intellectuals and especially government officials, either in reports by government institutions and government-sponsored research projects, or in university courses and seminars. Among Balinese bureaucrats and intellectuals interested in their own society the Dutch administrator and ethnographer Viktor Korn is better known than Clifford Geertz.” 2
For Schulte Nordholt who, in the fashion of the times, believes in the close relation between knowledge and power, this seems to amount to a form of false consciousness. The possibility that Balinese intellectuals might have recognised some validity in the earlier conceptions is not even considered.
1. David Price-Jones (2008), “Enough Said” Review of Ibn Warraq, Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism, New Criterion (Jan.)
2. Henk Schulte Nordholt (1999), “The Making of Traditional Bali – Colonial Ethnography and Bureaucratic Reproduction”, in O.Salemink, Colonial Subjects: Essays on the Practical History of Anthropology, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.
-
Ross says:
I think the above is a wind-up,.Nobody really writes in that kind of pseudo-intellectual prose, do they? Oigal, is that you? Having a laugh, are we?
-
Ross your motto seems to be, with a variation on that of S.A.leader Roehm, ‘when I hear the word culture I reach for my beer bottle’. You have made your redneck proclivities sufficiently clear. No need to go overboard about them.
-
Praise indeed from one who condones by his silence the Climate Creep Jones’ callous gloating over the death of a man innocent in all respects except that he dared challenge the intellectual in-crowd.
Most of us rednecks are not quite as mean-spirited as some of you academics up there in your ivory towers.
I notice elsewhere on IM you are still bobbing and weaving, rather than answering.
So here’s your chance -do you condemn Jones’ behaviour or not? -
Oigal says:
Verbose and unreadable, the bastard mutant twins of the pseudo-intellectual.
‘when I hear the word culture I reach for my beer bottle’
Indeed, one should be careful when faced with the great dutch cultural legacies of the ages..eer..wait..Who needs wooden shoes anyway..what were they thinking?
Still reaching for your beer bottle is better than enslaving a nation to get someone else to pour it for you.
-
bs says:
Ross, I think he’s just just an anthropologist.
They have to resort to this sort of woolly writing because otherwise there is nothing to distinguish them from “laymen” writing “prose”.
Try reading Clifford Geertz and notice how he has a very complex way of describing otherwise interesting things happening in Indonesia. These people study years to achieve such a level of woolliness.But anyway, in 2008 a housemate from Lombok told me that when he would be back in Lombok (somewhere near Mataram), he would steal his girl and they would marry.
All of his friends and family did the same thing he said.
Right next to Bali and not really ancient history. -
To return to serious matters, and a credible opponent, realist, are you really saying what you seem to be saying, viz., that anyone in diffculties should do whatever it takes to get three squares a day? or even a perfectly adequate one!
There is no excuse for any parent to betray their responsibility to their children by selling them, as slaves or child-brides or anything else. Surely that is not open to debate? or is it, in your eyes?
It is not a case of my ‘feeling real smart’ and telling parents how to raise their children. Each parent has his or her own perspective, but there has to be a limit, and I think the limit is justifying sexploitation for financial gain. You disagree?
Commenting on IM usually involves suggesting the right or wrong way to do things, but in this case, you ‘feel really smart’ enough to say we parents should have the right, or is it duty, to let an immature little girl climb into bed with a pedophile. Frankly, I don’t think that’s ‘really smart’ at all.
As for your ‘challenge’ on how to handle a problem where your child is bullied, well, in my view, and every parent has to consider the facts of each situation, the best answer is not simply one of the three options you offer-
Certainly forget ignoring the issue.
Your child needs to be given support in terms of standing up forhim/herself. if this means hitting back, okay. I’m all for doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, but I guess turning the other cheek is a Bible verse too far for me. If you face a mugger in an alley, you won’t simper and hand over your cash, you will knee him in the groin and then call the cops.
If he is too big or has mates, you decide how best to handle that! Horses for courses.Similarly, the bully should be dealt with as harshly as circumstances permit. If he has other victims, organise them. If not, then yes, call on adult support, as teachers are meant to be ‘in loco parentis.’ I agree that current school policies are too mealy-mouthed. The cane or the belt administered effectively would sort out a lot of problems.
Okay, work beckons. I’ll let poor old AB get back on his didactic rostrum.
-
The alliance of ignoramuses has come up with a verdict. Wooliness huh? Well let me give you another piece of wooliness in an aphorism of Lichtenberg: “A book is a mirror: If an ass peers into it, you can’t expect an apostle to look out.” It holds for any piece of writing.
Geertz, by the way, writes beautifully clear prose. It takes a real ass not to see that.
-
Arie’s last post was rather interesting I thought, unlike much of what followed it.
-
One of the more interesting reviews of Said’s book was by the late Ernest Gellner, who was professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics. It was published in the Times Literary Supplement of 19th February 1993. I kept a copy though I would have preferred to use it for a different audience.
Gellner refers to some outstanding French figures in the anthropology of the Maghreb such as Emile Masqueray and Robert Montagne. What he has to say about the latter, Odinius, is partticularly to the point. I quote: “Montagne was unquestionably a colonialist, a naval officer who entered scholarship through military (ethnographic) intelligence. What he said about the Berbers was that they both were, and were not, like “us” Europeans: notwithstanding obvious superficial features their society does not resemble our Middle Ages, but it does resemble the ancient Greeks. Most Europeans, I suspect, are more proud of the polis than of the baron’s keep, as their institutional ancestor. Was Montagne guilty of Orientalism? I happen to think he just got it right.”
Said wrote: “..culture played a very important, indeed an indispensable role. At the heart of European culture during the many decades of imperial expansion lay an undeterred and unrelenting Eurocentrism.”
And Gellner comments: “Was this so. Montagne was a colonialist, but he got it right. Fanon was an anti-colonialist, but was closer to metaphysics than to the peasantry. Gide was a critic of colonialism, but his Algeria is simply an erotic fantasy… Truth is not linked to political virtue (either directly or inversely). To insinuate the opposite is to be guilty of that very sin which Said wishes to denounce.”
Anyway, I will leave the stage to the Yahoos. The few intelligent people here are too willing to let them take over.
-
@venna:
our discussion has reached a stalemate. GG.
PS: I don’t support polygamy nor underage marriage but a bitter chapter of my life has taught me what’s it’s like to be poor.@Ross:
that anyone in diffculties should do whatever it takes to get three squares a day? or even a perfectly adequate one!
There’s never a should but i certainly would. No need to get hypocritical about this, mobs pillage, kill and rape in times of crisis(not necessarily economic) even in the land of the free and home of the brave – usa.
There is no excuse for any parent to betray their responsibility to their children by selling them, as slaves or child-brides or anything else. Surely that is not open to debate? or is it, in your eyes?
It is not a case of my ‘feeling real smart’ and telling parents how to raise their children. Each parent has his or her own perspective, but there has to be a limit, and I think the limit is justifying sexploitation for financial gain. You disagree?
Commenting on IM usually involves suggesting the right or wrong way to do things, but in this case, you ‘feel really smart’ enough to say we parents should have the right, or is it duty, to let an immature little girl climb into bed with a pedophile. Frankly, I don’t think that’s ‘really smart’ at all.
I’ve discussed this at length with venna – lifting the family’s stature, breaking the cycle of poverty for later generations of offspring …. etc. The family doesn’t really get all that much – maybe a brand new fridge, a color tv, maybe aircon and an insignificant lump sum of money. Old perps don’t become rich by being stupid.
Certainly forget ignoring the issue.
Your child needs to be given support in terms of standing up forhim/herself. if this means hitting back, okay. I’m all for doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, but I guess turning the other cheek is a Bible verse too far for me. If you face a mugger in an alley, you won’t simper and hand over your cash, you will knee him in the groin and then call the cops.
If he is too big or has mates, you decide how best to handle that! Horses for courses.Similarly, the bully should be dealt with as harshly as circumstances permit. If he has other victims, organise them. If not, then yes, call on adult support, as teachers are meant to be ‘in loco parentis.’ I agree that current school policies are too mealy-mouthed. The cane or the belt administered effectively would sort out a lot of problems.
My folks taught me to give up my wallet saying it’s not worth our lives, even if it’s a scrawny kid with a rusty knife. Burglars and thieves would kill their victims for a little money and to eliminate witness; read the local paper :/ We rather be seen as weak and cowardly alive than a hero ending up in a body bag. Our forefathers didn’t brave plague, hunger and months of crossing the sea to see their children die over a wallet.
And the presence of bullying are sporadic and has nothing to do with school policies. You prolly get the same treatment in society, minus the violence though. -
Ouch Patung, taking sides now
AB…There is the problem with the “latte would be if they could bes” Ignore the yahoos at your peril. As a so called student of history I thought you might have picked that up.
-
ET says:
@ Arie Brand
Did you ever read Max Havelaar?
Even more than once.
Although not a scholarly work, for those who are interested in VOC and colonial times in Indonesia I may also recommend Arthur Van Schendel’s historical novel John Company. Van Schendel, a Dutch writer who was born in Batavia in 1874, pictures a well documented portrait of daily life during this era.
Odinius is right with his remark on paternalist encyclopedia writings in the 18th and 19th century. After all this was the era in which the philosophical basis for white supremacy (sic) was established, which later on led to the rise of racist doctrines. Therefore they should be taken with a grain of salt and read from a critical perspective, notwithstanding the undeniable reputation and disinterested devotion of many of its contributors.
The whole thing is related to another question: how customary was warfare? Because what I understand from your account of Hobart et al the violent stealing of the prospective bride was allowed in warfare.
Warfare an squirmishes between the kingdoms seemed to happen quite often. But Hobart et al. clearly stated that melegandang or capture of girls during wartime was a privilege of the nobility who accounted for no more than a small percentage of the population. This leads one to believe that the practice couldn’t have been widespread.
Van Bloemen Waanders, the first Dutch administrator there, threw up his hands in despair on what he perceived as the chaos around him
Yes, I know that feeling.
-
@ realest
I’m not going to repeat all of your arguments but somehow I am glad not having to count you among my ancestors who took to the streets to demand and fight for social justice. With a mentality like yours they might as well have sold their daughters, including my grandmother, to the capitalists.
-
Hi All,
What did the Prophet Muhammad think about the marriage age for girls ?
Any opinions about the relatively young age of his wives ?
-
What did the Prophet Muhammad think about the marriage age for girls ?
Probably not much. He only did what Allah told him in his dreams.
-
As far as I know, age is not specifically mentioned by the prophet in marriage topic. Prophet himself had wives with these specific categories : widows, a virgin, and a slave. When he marrying Aisyah, some literature said that she was 6 yrs, and be brought to his home at 9 yrs. Some sources said it was only a myth and her age was around 12-14, or even 15-18. But, the most popular one is the 6-9 yrs range.
However, there is no specific source that said he suggested to marry underage girls. What prophet said related to this was marrying a virgin would bring happiness to a man. And I haven’t found any source that indicate his close friends followed his step by marrying 6-9 yrs old girl too. Nothing about it. So it is still not clear and could be a myth, in my opinion. CMIIW.
I think most people will see it as disturbing when they read about a 50 yrs old man marrying a 6-7 yrs girl. And of course it will be more disturbing if later it becomes a tradition, just like Diego said, without even thinking of its cultural context and the cause why he doing it. Unfortunately, that is what we often found in society; people use this as an excuse to justify their act.
-
Any other opinions out there on marrying a 6-9 yr old girl ?
-
E.T. it is not very helpful to just repeat Odinius’ assertion, completely ignoring what I wrote on the matter (as indeed does Odinius).
The main point was that knowledge about Asia gathered during the colonial period should not be regarded as specifically ‘tainted’. As Gellner said, about Algeria, the ‘colonialist’ Montagne got it right whereas many anti-colonialists came up with inadequate views.
Incidentally, neither you nor Odinius provide examples of all those eighteenth and nineteenth century encyclopedias that allegedly because of their paternalistic and patronising writings laid the basis for racist doctrines. You apparently just assume that these existed.
But in fact the most famous eighteenth century Encyclopedia of all, that to which Denis Diderot sacrificed twenty years of his life, is very laudatory about China as, indeed, is Voltaire’s “Philosophical Dictionary”.
About Bali: I still believe that Hobart et al. got it wrong about wife stealing being, in actual practice (as different from the doctrine about it), an aristocratic privilege. I prefer to cling to the version of my ‘colonial’ encyclopedia.
About Dutch novels on the Indies: the American-Dutch academic Professor E.M.Beekman, has organised the translation of a number of them. Here they are:
L. Couperus. E. M. Beekman, ed. The Hidden Force. Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. Revised and edited, with an introduction and notes by E. M. Beekman.
E.M. Beekman, ed. Fugitive Dreams: An Anthology of Dutch Colonial Literature.
P. A. Daum. Ups and Downs of Life in the Indies. Translated by Donald and Elsje Sturtevant. Edited with and introduction and notes by E. M. Beekman.
E. du Perron. Country of Origins. Translated by Francis Bulhof and Elizabeth Daverman. Introduction and notes by Francis Bulhof.
E. M. Beekman, ed. Two Tales of the East Indies.
Maria Dermoût. The Ten Thousand Things. Translated by Hans Koning. Afterword by E. M. Beekman. Out of Print.
A. van Schendel. John Company. Translated with an introduction by Frans van Rosevelt. Edited with notes by E. M. Beekman.
A. Alberts. The Islands. Translated by Hans Koning. Edited with an introduction and notes by E. M. Beekman.
Rob Nieuwenhuys. Mirror of the Indies: A History of Dutch Colonial Literature. Translated by Frans van Rosevelt. Edited by E.M. Beekman.
E. Breton de Nijs. Faded Portraits. Translated by Donald and Elsje Sturtevant. Introduction and Notes by E. M. Beekman.
Multatuli. Max Havelaar: Or The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company. Translated by Roy Edwards. Introduction by D. H. Lawrence. Afterword by E. M. Beekman. Out of print.
E. M. Beekman, ed. The Poison Tree: Selected Writings of Rumphius on the Natural History of the Indies.
For me the most important ones are Couperus’ “The Hidden Force”, a story of incest and guna guna, and Du Perron’s “Country of Origin”. Du Perron’s novel is semi-autobiographical. It is only partly set in the Indies where he spent his youth – the other part is mainly about his Parisian friends of whom Andre Malraux, who dedicated his novel ‘La Condition Humaine’ to him, was the most well known.
I have also a weakness for the novels by P.A.Daum of which there is unfortunately only one translation in the list. They don’t have the same literary merit as those by Couperus and Du Perron but Daum, who was a newspaper editor in nineteenth century Batavia , knew how to tell a tale and from a sociological point of view his novels are quite revealing.
Rob Nieuwenhuys has published a splendid book with old photographs (many of them by Page & Wood, nineteenth century photographers in Batavia) called Tempo Doeloe. He is also the author, under the alias Breton de Nijs, of the novel ‘Faded Portraits’ in the Beekman list. ‘Faded Portraits’ is set in the upper ranks of Indo-Belanda society in which Nieuwenhuys spent his youth (his father was manager of the famous colonial Hotel Des Indes – incidentally a name suggested by Multatuli).
-
Odinius says:
Arie,
This strawman:
Odinius, you who are so fond of referring people back to the school benches, might profit from a little period there yourself. Your facile sociology of knowledge that tends to dismiss early observations of ‘the East’ as fitting in the framework of colonialsm, paternalism and imperialism is of course very fashionable – or rather was because the debate triggered off by Said’s “Orientalism” has produced a somewhat more nuanced picture of the situation.
…is unhelpful in the type of discussion you are trying to have. It is pompous, demonstrates only superficial engagement with the critique and, frankly, boring. As such, I’d ask that you both lighten up a bit and take a little more care when reading what other people write in response to you.
Had you done so, you might realize that I did not say you were wrong–actually, I tend to agree with the idea that “culture” is a loose and frequently misapplied concept. Said essentializes culture, which is one of the reasons I don’t care for his academic work. So what did I actually say, if I didn’t say you were wrong?
Had you read more carefully, you’d see I asked you to make your point citing sources–like Henk Schulte Nordholt, a man I have great respect for–that are not tainted by the racist project of high colonialism. Incidentally, he would probably agree with my assessment of colonial anthropology as sometimes useful, but only after the context in which it was written into account, and particularly the constitutive role official academia played in sustaining and legitimating the moral order of high colonialism.
This is, incidentally, the same bar that applies to the “official histories” of the Orde Baru and any number of other political projects.
I understand from your series of 1,000 word rationalizations of Dutch colonialism that you don’t share this critical eye. But surely you understand, from having academic conversations, that most–including Dutch scholars–consider sensitivity to such matters of the utmost importance. As such, you should be used to hearing mild criticisms that can be answered by providing sources not considered “tainted” by the colonial project.
-
Hi All,
What did the Prophet Muhammad think about the marriage age for girls ?
Any opinions about the relatively young age of his wives ?
Probably not too differently from what the norms were in Europe, China and elsewhere at the time. Child marriage was something nobles and elites did frequently, until we modern types figured out that it’s really exploitative.
-
madrotter says:
And don’t forget the books by Madelon H. Lulofs Szekely! Rubber, Coolie are translated… Lots of colonial folks got very upset over her books where she described the lives of the Dutch planters and the suffering of the local people…
My favorite so far has to be E. Du Perron’s Country of Origins, his depictions of life in The Indies are incredible and so recognizable, still now…
-
I’ve actually read several of the stories Old Ass Burn mentions, Fugitive Dreams and Country of Origin, but that should not be allowed to exculpate me from the charge of ‘redneck.’
I do take exception, however, to Patung’s predilection for said AB, whose contributions are outstandingly boring. Whatever useful content they may have is obscured by his supercilious and verbose style.
It’s all the more galling, Patung, when you suggest that my spare posts need padding out with your researches!
If I need padding, AB needs squeezing. Please edit energetically!
Comment on “Marriage Age for Girls”.
Copyright Indonesia Matters 2006-2025
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Contact
@Ross:
Who are we to judge other’s people choices or methods of getting out of the poverty cycle? It’s more than manual labor – it’s getting out of the poverty cycle for the family, it’s getting a better life for her offspring(instead of marrying another village bum) and it’s definitely a shortcut for a higher social status even if it means by being someone else’s prize underage wife.
Who are we to dictate people that they should live their whole life(and their children and their grandchildren) being poor and hungry so the world could give them a thumbs-up for standing up against pedophile(here i’ll use a nice word which you’re comfy with)? For me and, i would like to believe, the majority of the world, money is a great deal of importance. An underage girl marrying a rich old man would endure at most a few weeks of pain and at most 5 years of shame before she became the envy of her circle. After those years, she would’ve forgotten how poor she used to be and by that time everyone would’ve forgotten she became a so-called victim of ‘pedophilia’.
So you feel real smart about telling people how to live their lives. Let me give u a scenario:
Your son is getting bullied in school. Normally you’ve 3 choices – retaliate, ignore or tell the teachers.
Retaliate – ou’ll be teaching your son that violence solves problems
Ignore – you’ll scar deep traumas into your child and potentially create socio-phobias.
Tell the teachers – your son will be labeled a rat and alienated by his peers or even attract more bullying.
What’s your solution? Pick one or add your own independent answer, and i guarantee there will be reasonable counters i could shoot down your solution with.
There are reasonable pardons why parents generally doesn’t like to be told what to do with their children –
a) it undermines their abilities as parents and
b) they’re the ones who will be suffering(or rejoicing) in the consequences they make teaching specific life lessons. They’re the ones who will share their children’s joys and sorrows, not the voyeurs telling them what they think they should do.