Women at the center : life in a modern matriarchy / Peggy Reeves Sanday.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sanday, Peggy Reeves

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Minangkabau (Indonesian people)--Social life and customs.

Minangkabau (Indonesian people).

Matriarchy--Indonesia--Sumatera Barat.

Matriarchy.

Indonesia--Sumatera Barat.

Physical Description:

xv, 270 pages : illustrations, map ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2002.

Summary:

Contrary to the declarations of some anthropologists, matriarchies do exist. Peggy Reeves Sanday first went to West Sumatra in 1981, intrigued by reports that the matrilineal Minangkabau -- one of the largest ethnic groups in Indonesia -- label their society a matriarchy. Numbering some four million in West Sumatra, the Minangkabau are known in Indonesia for their literary flair, devotion to Islam, and egalitarian, democratic relationships between men and women.

In Women at the Center Sanday uses her repeated visits to West Sumatra in the closing decades of the twentieth century as the basis for a new definition of matriarchy. From the vantage point of daily life in villages, especially one where she developed close personal ties, Sanday's narrative centers on how the Minangkabau concelve of their world and think humans should behave, along with the practices and rituals they claim uphold their matriarchate.

Women at the Center leaves the reader with a solid sense of the respect for women that permeates Minangkabau culture and gives new life to the concept of matriarchy.

Contents:

"Nature is our teacher". Adat matriarchaat as a world view. The divine queens

Discovering Belubus. Looking toward Mt. Merapi. Diversity in daily life

Celebrating life. Discovering Adat Ibu. Eggi becomes Minangkabau. Exchanging husbands and bananas. Negotiating marriage. Getting married. Songs and the performance of desire

How men uphold matrilineal Adat. Being and becoming a Penghulu. Death of a Penghulu, reprimand of another

Millennial musings. Adat in the twenty-first century. Redefining matriarchy.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-265) and index.

ISBN:

0801440041

OCLC:

48383319