Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman

Author:Rita Golden Gelman
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307421746
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

One day when we are talking about marriage in Bali, Tu Aji tells me that Balinese men often have women other than their wives. (Although Tu Aji has two wives and his brother has five, it is no longer legal for a man to marry more than one woman, unless the first wife gives permission, or if she cannot have children. The courts decide.)

I ask Tu Aji if the wives know about the other women.

“The wives know and don’t know,” he says. “They see but they don’t see.” He holds his hand, the fingers wide open, in front of his eyes.

One of the reasons Balinese wives choose not to see is that there is little they can do about it. Women are second-class citizens. They do not inherit; instead, when a woman marries, she must move from her father’s home to the home of her husband’s family, where she is totally dependent on them. There is a tearful ceremony at which the bride, flanked by her parents, says good-bye to her ancestors, to whom she has always prayed. From that point on, she will pray and give offerings to her husband’s ancestors, and serve her mother-in-law as well.

The place of women is obvious at celebrations, on the street, in the homes. On ceremonial occasions, they sit lower (pavilions have different heights) and are served their meals after the men. And I have also heard stories about wife beatings. Yet, divorce in Bali is only about 2 percent, probably because if the woman leaves the marriage, the children are legally the property of the husband’s family.

It is difficult for me to accept this inequality, but I do not permit myself to dwell on it. I too must learn how to see and not see. As a guest in this culture, my role is to observe, not to judge.

One day, when our conversation centers on women, Tu Aji tells me that, like all women in Bali, Tu Biang has a much closer relationship with the gods and the ancestors than he does. She communicates with them daily.

Every morning Tu Biang pours coffee, sweetened with sugar, into twenty-five tiny orange cups that are arranged on a tray. Then she puts the coffee and sticks of incense into the altars, most of which are in the family temple. (Every home in Bali has a family temple with altars to the gods and the ancestors.) The smell of the incense alerts the spirits that coffee has been served. Being spirits, they only take the essence of the coffee, and later of the rice, which explains why there is still coffee in the cups and rice in the containers at the end of the day.

In addition to their special relationship with the ancestors, women also have close connections to what is going on in this world. Each morning before eight, vendors arrive in the puri with their wares on their heads and the village secrets on their tongues. Women selling vegetables, fruit, and squirming eels snatched from the rice paddies also carry with them the news and gossip of the night before.

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