Work

Desiring Family Ties: Marriage, Class, and Care in the Life Stories of Young, Lower-Class Newlyweds in Indonesia

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: Recent trends in marriage include delaying marriage, the rise of singlehood, and romantic or companionate marriage. In studying these developments, including in Indonesia, anthropologists have largely focused on urban, educated, middle class youth, where ideals of romantic love and couple-focused fulfilment are evident. To broaden this perspective, this article focuses on the experiences of young, lower-class, low-income newlyweds. Drawing on diverse ethnographic life stories from Indonesia (metropolitan Java, rural West Sumatra, and coastal Papua), we show that marital ideas and practices stressed broader family expectations and social legitimacy, social and economic forms of care, and interdependence with extended kin. They did not generally express middle class romantic and companionate notions of love or marriage. These accounts highlight the salience of everyday material, social and economic aspects of care in marriage that have received less consideration recently due to the anthropological interest in romance, intimacy, and care as loving attention.

Source: Ethnos

DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2024.2404855

Authors: Jenny Munro, Lyn Parker, Dyah Rahayuningtyas, Tengku Syawila Fithry, Yohana Baransano

Institutions: The University of Queensland, Australian National University, The University of Western Australia, University of Brawijaya

Language: English

Topic: Marriage and Family Dynamics

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: Australian Research Council

Award: Social, economic and health vulnerabilities in Indonesia