Kédang - Marriage and Family

Marriage. Most marriages now involve at least one person who is Catholic or Muslim, and the formal ceremony of that religion is followed. Formerly there was no wedding ceremony, although marriage entailed and still entails an elaborate series of exchanges over a period that may exceed the lifetimes of the husband and wife. These exchanges correspond in pattern to prescribed asymmetric marriage alliance. This rule gets its clearest expression in social classification, ritual, and behavior of the linked families rather than in the overall configuration of actual marriages. The Kédang distinguish wife-giving allies from wife-taking allies. The former are superior to the latter. The mother's close male relatives exercise control over the health and well-being of her children and are regarded by them as divine. Alliance gifts are typically gongs and elephant tusks for the wife givers and fine ikat (tie-dyed) cloths returned to the wife takers. Polygyny is permitted to non-Catholics and has a small but regular incidence. Divorce occurs with some regularity among non-Catholics. It is expected that a newly married couple will reside with the wife's parents for a few months to a year. Thereafter the couple establishes an independent household. When the man and woman come from different villages, they usually settle near the husband's patrilineal kin, but there are many exceptions.

Domestic Unit. Households generally consist of husband, wife and children, plus, at various stages, elderly parents, daughters' husbands, and occasionally grandchildren. Naturally, demographic happenstance varies the pattern.

Inheritance. Wealth objects, buildings, and alliance obligations pass down through the male line.

Socialization. Children are cared for both by parents and by other relatives, and are rarely subjected to physical punishment. Parents observe restrictions regarding their movements, use of water, and cutting of hair following a child's birth. There are no rites of passage (except those of Islam and Catholicism) associated with maturation and aging from the ending of this period of restriction until youth and early adulthood, when the teeth sometimes are filed and blackened. Teeth blackening is now disappearing. Age is characteristically associated with authority. An elder must be shown respect. Elders within the clan supervise its affairs. Those in the mother's clan have an authority colored by their life-giving attributes and spiritual influence.