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Peggy Reeves Sanday
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Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy Paperback – 16 October 2003

by Peggy Reeves Sanday (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars 9
Edition: 1st
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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, business acumen, and egalitarian, democratic relationships between men and women. 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 is centered on how the Minangkabau conceive 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.

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  1. ISBN-10
    0801489067
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0801489068
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Cornell University Press
  5. Publication date
    16 October 2003
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    15.54 x 2.06 x 23.5 cm
  8. Print length
    290 pages
  9. See all details
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Review

''This fascinating, richly documented work is an invaluable contribution not only to anthropology but to a better understanding of human possibilities. It dispels the notion that society always has been and always will be male dominated. It shows that societies where women have power are not mirror images of patriarchy but societies where both women and men benefit from an ethos of peace and accommodation The importance of these findings cannot be overemphasized in a world where relations based on domination rather than partnership threaten us, our children, and our future.''-Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and The Blade and The Power of Partnership

About the Author

Peggy Reeves Sanday is R. Jean Brownlee Endowed Term Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her many books include Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System, A Woman Scorned: Acquaintance Rape on Trial, and Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cornell University Press; 1st edition (16 October 2003)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 290 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0801489067
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0801489068
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.54 x 2.06 x 23.5 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 out of 5 stars 9

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Roos Van Espen
1.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected
Reviewed in Germany on 25 December 2021
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I expected the book to explain the life of the Minangkabau people; how do the women perform their roles, what is the relationship between men and women like, and how do they live their matriarchal lives in light of Islam? So I was very excited when I came along this book. I wanted to know how they run their daily lifes, how do they take care of kids, how about work, meetings,...? Unfortunately, the author is only interested in the animalistic songs and poems of the forefathers that are still used among many of them, and how they perform some of the ancient animalistic customs.
Not what I expected at all. The author wasn't interested in their Islamic life, she didn't want to know how they kept both in honor (she regularly says that they honor both, on which she continues explaining the animalistic habits). I would have loved to know much much more, but it looked to me that only a very small part of their lives were being described in the book. Birth ceremony, and marriage ceremony for example. While I was interested in daily life, not in ceremonies. It is like explaining atheistic European life by describing their church ceremonies. It has an influence, and a history, but you cannot grasp the lives of people this way.
I do not recommend this book unless you are interested in old Indonesian, non Islamic ceremonies.
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Zhor
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on 11 April 2016
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A great item at a great price.
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SD Trad Cath
4.0 out of 5 stars Monograph, not a book on the overall Minangkabau culture
Reviewed in the United States on 17 November 2012
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In "Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy", Peggy Reeves Sanday offers a summation of her observations of Minangkabau life as reflected in the actual practice of certain adat (customs and traditions) between 1982 and 1999, specifically in the village of Belubus in what is now the Province of West Sumatra, in Indonesia. Through the ceremonies of birth, marriage, investitures of matrilineal title, and death, she describes the role of men and women as they celebrate each stage of the life-cycle and observes the relatively harmonious relations between the sexes. Along the way, Sanday makes a detour to describe Minangkabau traditional music performance.

Sanday debunks the notion of matriarchy as understood to date by noted anthropologists. She introduces the reality that men and women have their own place in family, society and culture, and that neither patriarchy nor matriarchy (as both terms are understood on either side of the feminist debate) have a place in the natural order. She almost stumbles into what is now considered the quaint notion that the purpose of marriage is, and has always been, the creation of children, their nurture, and their preparation for virtuous lives in an organized society, although she does not explicitly acknowledge it.

Sanday misses the whole point about Minangkabau social structure. The matrilineal relationships in Minangkabau serve only to govern the use of communal property and adat titles. In effect, matrilineal ties ensure that ancestral property stays under the control of the female line, but that its management and transfer down through the generations are in the hands of the male relatives of the women. This arrangement may affect the behavior of men and women in their social and familial intercourse, but Sanday makes no mention of it.

Contra Sanday, adat does not ignore the fact that the father is still the head of his nuclear family, as recognized in the saying "kok ketek babaduan jo kain; kok gadang babaduan jo adat" (when young, embrace them in cloth; when older, socialize them in adat), which implores the father to protect and nurture his children and educate them in the customs and traditions of his wife's people. Unique to the Minangkabaus, however, is the dual role a married man plays. The saying "anak dipangku, kamanakan dibimbing" conjures up an image of him with his child on his lap and his hand resting on the shoulder of his nephew, meaning that he is not only responsible for the upbringing of his children, but also for guiding the children of his sisters. Emphatically, the maternal uncles are discouraged from meddling in the affairs of the nuclear family. If they intrude, the father can resort to an old tradition "pariuk bareh den jan digaduah" (don't stir my rice pot). Note the use of the rude possessive pronoun "den" as opposed to the polite "ambo". Whether the father actually does his duty is an issue worth investigating, especially given the practice of polygamy and male emigration from ancestral lands. It is a pity that Sanday says nothing about it.

The role of the maternal uncles is limited, as it should be, to that of ensuring the proper transfer of adat property and adat titles down through the generations. After all, they are the male representatives of their sisters, who hold rights of inheritance from their mother, but are married to outsiders, meaning men who have no formal ties to their wives' ancestral property. See Bustanul Arifin et al., "Manajemen Suku". In short, although Sanday uses the word matriarchy, in Minangkabau society women do not rule. They just have different, albeit important, roles to play in the practice of Minangkabau customs and traditions. How else to explain that men, not women, sit in the suku and nagari councils where matters relating to adat are determined and disputes resolved, and that men, not women, hold the titles of sutan, datuak, tuanku and rajo, even though they are invested with them on the basis inheritance (of the rights to hold them) through the mother line? In fact, one of the highest principles in Minangkabau governing the practice of adat says "Kamanakan barajo ka mamak; Mamak barajo ka panghulu" (nieces and nephews bow to uncles; uncles bow to the elected group head). Nowhere in this principle is recognized that women rule as in a matriarchy; the assertions of the above editorial reviews to the contrary notwithstanding.

There are other failings in Sanday's book. Some are major; others, minor:

First, little discussion is provided on whether the adat she describes predates foreign influence, be it Hindu, Buddhist, Islam, Western, or the synthesis of some or all of them. This may reflect the paucity of written sources in English. A scholar of more depth would have pursued a more intensive research to shed more light. Manuscripts dating as far back as the late 1800s and written in old Malay using Arabic script, and a huge collection of observations and research reports by Western ethnographers, exist in American, Australian, Dutch, French and Swiss archives. In addition, a large number of Minangkabau scholars have published materials in English and Indonesian. Of those written in Indonesian, many are available within driving distance of Belubus - on the campuses of universities in and around Padang. One wonders whether Sanday merely wanted to channel Margaret Mead and bask on the reflected glory of  Coming Of Age in Samoa  or actually build on centuries' worth of written material about the Minangkabaus that are readily available. If the former, she ought to have known that the Minangkabau are not Samoans. Unlike the Samoans, the Minangkabau have had their oral traditions written down for some time and, to this day, carry on lively intellectual discussions on adat amongst themselves. Unlike the Samoans, the Minangkabau has had a thriving civilization and a history of settlements over a region the size of Texas, with a population even in antiquity numbering in the millions. Unlike the customs of the Samoans, some Minangkabau adat are so old that they are considered above the precepts of scripture. The prime example stares us in the face. The matrilineal right of inheritance, for instance, trumps the Islamic principle of male primogeniture.

Second, if I detected a complaint in the book about the dominant political role men play in Western thought and practice, as compared to what she observed in the harmonious relations between the sexes at Belubus, perhaps she should do two things when discussing the Judeo-Christian tradition: (a) separate the social from the political, and these two from the theological and (b) realize that men and women have their separate roles, because of their NATURAL differences, although they are equal in moral worth. And, yes, in the Judeo-Christian tradition marriage is ordained by God for the creation of children, their nurture, and their preparation for virtuous lives in an organized society.

Several times Sanday attributes the harmony between the sexes at Belubus to the (doubtful) assertion that there is no rape or violence on women among the Minangkabaus of Belubus. In fact, in July 2004 Kompas, the national daily, reported an increasing incidence of female rape in West Sumatera, although Bustaul Arifin et al. attributes this to the breakdown of adat practice, especially the erosion of the role of Dubalangs (elders in charge of security), resulting from centuries of colonial and national governments meddling in the affairs of the Minangkabaus. In any event, Sanday provides no data to back up her argument. Perhaps none were reported to her in the several summers she spent there. What about during the other nine months of those seventeen years? Man wherever he is, has similar natures, among them the propensity for violence. The incidence of sexual crimes, whether perpetrated by men or women, is not unique to any one culture, or for that matter, to any place in the world.

Third, the book is sloppy in some respects:

Sanday refers to Panca Sila (Five Pillars) as the Indonesian state ideology that is based on Islamic principles. Nothing could be further from the truth. See Muhammad Yamin, "Naskah-Naskah Persiapan Undang-Undang Dasar 1945", in which is discussed how "musyawarah" (discussion) and "mufakat" (consensus), the principles of dispute resolution in Minangkabau adat (as practiced by those who hew to the traditions of the Bodi Caniago, as opposed to Koto Piliang), were incorporated into one of the five Silas. Why? Some have credited Yamin, a prominent jurist and constitutional author, as having had a hand in its formulation. He was a Minangkabau of the Bodi Caniago tradition and Mandaliko group.

Stylistically, Sanday uses linguistic anachronisms and many misspellings, and shows surprising ignorance of some minute cultural details, considering her long association with the people of Belubus.

The Ibu/Bapak forms of address are a recent importation of Javanese usage. To a true Minangkabau, using them is anathema. Given her lengthy research and expansive social interactions, one expects that Sanday would have known this. In reality, the Minangkabaus use familial or social terms to address one another. For instance: uni (older sister), uda (older brother), adiek (younger sister), etek (aunt), mamak (uncle), gaek (grandmother), inyiek (grandfather), uwo (social elder or great uncle), and angku (village elder), as well as the adat titles of sutan, datuak, tuanku and rajo. See Yusrita Yanti "Varieties of Address Forms in the Minangkabau Community".

The cooperative concept of Gotong RoyOng is misspelled everywhere as Gotong RoyAng. Its use in the Minangkabau context is dubious. It is, after all, of Javanese origin (see John R. Bowen, "On the Political Construction of Tradition") and has no actual cognate in the Minangkabau matrilineal order. Sanday may have been referring to the concept embodied in the saying "sahino samalu, sasakik sasanang; barek samo dipikua, ringan samo dijinjiang" (an affront to one, is an insult to all; share in misery, as in happiness; if heavy, shoulder together; if light, convey together). But, that is a wholly different social construct. It concerns the obligation of people in one matrilineal group to cooperate in the practice and institutions of adat, and is not in any way related to the positivist and materialist concept of social justice that undergirds "gotong royong", and that manifests itself dogmatically in our time here in America as "spreading the wealth around", i.e., the use of the awesome police power of government to impose an ideology.

Sanday transcribes Minangkabau terms in the wrong word order. Goat curry is "gulai kambing" not the reverse. The ceremonial sticky rice is "silomak kunYit", not "kunit", and it is not yellow because of saffron (which is red), but of turmeric, which the word "kunyit" clearly denotes. The common term for it is "nasi kuning" (yellow rice). Dating is "berpacar" not "berpacher". Indonesian and Malaysian scholars reached an accord in 1972 in which the "ch" sound as in "choose", spelled "tj" in Bahasa Indonesia and "ch" in Bahasa Melayu, is to be represented by the letter "c", as it is in Slavic languages. In addition, Sanday cannot make up her mind if she is using Minangkabau or Bahasa Indonesia. The term for "more important" or "weighty" used by Sanday is "lebih barat". "Barat" means the cardinal point West. "Berat" means heavy. The appropriate term in Minangkabau is "labih barek". In some cases, Sanday attempts to use Minangkabau, as in Empat Batua to describe the menhirs around Belabus. She fails. "Empat" is proper Indonesian. "Batua" is Minangkabau. To be consistent, the stones should be called "Ampek Batua". My impression is that Sanday speaks neither Bahasa Indonesia nor Minangkabau, and relied solely on translators, in which case her findings may be refracted realities.

Fourth, as for the cultural comparisons included in the book, references to Classical Greek societies are irrelevant. More relevant comparisons should have been made on the practice and institutions of adat between the two main traditions: that of Koto Piliang (hierarchical social structure) and Bodi Caniago (flat social structure). At the national level, the more appropriate contrasts are to the other dominant societies in Indonesia: the Achenese, Sundanese, Javanese and Balinese. Confrontations between the norms of these groups and those of the Minangkabaus occur in the real world, and for years have been the proximate causes of actual physical and legal conflicts. The prime examples during the republican era are conflicts arising from the clash of Javanese feudal and patriarchal concepts and Minangkabau representative and consensual norms. Beginning in 1946, Dutch colonial and Javanese-inspired laws began to erode the local (nagari) system of government, which came to its demise in 1979, when it was forcibly replaced with a centralized structure in which the village (desa) became an arm of Jakarta. See Bustanul Arifin et al, op. cit.

In the end, Sanday succeeds only in providing mere glimpses of adat as practiced and lived by the Minangkabaus of Belabus of the recent past. To her credit, she cautioned at the outset that her observations may be applicable to the people there, but neither to the general population either in the darek or rantau, nor for any other Minangkabau group for all time. In effect, the book is a report on her observations of the Belabus villagers and is not a commentary on the overall Minangkabau culture. It is a monograph, and an incomplete study at that - not an in-depth report.

Although her research ended in 1999, this reader hopes that she returns soon to evaluate how the reinstitution of the nagari system in 2001 has affected or changed the current practice of adat, and perhaps open a discussion for further investigations on the contribution of adat law to the necessities of civil life in the context of national legislation - a prelude to making the case for strengthening the devolution of power that is necessary to take Indonesians on the road to a truly democratic society in their culturally diverse nation.

All in all, Sanday's book is useful in illuminating certain aspects of Minangkabau adat. As for the greater sweep of Minangkabau culture in the Malay world (Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei) throughout history, one has to wait for another scholar. Start with Jeffrey Hadley's  Muslims and Matriarchs: Cultural Resilience in Indonesia through Jihad and Colonialism , which covers the period 1770s to 1930s.
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Joanne
4.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to the lives of the Minangkabau
Reviewed in the United States on 9 September 2012
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I recently ordered two books on the Minangkabau for a term paper: this one and "Muslims and Matriarchs" by Jeffrey Hadler  Muslims and Matriarchs: Cultural Resilience in Indonesia through Jihad and Colonialism . Initially, I started reading Hadler's book, but was turned off by his immediate head dive into convoluted Indonesian history that I wasn't well versed in. I first needed a basic introduction to the culture, and was quite pleased that I had also purchased Sanday's ethnography. Sanday's explanation of the Minangkabau is obviously deeply personal and moving, and she illustrates a world that is fascinating and refreshingly different than Western lifestyles. This book helped me immensily through explaning the basic Minangkabau worldview, origins and kinship system, and presents them in a *very* readable way. I read through the book in two days and felt like it gave me a good account of the everyday workings of life in Sanday's experience. No previous knowledge necessary.

But, then I was glad I had also purchased Hadler's book. Sanday obviously has a feminist bent to her writings, which is completely in line with her observations amongst the Minangkabau and should be read as her experience. It also helped me immensily in reading Hadler's book, which explains the larger historical and political circumstances of the entrance of Islam into the region. Hadler's well-researched historical, political and economic accounts are largely lacking from Sanday's book. So, if you want an easy-to-read, entertaining, experiential introduction to the Minangkabau - then this is the book for you! Sanday's experiences have some important lessons regarding the flexibility of human nature and the efficacy of a woman-centered culture. However, if you have previous knowledge and/or want a book that describes more of the political, economic, and historical circumstances surrounding the Minangkabau - then this isn't the best.
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