International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 62

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES
SPRING 2016
system. It is different in this regard. Though the original unity is temporarily broken and
then temporarily mended, it is ultimately reconciled three generations later (or more
depending upon how many households participate). If a gives wives to b then in the next
generation b will give a’s granddaughter c will then in the generation after that c will give a’s
great-granddaughter back to the men of a. The unity of the womb becomes complementary
opposites in brother and sister siblings who are then rearranged within one generation and
ultimately united in three (see top part of figure 2).
This type of marriage system orders, or reflects an order, of symbolic systems in
several ways. It makes notions of original unity, intermittent separation, and ultimate
unification central themes of society and it gives the cosmos a more sublimated form of
binary opposition. Lévi-Strauss, as I mentioned earlier, the asymmetric marriage system
creates a “concentric dualism” rather than the more common “diametric dualism” found in
moiety exchange systems (see the opposition between circles in figure 2). The society and
cosmos are unconsciously constructed as the outer circle. The inner circle is the person,
couple or house. In the asymmetric marriage process, the house through the person of its
daughter, contacts the outer circle, but through the process of asymmetric marriage, the
great-granddaughter returns back to the house (the red arrows in figure 2). “The flow of life,”
as James Fox called it (1980), has its headwaters in the house but life flows out to society
but then ultimately return back to the house. The conception of cosmos and society in a
moiety system is that of diametric dualism where the essential relationship is not between
micro and macrocosm regulated by a flow out, then around, and finally back in, but one of
opposition that is overcome in a different manner or not at all (Lévi-Strauss 1973; Downes
2003). Moreover, hierarchy is a natural result of concentric dualism because the outer circle
(the social world) only exists in its relation to the inner circle (the house), which is closer to
the cosmic and biological center of conception (Lévi-Strauss 1963, pp. 140). Though there
exists hierarchy and a “spiraling flow”16 of people and objects back into the house, duality
still exists (examples of duality are boxed in the bottom of figure 2) and the concentric
system is a means by which that duality is only managed and reordered but never fully
overcome.
The apparent overcoming of separation through the flow of the asymmetric
marriage system has hidden consequences for the structural ordering of the cosmos at an
even more abstract level. First of all, the duality of male and female (and of all things)
remains at fundamental levels. Just as importantly, there are now three different symbolic
systems through which the cosmos is understood: a) unity; b) duality; and c) the
asymmetrical triadic relationship between wife-givers and wife-takers (Lévi-Strauss 1973,
Adams 1980, Downes 2003) (the bottom half of figure 2). The following are examples of
how social structure and symbolism in Eastern Indonesia have been understood as
16

A spiral seems to be the most accurate representation of the flow from the outer-world back into the innerworld but I have yet to see it used as a metaphor in this context.

62 | P a g e