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Polygamy ban in picture postcard village
Well ordered: Head of culture for Penglipuran village, I Wayan Supat, says adhering to ancient laws, such as a ban on polygamy, has allowed the village to maintain its sense of harmony and balance for its community and environment
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span class="inline inline-center">Well ordered: Head of culture for Penglipuran village, I Wayan Supat, says adhering to ancient laws, such as a ban on polygamy, has allowed the village to maintain its sense of harmony and balance for its community and environment.
While polygamy is legal, albeit frowned upon, in Indonesia, it is a sin deserving of exile to the people of Penglipuran in Bangli regency.
Polygamy has been off the marital menu in the literally picture postcard village of Penglipuran in Bangli, Bali, for as long as anyone can remember, for the simple reason that polygamous relationships are not in sync with the village's rules on harmony.
Bendesa (cultural head) for Penglipuran, I Wayan Supat, explains social harmony is one of the duties laid down under the Tri Hita Karana philosophy that defines much in Balinese Hinduism.
'The concept of Tri Hita Karana seeks balance, happiness, wealth and harmony and that is what we look for when village regulations are created. So for the people of Penglipuran, when we ask how can we achieve this state of harmony, we see the need to ban polygamy,' says Supat, sitting in the shade of his veranda. The impact on women of polygamy runs counter to the goal of harmony, Supat explains.
Tri Hita Karana is the philosophy of one's duty to god, to people and to the environment.
'Automatically if you have polygamy, you have problems. Rarely are people happy in polygamous situations. Definitely women are not happy within polygamous relationships, so our law is really to protect women, because through that protection we are following the Tri Hita Karana concept of happiness, health and wealth for all,' says Supat.
His home is near the village's highest point known as Utama, just below the temple dedicated to Brahma. At the opposite end of the village, at the bottom of the hill in an area known as Nista and the temple to Siwa, god of death, lies a piece of land that has stood vacant for a thousand years or more. It is to this zone that anyone breaching the village laws on polygamy is exiled.
'We are an ancient village. We are called desa kuno, which means the village was here before the 13th century. So our village existed before the Majapahit came from Java. Over all the hundreds of years our village has existed, no one has ever been exiled to this place we call Karang Memadu,' says Supat.
Exile from the village also means exile from the temples that play a central role, from cradle to grave, in Hindu life. Polygamous marriages do not have the ceremonies needed for the marriage to be recognized, so children born into polygamous marriages, and their descendants down the generations, are also forever denied entry to temples. How this impacts their entry into heaven has never been tested, says Supat.
'This law over the hundreds of years has been so much part of our culture that there has never been anyone exiled to Nista for the crime of polygamy, so we cannot say what would occur once they die. Who would face exile within a polygamous family is also an unknown, as the situation has never occurred,' says Supat.
For the people of Penglipuran the seeking of harmony is bound not only to human interactions, but also to nature and the environment. Homes front the village's central roadway formed of stones polished over centuries of foot traffic; each home is walled with an angkul, or elaborate entry. The streetscape is one of symmetry and charm, another nod to harmony. Walking this street are dozens of women carrying plastic waste to be collected for recycling; rubbish bins marked organic and non-organic waste are dotted on the road side every 100 meters. The town is spotlessly clean of the trash drowning so much of Bali.
'That is another regulation. All our plastic waste is stored over a month and then it is all taken away for recycling. Under the Tri Hita Karana philosophy there is the belief in man within his environment, so protecting this is also our duty,' says Supat.
Ancient mud brick walls create the border between the village's public space and the private spaces of families. These were at risk in the early 1990s.
'The government at that time wanted to asphalt our central road. All this would have been covered in tar,' says Supat pointing to the grassed road verge. 'But worse, the road works would have destroyed these walls that have stood for maybe a thousand years,'
There has been great vision at work in Penglipuran, in honoring its past, it has prepared the way into the future.
In relative isolation the people of Penglipuran have been allowed to follow the laws on polygamy, environmental sustainability, religion and local government. Today it is a tourist drawcard, its bamboo-roofed buildings and streetscape attracting people from all over the world.
Unlike other tourist attractions, Penglipuran has not lost its way; the old laws of the town are so deeply embedded in the social psyche, in its constant striving for harmony between men, women and children that the concept of Tri Hita Karana will be maintained for, perhaps, another thousand years.
' Photos by JP/JB Djwan
