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ov. 8, p21

Bitter Honey, the latest feature-length documentary from filmmaker Robert Lemelson, intimately and emotionally presents the stories of three families in Bali, revealing the hidden face of polygamy on the resort island.

As the film says, approximately 10 percent of Balinese families are polygamous. Men in these unions often take multiple brides without their spouses' consent.

Filmed over the course of seven years, the documentary portrays the plight of Balinese co-wives, for whom marriage is frequently characterized by psychological manipulation, infidelity, domestic violence and economic hardship.

Your comments:

The classic story of polygamy not only occurs in Bali but also in other countries. It is a bad culture where a man wants to have more than one wife.

Nga Bunga Biru

A very sensitive issue, but rather than debate the various comments, I'll stick with that elusive component called 'logic', wherein if God had intended man to have more than one wife, (say four, as with Islam,)  then logically, there would be four times as many females on this planet as there are males. Think about it.

Ozmostus

I'd like to offer a different perspective on men/women's rights in Bali. One argument as to why only men get the inheritance is that given an ideal world, it is assumed that every man or woman will marry. It is expected that the woman, being united in a marriage, will receive an inheritance from her husband's family.

So, let's not be so quick to bash and assume that woman will not receive any inheritance. So they don't receive it from their birth family, but the equation is simplified by the assumption above (in the ideal concept of family, if the husband cheats, well, you have a bad man as a husband ' different story).

And if we dig even deeper to look at the spiritual practices in Bali, we will see that with the responsibility of tending to the temple falling on the man's shoulders, he will need help from his family (wife, children). Having the wife inundated with her own responsibility for her own family temple would be too difficult for most people to handle (with farms and animals and children to take care). Inheritance, like land, comes with its own set of temples and rituals to observe.

So, there you have it. A sneak peek into how the Balinese system works. Is it inferior to the Javanese culture, for example? The jury is still out there. But before making a quick judgment, remember, the Balinese culture is as old as human civilization in Indonesia itself, as old as any other cultures in the country, too (Javanese, Batak, etc).

Korst

Clearly the topic is not made up ' you can find numerous articles on the subject. It appears from this article, and others, that polygamy is a traditional practice in Bali. It also appears to have a degree of acceptance in society, though it is no longer a mainstream phenomenon.

Indonesia is a large country with many disparate cultures and languages. I am sure there are a lot of traditional activities going on that don't accord with the law or mainstream morals. That makes it impossible to say that anything would be frowned upon by the entire population, or that they would be beaten up by the local community for transgressing particular moral standards.

Just because you do not like it does not mean the story is fabricated.

Jack Taylor

Polygamy may not be expressly supported by the government. It is definitely not entirely frowned upon by Indonesians. It is a pretty common practice that transcends income, social status, location and even religion.  

My driver has multiple wives and a number of my employees have multiple wives. (I can't calculate how their salaries can afford so many families.)

Also, when meeting people and they jokingly ask how many wives I have and I tell them one, they frown first then laugh. It is the cultural concept that if you can't handle more than one wife then you can't handle more than one business.

Perhaps in your circle it is frowned upon and I applaud this as I do not personally support polygamy as it is at odds with my own personal feelings on the matter.

Deddy K