Abstract
Through an experience-near portrait of polygamy across three families and multiple generations, ethnographic film Bitter Honey applies visual psychological anthropology methods to highlight cultural influences on subjective experiences of gendered violence. The multimodal approach illuminates how the structuring effects of enduring Balinese patriarchal culture create conditions and affordances for the expression of male dominance. While domestic violence is not unique to polygamous marriages nor Balinese Hindu society, numerous Balinese cultural beliefs and practices impact the thoughts and behaviors of husbands, wives, and children in ways potentially detrimental to women’s physical safety and emotional well-being. Topics covered include gendered norms for courtship, sexual behavior and marriage; cultural frameworks for patrilineal decent (purusa) and kinship; beliefs about spiritual life, afterlife, fate and karma; and customary and national law.
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Notes
- 1.
We should note that Jennaway’s work and the title of this article were important inspirations for the title of both the film and the broad themes explored therein.
- 2.
Dag Yngvesson, a cinematographer on 40 Years (Lemelson, 2009) and Thorn (Lemelson, 2012), also explores these dynamics in his 2020 mocumentary Banyak Ayam, Banyak Rejeki (Many Chickens, Lots of Luck; Akbar & Ă–narsson, 2020) https://filmfreeway.com/BanyakAyamBanyakRejeki.
- 3.
When co-wives are sisters, this is referred to as sororal polygyny.
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Lemelson, R., Tucker, A. (2021). Bitter Honey: Culture, Polygamy, and Gendered Violence in Bali. In: Widening the Frame with Visual Psychological Anthropology. Culture, Mind, and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79883-3_3
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