Tag: customs

Modern Monogamy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PolygamyI had a chat with a colleague of mine at the university, that concerned personal relationships and he mentioned that it was not in our culture to be polygamous. I had to correct him on this because I do not know why but the idea that the Asian culture is monogamous is just silly.

All throughout our region, monogamy is a new development. Polygamy was a totally accepted concept in the various cultures throughout the region. In fact, this was also true in Malaysia up until recent history, particularly with the inception of the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976.

Sections 5 and 6 of the Reform Act introduced monogamy into our community, which by religion and custom, had always practised polygamy. However, this act does not apply to Muslims, natives of Sabah and Sarawak, and Orang Asli. Muslims in Malaysia, are allowed to be polygamous – with up to four wives at a time.

I think that this myth stems from our local divide-and-conquer mentality, where the non-Muslims generally like to differentiate themselves from the local Muslims. One facet of differentiation would be the practice of monogamy. As a result of a single generation of monogamous families, we now think that it is our ‘culture’ to be monogamous, which in fact, it is not.

This is the danger of mixing customary laws in with common law.

I would like to correct this myth and state for a fact that – it is in the Asian culture in general – to be polygamous. This is true all throughout the Far-East to the Middle-East. However, the practice of polygamy was generally limited to those of means only, due to constraints.

Monogamy is a recent invention of man, not Asian culture as we like to think of it.

Customary Laws

Customary law is included in Article 160 of our Consti, and as such, has certain legal implications. In fact, in Sarawak and Sabah, there exists a native court system to enforce such laws. However, in the peninsular, such issues are usually settled in civil court, which has to decide on the existence, proof and validity of such customs.

Now, this troubles me for a number of reasons. Personally, I do not truly subscribe to any custom as I make things up as I go along. It’s hard for me to say that I follow Chinese custom because I generally don’t. I live a hybrid life, absorbing and following various customs and traditions as I go along.

Therefore, it’s rather troubling to me to find that there are certain customary issues that have the force of law in Malaysia and can be settled by the courts. It troubles me because I would not want to get dragged into court for customary disputes since it would be unfair for the courts to try to put me in a box.

This leads me to the larger issue of national integration. In order to feed the customary law system, we would need to continuously divide people along cultural lines. It is necessary to put people into a box in order to be able to enforce customary law e.g. we cannot force Malay customs onto a Chinese family, for instance.

Therefore, it is not something that helps promote national integration unless we choose to do away with all other traditions and customs in return for a single unified national custom, which sort of defeats the purpose of having customs in the first place. Therefore, this system seems to be self limiting and self defeating.

On the other hand, such a system would help the continuance of said customs because they would have to be adhered to. So, for those people who are steeped in traditions or who value such things, our legal system presents a boon to them.