Choosing a wife for tradition

By Lucia Esti Elihami

"Yes, papa. Yes, papa."

I always speak that way to my father. Not only me, but my older brothers who already have their own families, my younger sister whom father loved most and mother always say yes to whatever he says, although in our hearts we may disagree with him.

But as time went on, the limit of my obedience grew thin. The question was why should I have to go to Harvard to get my doctorate if I had to let my father decide the most private matter of my life -- picking my future wife.

That day he continued his advice: "It will not be long before I leave this world and return to God Almighty. As the youngest among my children, you have to get married soon.

"And I tell you once more that I don't want you to take the foreign girl you brought here last year as your wife," he stressed.

I gave no reaction.

"It is not a good idea to take an American as one's wife. Our cultural background and way of life are different from them. You will not be happy, anyway, because they have their own educational and upbringing systems. Their fortunes are also different from ours."

Listening to his lecture, I just kept quiet, while my fingers played with the corner of the tablecloth. Inside, I laughed at his words.

The problem seemed simple enough. My future wife was a close relative of one of the world's richest miners. But for my father, that was not the issue.

"You cannot easily cast off our old traditions. We belong to a blue-blood family. You and your brothers and sisters are the fourth generation of GBPH Suryosentiko," he said as he dragged on his cigarette.

I kept my silence because I had heard those words from him umpteen times.

But papa kept sermonizing: "Worse still, the girl you said is your girlfriend has reddish-yellow skin, a very long neck and a flat nose. Her hair is yellow and pale. According to an old adage here, such a woman must have a bad character."

Finally, papa looked tired and disappointed because I did not say anything except "yes, papa, yes, papa" as he had expected.

He was not finished yet. "That woman also has too much body hair and too high cheekbones. She is also too thin. All these qualities show that she is stubborn, far from being a sort of woman dedicated to her husband, and is ill-fated. In short, that woman will pose difficulties in the family."

I felt insulted by the way my father sized up the woman of my choice. He did not realize that none of my brothers was very special, at least they were far below Harrison Ford or Richard Gere in looks.

Furthermore, if my father had wanted me to pick a wife in line with the Javanese value system, why had he asked me to continue my studies after I graduated from the high school.

"What did you call your girlfriend? Sophia? And what is her weton?" he asked, referring to the birthday according to the Gregorian calendar compared to the Javanese almanac.

"You are extremely orthodox, papa," I said resentfully.

I saw his face turn red. As a traditional Javanese, he was unaccustomed to hearing arguments against the local customs.

"She is from Ame..." he said, but suddenly my mother interrupted from inside, calling my name: "Narko!"

Every time my mother started to open her mouth, I had to shut mine. She was, in fact, a quiet and patient woman. But despite her soft demeanor, she was the real ruler of the family. No important decisions were made without her.

"Don't think that because you're educated abroad you know everything," my father resumed his conversation after a long pause. Now he raised the pitch of his lecture, too.

"Look at your older brother Darsono," he said. "Long before he decided to marry, I had told him that his weton and that of Santi did not match. They augured illness.

"It meant that he and the whole family would fall ill all the time. Look, Darsono is on dialysis all the time now."

I held my tongue. "So, Narko, you are wasting your time to oppose papa's advice. You must understand that the Javanese horoscope is too mighty to be affected by the modernization drive.

"On the other hand," he continued, "look at the weton of your sister, Lastri. It fits with that of Narto, her husband. Their wedding day was also selected according to the Javanese horoscope. Now they are wealthy and live a harmonious life."

Sure they are rich, my heart said, because her husband held a key position in the agency, which is in charge of issuing various licenses. About their so-called marital bliss, I did not need to comment although I once saw my brother-in-law in an intimate rendezvous with another woman in a hotel lobby.

"I just want to see my children happy," continued my father. "But if you feel you are modern enough and do not need to listen to me, it is up to you," he said in conclusion.

He then got up abruptly and went to the backyard to tend to his perkutut (small turtledoves) and fighting cocks.

In the evening, I accompanied my mother to see my grandpa. It was my last day in Yogyakarta before I flew back to the U.S. to continue working on my doctorate, and I was busying myself saying farewell to relatives.

With my grandfather, I discussed my marriage plan. He laughed heartily when I told him about my father's strange concept about marriage. He whispered something to me, and I was pleased.

Two years later, I had finished my study and I returned home with my future wife, now an ideal woman. Her skin was red but with a rather muted hue, soft and hairless. Her hair was dark, but it was neither coarse nor soft.

According to the Javanese belief, a woman with those qualities would make a good wife.

She was charming and had a pointed nose. Her lips had a standard structure and she was neither thin nor fat. She had full breasts but they were not too large. I hoped the people at home, who judged women by traditional mores, would believe that my future wife would be deserving and dedicated, and would also bring luck to the family.

She was the same old Sophia in my eyes, but the plastic surgery she had undergone had changed her into a Javanese girl with an almost perfect beauty.

What we had failed to do was to find a surgeon who could shorten her neck.

Sophia was upset when I first asked her to undergo the plastic surgery to change her appearance. She said I was arrogant but gradually, due to our deep love, she came to accept my idea. I also told her that it was meant for the period until we were married.

I had also arranged that the document about her place and date of birth be changed to meet demands of the weton, which determined whether we would live harmoniously and become rich.

It was what my father meant when he said he wanted to see his children happy.

Sophia had laughed when she first heard my idea about the change in the document. In fact, it was not my idea but my grandfathers'. He told me when I bid him farewell that my father's and my mother's weton were not compatible, but he had secretly manipulated them.

Although only educated at a Dutch primary school, my grandfather is full of amazing ideas.

My father was pleasantly surprised when he first saw Sophia with all the changes. He soon consulted a fortune teller's guidebook, Betaljemur Adammakna, to set the most auspicious day for the wedding.

The writer is a kindergarten teacher in Cikupa, Tangerang, 25 kilometers west of Jakarta.