How to Follow Rules That Are Not Obeyed
2025-07-17
This paper seeks to answer the following question: Why is it that among the people of Ende, a rule that is rarely actually practised—namely, matrilateral cross-cousin marriage—nonetheless continues to guide people’s behaviour and has not faded away?
It should also be mentioned that this paper constitutes the first part of a planned trilogy on Akikaeshi.
The first half of this paper is devoted to explaining what “matrilateral cross-cousin marriage” means. In the second half, I aim to provide an answer to the central question.
The ethnographic setting of this paper is Ende, a people living in central Flores, in eastern Indonesia. In terms of administrative divisions, this is the Kabupaten Ende in the Propinsi Nusa Tenggara Timur. I have conducted intermittent anthropological fieldwork in this region since 1979.
Eastern Indonesia (as I will elaborate later) is renowned for its various rules concerning kinship. The most well-known of these is matrilateral cross-cousin marriage. (next plus) A man is to marry his matrilateral cross-cousin.
Two people are considered cousins when their parents are siblings. Here, “siblings” refers to all combinations—brothers, sisters, and brother–sister pairs.
In anthropology, sibling relationships are sometimes divided into: opposite-sex siblings (brother and sister), and same-sex siblings (brother–brother or sister–sister). The former are referred to as “parallel”, and the latter as “cross”. Accordingly, matrilateral cross-cousin marriage refers to a rule whereby: a man is to marry the daughter of his mother’s brother (or uncle). From a woman’s perspective, this corresponds to marriage with her paternal cross-cousin (her father’s sister’s son).
(Needham 1968) (Needham 1970)
Anthropological debates on matrilateral cross-cousin marriage reached one of their peaks in Claude Lévi-Strauss’s The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949). The year 1949, when this work was published, can be seen as marking the beginning of structuralism in anthropology.
Structuralist approaches to kinship, in fact, predate Lévi-Strauss. They were already being pursued under what is now referred to as Dutch structuralism. One of the most influential works in this tradition is Sociale Structuurtypen in de Groote Oost (1935) by van Wouden, which focuses on social structures in eastern Indonesia.
Eastern Indonesia thus gained prominence within anthropology for its unique marriage rules. It was against this backdrop that I chose Ende as my field site in 1979. Incidentally, Rodney Needham, one of the key figures in structuralism at the time, analysed the rules of cousin marriage in Ende in 1968 (Needham 1968) and 1970 (Needham 1970).
As noted in the previous section, the ultimate aim of this paper is to answer the question of why a certain rule—matrilateral cross-cousin marriage—continues to shape people’s lives in the society, even though it is rarely practised and hardly ever obeyed.
In this section, I will begin by offering a general overview of the rule known as matrilateral cross-cousin marriage.
(Searle 1986)
In Ende, the rule of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage is widely recognised. It appears in Dutch colonial records from a hundred years ago, and today, my informants in Ende are also thoroughly familiar with this rule.
This rule takes the form of a prescriptive statement—“one should…”. Yet in reality, it is hardly ever followed. It is not unusual for social rules to fall out of use. However, in Ende, this rule—despite being almost entirely disregarded in practice—has never faded, and continues to regulate people’s lives. Why is that?
In this section, I begin by offering an overview of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage. I will explore how anthropology has treated this practice. Only after that will I turn to the main focus of this paper: the case of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage in Ende.
The first thing that needs to be addressed is the meaning of this seemingly complicated and pointless rule. In fact, the rule produces a certain elegant consequence. Through this rule, groups engage in communication, according to Claude Lévi-Strauss.
Lévi-Strauss introduced structural linguistics into anthropology and established structural anthropology. When applying linguistics to kinship theory, he urged the following caution: In the case of language, the function is obvious to us: it is communication. Linguistics focused its attention on clarifying the rules (structure) that make communication possible. In contrast, in the case of kinship systems, the rules (structure) are obvious, and what we must investigate is their purpose—their function.
That said, the rule of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage is not all that obvious. Let us take a closer look at what the rule actually prescribes. Imagine a society where everyone adheres to this rule. Suppose your house is called the House of Green. Because everyone follows the rule, you must marry your mother’s brother’s daughter. Let us call your mother’s natal house the House of Blue. You thus take as your wife a woman born into the House of Blue. Since the House of Blue is your mother’s natal house, your father, too, would have married a woman born into the House of Blue. What about your son’s marriage partner? He would marry the daughter of his mother’s brother—that is, the daughter of your wife’s brother— a woman who also belongs to the House of Blue.
As long as this rule is followed, men from the House of Green will always marry women from the House of Blue. Suppose there is another group—call it the House of Grey—that has the same kind of relationship to the House of Green. That is, men from the House of Grey will always marry women from the House of Green.
In such a setup, women move from the House of Blue to the House of Green, and from the House of Green to the House of Grey. This is what the rule of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage implies. And it is precisely this that Lévi-Strauss saw as the function of the rule: communication between groups. Matrilateral cross-cousin marriage is an exchange of women between groups (houses).
Upon seeing this diagram and hearing the explanation, many doubts may arise. In fact, numerous debates in anthropology have revolved around this rule. I will introduce just one of them here.
The argument centres on the objection that “this diagram describes an ideal situation, not the real one”. The diagram assumes that every couple gives birth to exactly one boy and one girl. But in reality… This is almost never the case. Couples often have more—or sometimes no—children. As a result, many individuals will find themselves unable to follow the rule. What then is society to do? That is the basis of the objection.
For instance, Kunstadter and colleagues, from a demographic perspective, concluded that matrilateral cross-cousin marriage is impractical (Kunstadter, Buhler, Stephan & Westoff 1963).
When we read the actual ethnographies that report on matrilateral cross-cousin marriage, it becomes clear that the real situations rarely correspond to the neat diagrams. Two general patterns can be observed. First, in some societies, the rule is not understood as applying to individuals, but to groups. Second, in other cases, the rule is rarely practised at all. I will explain these in that order.
Let us first consider the situation in which the rule is discussed in terms of groups. Earlier, I described how B2 marries a2, the daughter of his mother’s brother (A1), and how this creates a flow of women from the House of Blue to the House of Green.
In similar ethnographic cases, the rule is not about specific individuals, but about categories. It is said that men from the House of Green marry women from the House of Blue. Within this flow, it may incidentally happen that a woman from the House of Blue is a matrilateral cross-cousin. From now on, let us call the House of Blue the Wife-Giver from the perspective of the House of Green, and the House of Green the Wife-Taker from the perspective of the House of Blue.
In such societies, it is often the case that all women of a given generation in the Wife-Giver group are addressed with the same kin term by men of the Wife-Taker group. Let us take Ende as an example. In Ende, women of the Wife-Giver group in the same generation are called ari. Suppose an ethnographer, while interviewing a local man, receives the reply: “We marry ari.” Naturally, the ethnographer will ask, “What is ari?” A person from Ende might reply, “She is the daughter of my mother’s brother.” Hearing this, the ethnographer may go on to report the presence of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage. This seems entirely plausible.
In this kind of society, women from group A marry into group B, women from group B marry into group C, and women from group C marry into group D, and so on. Lévi-Strauss called this generalised exchange— a system in which groups are linked through women— in contrast to systems where only two groups exchange with one another.
When matrilateral cross-cousin marriage is spoken of not in genealogical terms (“mother’s brother’s daughter”) but in terms of group relations (Wife-Giver and Wife-Taker), it describes systems like those found among the Nga’o people to the west of Ende, or the Lio people to the east. Among the Nga’o, the clan units are called ata (ata), and among the Lio they are called sa’o (sa’o).
However, in Ende there is no clan system like that of the Nga’o or Lio. In Ende, matrilateral cross-cousin marriage is always described in genealogical terms (“mother’s brother’s daughter”). This leads to the situation described at the start of this section: matrilateral cross-cousin marriage is rarely practised.
If the concept of group remains, then even if the rule is no longer observed, people can still think: “that group gives us wives (House of Blue), this group receives wives from us (House of Grey)”. Think of the honke and bunke in Japan. Even if the customs surrounding them fade, the idea of “which group is my main family” persists. The “house” functions as a kind of memory device.
However, in a situation where matrilateral cross-cousin marriage is framed as a relation between individuals, and where no one follows the rule, it is hard to imagine that the rule would still be remembered. When I began my fieldwork forty years ago, the “discovery” of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage in Ende was a source of great excitement. But I assumed that under modernisation, the rule would soon be forgotten. And yet — in Ende, it is not only the memory of the rule that remains. Even though the rule is not followed, it continues to strongly regulate daily life. This is the mystery I want to unravel in this paper.
Matrilateral cross-cousin marriage in Ende must be understood within its local context. What is particularly important in Ende’s theory of kinship is that kinship and gift-giving are inseparably intertwined. The term wai rhaki refers to this complex of kinship and reciprocity. In this section, I will introduce matrilateral cross-cousin marriage as it appears within the framework of wai rhaki in Ende.
In The Gift (Mauss 1973 [1925]), Marcel Mauss famously stated: “Friends make gifts,” and also, “Gifts make friends.” In Endean terms, one might say: “Kinsfolk give gifts, and gifts create kinship.” The principle governing matrilateral cross-cousin marriage in Ende is the latter: “gifts make kinship.” In this chapter, the first half introduces examples of “kinsfolk giving gifts,” and the second half focuses on how “gifts make kinship.”
This section begins by outlining the pattern of “kinsfolk giving gifts.” The groups involved in such gift exchange are Wife-Givers and Wife-Takers, who give and receive specific types of goods.
Gift exchange takes place between affinal kin. As discussed earlier, there are two types of affines: Wife-Givers and Wife-Takers. The Wife-Givers are those from your mother’s group, or your wife’s natal group (both represented in blue in earlier diagrams). In Endenese, they are called ka’E embu. Members of that group refer to your group (green)—the Wife-Takers—as weta anE.
The types of gifts are determined by the direction in which they flow. Wife-Takers give to Wife-Givers: elephant tusks, animals (excluding pigs), gold ornaments. Wife-Givers give to Wife-Takers: pigs, rice, land.
As noted above, while both Wife-Givers and Wife-Takers give gifts, the emphasis is placed on those from Wife-Takers. In keeping with Endean practice, this discussion will focus on those gifts. These gifts are called ngawu. A typical setting in which ngawu is exchanged is marriage.
It is not wrong to refer to the ngawu given during marriage as bridewealth— that is, wealth transferred from the groom’s group to the bride’s group. However, the term ngawu is also used in other contexts, and has a wider range of meaning than “bridewealth”. In this paper, I will avoid the term “bridewealth” and instead use “wealth” or simply ngawu.
As mentioned earlier, the complex of kinship and gift exchange is referred to by the term wai rhaki. I have visited Ende nearly every year. When I arrive in the village, the first thing I often hear is, “There are lots of wai rhaki again this year.” In fact, on almost any day, messengers involved in wai rhaki matters are dashing through the village. Bapak Robe, whom I met forty years ago and called my “father”, has passed away. These days, I stay with his daughter Liva. Even just within Liva’s household, there have been years when we had to attend a wai rhaki almost every week. Wai rhaki, or gift exchanges, are taking place all around us.
You might wonder, “Why are there so many opportunities for giving?” “Marriage isn’t something that happens all that frequently, is it?” The answer is this: gifts are linked in chains. A single marriage doesn’t involve just a single act of giving. The wealth (ngawu) offered by the groom’s side in a marriage was itself received by them from another Wife-Taker. And that Wife-Taker in turn received it from yet another Wife-Taker. In this way, gift-giving is chained across generations.
We now have a clearer understanding of what “mother’s brother’s daughter marriage” (mburhu nduu // wesa sunda) means in Ende society. As stated at the beginning of this paper, however, hardly anyone actually follows the rule that says one should marry their mother’s brother’s child. Yet — and here lies the paradox — this rule still plays a vital role in the lives of Ende people. In this section, I will finally attempt to unravel this mystery.
In the previous section, we saw how mother’s brother’s daughter marriage in Ende is structured around exchange, and more specifically, how it is driven by the idea of debt. To explore Ende’s concept of debt further, I would like to start this section with a brief detour — into ancient Japan.
In Japanese history, one cannot talk about debt without mentioning the “tokuseirei” (acts of debt cancellation). Historian Kasamatsu Hiroshi (1983) pointed out that the folklorist Orikuchi Shinobu had drawn attention to something similar in ancient Japan. In his book The Foundations of Ancient Thought, Orikuchi discusses a custom called akikaeshi, referring to a poem from the Man’yōshū (Vol. 16). If there were an act of akikaeshi, then perhaps I could return your undergarment. According to Orikuchi, in ancient times, when a man and woman entered into a sexual relationship, they would exchange garments — as though entrusting half of their souls to each other. This poem, then, captures a conversation in which: The man demands the return of the garment — as if to break off the relationship. The woman responds: “Unless there’s an official decree of akikaeshi (like a tokuseirei), why should I have to return it?” The man tries to sever ties. The woman tries to preserve the bond. What I want to stress here is that relationships were grounded in debt.
From this point on, I would like to refer to the logic expressed in the old song— that debt creates relationships— as the logic of akikaeshi.1
The logic of akikaeshi—that “it is debt that forms relationships”— is not such a bizarre idea. It is a logic that can be found in ethnographies from many parts of the world. Here, let me cite a well-known example from Indonesia. Clifford Geertz, in his ethnography of a Javanese village, Agricultural Involution (Geertz 1963), discusses what he calls “the sharing of poverty.” He observes that those who own land bear not only “the right to work” but also “the obligation to give work.” Let us consider someone who owns just enough land to barely sustain their household. From a rational perspective, they should neither lease land from others nor rent it out. Instead, they should simply farm their own land. Yet, this person rents out part of their own rice field to a tenant. As a result, they are left with too little land to support their own household. They end up working as a tenant farmer on someone else’s land. Each household is not existing in isolation (independently), but is linked to others through debt. Geertz calls this mode of arrangement “the sharing of poverty.” As should already be clear, this “sharing of poverty” is precisely the logic of akikaeshi.
Let us return to Ende. As in Java, in Ende too, everyone is indebted to someone in one way or another. Ende society is a web of debt.
For example, Mbabbo (marriage payment negotiation) always ends with a declaration of debt by the WT. Suu Uzu // Wanga Wara (carried on the head // borne on the shoulder)
Kapa’s second wife, Wéa, ran away to her elder sister when Kapa took a third wife. A man named Gaso married Wéa. Gaso said to Kapa, “I’ll repay the bridewealth you paid for Wéa.” Kapa replied, “No; let’s leave it as it is. That way, the two of us will become Kyodai (wife-givers to each other).” → The logic of akikaeshi
The people of Ende place great importance on the WG/WT relationship (the “path”). They strive to avoid the state where “weeds overgrow // the path rots.” In particular, the “siblings bound by bridewealth” (created through cross-cousin marriage) represent the closest form of WG/WT relationship.
We cannot observe phenomena with innocent eyes (as Hanson put it). In order to see “a photo of a particle track in a cloud chamber” that way, we need a theory of subatomic particles. In order to see a certain phenomenon as “an unperformed cross-cousin marriage,” we need a theory of cross-cousin marriage.
In order to preserve the WG/WT bond (the “path”), a rule of cross-cousin marriage is necessary. People create debt precisely by not following that rule, and in doing so, they maintain the WG/WT relationship in a close and binding way. The rule is needed precisely so that it may be broken.