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FROM TEMPORARY WIFE TO PROSTITUTE: Sexuality and Economic Change in Early Modern Southeast Asia(1)
The historical study of women and gender in Southeast Asia is relatively new, and has concentrated almost exclusively on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This article provides a deeper base to the discussion by examining changing attitudes toward sexual relationships between foreign men and local women during the early modern period. When Europeans arrived in the region in the early sixteenth century, they found that foreign traders commonly entered into a temporary marriage with local women who also helped them in trade. The rise of patriarchal states, penetration of elite values, increase in the number of foregoing males, expansion of urban centers, and growth of prostitution acted together to change attitudes toward sexuality. Because foreigners increasingly preferred slaves or ex-slaves who could act as both servants and sexual partners, the status of the temporary wife was permanently eroded.
In March 1671, from his post in Palembang on Sumatra's east coast, a representative of the Dutch East India Company (VOC)(2) penned his customary letter to his superiors in the VOC capital of Batavia (modern Jakarta). There was little noteworthy to report, but he was concerned about the "intolerable cruelty" Palembang authorities were inflicting on widows of Chinese merchants. He described an incident that had occurred the previous day involving "Encik Koey's widow," a former slave originally from Batavia. To compel this woman to disclose the location of her husband's wealth, her hands had been thrust into boiling oil. To add to her torment, her head was squeezed between two planks, so that with horribly swollen features and protruding eyes she no longer appeared human.(3)
Apart from several works on prostitution, there has been no historical investigation into changing attitudes toward sexuality in Southeast Asia, despite the fact that the "high status" of women is often cited as characteristic of the region.(4) In this context, the horrific treatment meted out to "Encik Koey's widow" calls for closer attention, for she exemplifies a type of woman who became all too common during the early modern period (ca. 1500-1800): a low-ranking outsider, often a slave or former slave, who provided domestic and sexual services to a foreigner without the respect normally accorded a married woman....