(De) Constructing Happy Asian Families

The present dominant family models of India and Indonesia have not ‘always been there’, despite insistence by the social, political, and religious guardians of morality that the heteronormative model is ‘natural’ or divinely ordained. In this chapter, I first introduce some historical influences, pointing to the contingent nature of Indian and Indonesian families, before reporting some cracks in the optimistic picture of that supposedly-harmonious family model. Next, I deal briefly with the core elements of that system, such as premarital virginity, arranged marriages, polygyny, the joint family system, communication between spouses, financial matters, and patriarchal control. In the initial discussion,