Changing Kinship in North Malaya

Data from Sik, a hill region of Kedah, a state in the northwestern corner of the Malay Peninsula, suggest that the increase in rural impoverishment due to demographic pressure on limited land resources has presented Malays with important challenges to "traditional" ideologies of social relationships. This paper suggests that rural Malay society is moving, under the influence of such pressures, toward a modern kinship ideology, but not without ambiguity, frequent conflict, and sentimental longings for the hypothetical golden social harmony of past periods.