Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0067/00677.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 30KB | 473 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00677}
$Pretitle{250}
$Title{Cambodia
Chapter 2B.   The Khmer}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert K. Headly, Jr.}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{khmer
family
children
members
rural
class
buddhist
families
group
land}
$Date{1987}
$Log{}
Country:     Cambodia
Book:        Cambodia, A Country Study
Author:      Robert K. Headly, Jr.
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1987

Chapter 2B.   The Khmer

Household and Family Structure

     In the late 1980s, the nuclear family, consisting of a husband and a wife
and their unmarried children, probably continued to be the most important kin
group within Khmer society. The family is the major unit of both production
and consumption. Within this unit are the strongest emotional ties, the
assurance of aid in the event of trouble, economic cooperation in labor,
sharing of produce and income, and contribution as a unit to ceremonial
obligations. A larger grouping, the personal kindred that includes a nuclear
family with the children, grandchildren, grandparents, uncles, aunts, first
cousins, nephews, and nieces, may be included in the household. Family
organization is weak, and ties between related families beyond the kindred are
loosely defined at best. There is no tradition of family names, although the
French tried to legislate their use in the early twentieth century. Most Khmer
genealogies extend back only two or three generations, which contrasts with
the veneration of ancestors by the Vietnamese and by the Chinese. Noble
families and royal families, some of which can trace their descent for several
generations, are exceptions.

     The individual Khmer is surrounded by a small inner circle of family and
friends who constitute his or her closest associates, those he would approach
first for help. In rural communities, neighbors--who are often also kin--may
be important, too, and much of housebuilding and other heavy labor intensive
tasks are performed by groups of neighbors. Beyond this close circle are more
distant relatives and casual friends. In rural Cambodia, the strongest ties a
Khmer may develop--besides those to the nuclear family and to close
friends--are those to other members of the local community. A strong feeling
of pride--for the village, for the district, and province--usually
characterizes Cambodian community life. There is much sharing of religious
life through the local Buddhist temple, and there are many cross-cutting kin
relations within the community. Formerly, the Buddhist priesthood, the
national armed forces, and, to a lesser extent, the civil service all served
to connect the Khmer to the wider national community. The priesthood served
only males, however, while membership in some components of the armed forces
and in the civil service was open to women as well.

     Two fictive relationships in Cambodia transcend kinship boundaries and
serve to strengthen interpersonal and interfamily ties. A Khmer may establish
a fictive child-parent or sibling relationship called thoa (roughly
translating as adoptive parent or sibling). The person desiring to establish
the thoa relationship will ask the other person for permission to enter into
the relationship. The thoa relationship may become as close as the
participants desire. The second fictive relationship is that of kloeu (close
male friend). This is similar, in many ways, to becoming a blood brother. A
person from one place may ask a go-between in another place to help him
establish a kloeu relationship with someone in that place. Once the
participants agree, a ceremony is held that includes ritual drinking of water
into which small amounts of the participants' blood have been mixed and
bullets and knives have been dipped; prayers are also recited by an achar (or
ceremonial leader) before witnesses. The kloeu relationship is much stronger
than the thoa. One kloeu will use the same kinship terms when addressing his
kloeu's parents and siblings as he would when addressing his own. The two
friends can call upon each other for any kind of help at any time. The kloeu
relationship apparently is limited to some rural parts of Cambodia and to
Khmer-speaking areas in Thailand. As of the late 1980s, it may have become
obsolete. The female equivalent of kloeu is mreak.

     Legally, the husband is the head of the Khmer family, but the wife has
considerable authority, especially in family economics. The husband is
responsible for providing shelter and food for his family; the wife is
generally in charge of the family budget, and she serves as the major ethical
and religious model for the children, especially the daughters. In rural
areas, the male is mainly responsible for such activities as plowing and
harrowing the rice paddies, threshing rice, collecting sugar palm juice,
caring for cattle, carpentry, and buying and selling cows and chickens. Women
are mainly responsible for pulling and transplanting rice seedlings,
harvesting and winnowing rice, tending gardens, making sugar, weaving, and
caring for the household money. Both males and females may work at preparing
the rice paddies for planting, tending the paddies, and buying and selling
land.

     Ownership of property among the rural Khmer was vested in the nuclear
family. Descent and inheritance is bilateral. Legal children might inherit
equally from their parents. The division of property was theoretically equal
among siblings, but in practice the oldest child might inherit more. Each of
the spouses might bring inherited land into the family, and the family might
acquire joint land during the married life of the couple. Each spouse was free
to dispose of his or her land as he or she chose. A will was usually oral,
although a written one was preferred.

     Private ownership of land was abolished by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.
Such ownership is also not recognized by the PRK government, which for
example, refused to support former owners when they returned and found others
living on and working their land. Some peasants were able to remain on their
own land during the Khmer Rouge era, however, and generally they were allowed
to continue to work the land as if it were their own property. In 1987 the
future of private ownership of land remained in doubt. According to Cambodia
scholar Michael Vickery, the PRK government planned to collectivize in three
stages. The first stage involved allotting land to families at the beginning
of the season and allowing the cultivators to keep the harvest. The second
stage involved allotting land to each family according to the number of
members. The families in the interfamily units known as solidarity groups
(krom samaki) were to work to prepare the fields, but subsequently each family
was responsible for the upkeep of its own parcel of land. At this stage, each
family could dispose of its own produce. In the final stage, all labor was to
be performed in common, and at the end of the season any remuneration was
distributed according to a work point system. Livestock at this stage would
still belong to the family. By 1984 the first stage groups accounted for 35
percent of the rural population, but the third level accounted for only 10
percent of the farms (see Agriculture, ch. 3).

Housing

     The nuclear family, in rural Cambodia, typically lives in a rectangular
house that may vary in size from four by six meters to six by ten meters. It
is constructed of a wooden frame with gabled thatch roof and walls of woven
bamboo. Khmer houses typically are raised on stilts as much as three meters
for protection from annual floods. Two ladders or wooden staircases provide
access to the house. The steep thatch roof overhanging the house walls
protects the interior from rain. Typically a house contains three rooms
separated by partitions of woven bamboo. The front room serves as a living
room used to receive visitors, the next room is the parents' bedroom, and the
third is for unmarried daughters. Sons sleep anywhere they can find space.
Family members and neighbors work