Calling in the soul: gender and the cycle of life in a Hmong village

5. Reflections on Power, Gender, and the Cycle of Life

chapter 5 Reflections on Power, Gender, and the Cycle of Life F or the Hmong, parenthood is the path to fulfillment in this world and the means toward peace as an ancestor in the afterlife. It is the reproductive power of women and the subsequent existence of children— both daughters, whose bride-price makes it possible for their brothers to marry and have their own children, and sons, who feed the ancestors—that assures the continuation of the lineage and the immortality of the individual ’s soul. But, as in many other societies, the understanding that women are essential to the continuity of life coexists with their lower social status. The actual labor and delivery of a child express a dominant theme in Hmong society: women’s role is to be private and silent, men’s is to be public and vocal. As we have seen, women are quiet and acquiescent to the male voice in the public domain. In the private sphere of the home, older women exert some influence and power, but this is over younger women, not over men—at least not overtly. Even when a woman’s judgment is deferred to in public, as in the case of the eldest sister at her brother’s funeral, it is her husband who speaks. Although some scholars have argued (Ortner 1974:75) that giving birth is seen as part of nature instead of culture and is therefore devalued, Cornelia 163 Ann Kammerer states that this is not so for the Akha of northern Thailand (1986:357). Nor is it true of the Hmong. For the Hmong the creation of life is highly valued; it is an act both natural and cultural, in which neither quality is opposed to the other. Women contribute the substance of life, the vessel for the reincarnated soul of an ancestor, and men call that soul into the newborn’s body. Women’s Power Because the sexual asymmetry of Hmong culture has been so frequently remarked upon, I would like to reiterate some of the areas of Hmong life in which power is associated with women. In some of these areas the power is obvious, in others, so taken for granted as to be nearly invisible. Reproduction within Marriage Hmong women’s primary source of power in the patriline is their fertility, and they have a long reproductive life because they marry in their teens and traditionallyhavebeenreluctanttousecontraceptives(althoughthisisslowly changing after years of Thai government eªorts to encourage the use of birth control). Hmong have many reasons for valuing fecundity, and love of children is one of them. Also, Hmong need children to till the fields and to perform religious rites, especially the funerary rites that guarantee safe passage into the land of darkness; and they have a history of high child-mortality rates due to natural causes, as well as generational losses such as those during the Vietnam War. Other reasons that contraception is avoided are that only the birth of a first child is believed to seal the marital union (Symonds 1991:135), that only sons perpetuate the patrilineal kinship system, that every new birth is believed to provide another body for an ancestor’s soul to be reborn into, that women have di‹culty requesting that their husbands use birth control, and that in spite of years of Thai government family planning , women are still enjoined by their families to have as many children as possible. Hmong women’s social powerlessness in these arenas arises from cultural norms that encourage them to exhibit deference to male authority and that discourage women from behaving assertively. 164 chapter 5 Courtship and Sexual Freedom Although young girls are taught to cover themselves with sev, to speak to males only in certain ways, to exhibit “shyness,” and so on, at the time of menses the expression of a young woman’s sexuality becomes socially desirable and she wears an embroidered sev rather than the plain sev worn by girls and married women. The New Year’s courting ritual, with its love songs and “courting ball game,” is a time when sexual experimentation is condoned unless the suitor is from the same clan. Young women need not feel shame or fear punishment for engaging in sex with as many partners as they like unless they become pregnant and remain unwed. Virginity does not appear to be highly prized and in fact seems to be unusual by late adolescence . Opinions vary as to the...