The World of Burmese Women

207 Pages·1984·23.618 MB·English

by  Mi Mi Khaing

The World of
Burmese Women
Mi Mi Khaing
To
Sao Saimong Mangrai
Zed Books Ltd., 57 Caledonian Road, London Nl 9BU
The World of Burmese Women was first published by Zed
Books Ltd., 57 Caledonian Road, London Nl 9BU, in 1984.
Copyright © Mi Mi Khaing 1984
Typeset by Sapphire Set
Proofread by Ros Howe
Cover photo courtesy of Maung Maung
Cover design by Lee Robinson
Photos courtesy of the author
Printed by The Pitman Press, Bath
All rights reserved
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Khaing, Mi Mi
The world of Burmese women
1, Women - Burma-Social conditions
I. Title
305.4'2'09591 MQl 735.7
ISBN 0-86232-179-4
ISBN 0-86232-180-8 Pbk
US Distributor
Biblio Distribution Center, 81 Adams Drive, Totowa,
New Jersey 07512
Erratum
Due to a printing error the author's name on the cover has
been misspelt.
Contents
Introduction 1
1. The Historical Background 1
2. Kinship and Society 15
3. Family Law and Practices 25
4. The Household: Material Background of
Housewife's Activity 47
5. The Household: Family Care and Life Stages 67
6. Women in Religion 77
7. Education, Training and Some Social Problems 100
8. Women at Work: Traditional Roles 118
9. Women at Work: Factory Workers 138
10. Women at Work: Political and Professional
Participation 150
11. Conclusions 175
Postscript 180
Bibliography 192
Glossary 194
Introduction
The aim of this book is to bring within its two covers all aspects of women's
participation in the society of one small country. That country is Burma. Its
population is just over 30 million.
Two reasons make Burma a good subject for a case study. First, less has been
written about Burmese women in post-Independence years than about women
in other parts oft he world. Second, when all over the world, this century has seen
changes in the status ofw omen, particularly with regard to social life, the control
and disposal of property, marriage etc., no such change has been visible in the
lives of Burmese women. Yet, despite the fact that Burmese women have not
lacked the power to protest or demonstrate either in the past or now, there has
been no feminist movement of note in the country. And indeed, there are
certainly areas in our lives which can be said to need change, and which have
been pointed at by Western women. Perhaps then, this book, in describing the
life and world of Burmese women and in tracing their history, may provide
material for discussions on sex roles and how women achieve their place in the
sun elsewhere in the world.
The aim oft his book is no doubt ambitius even for a writer who is native to and
seasoned for many decades in the environment to be investigated. It would be
useful to clear the ground first to see what material does, in fact, exist on the
subject of Burmese women.
It is well known that no foreign sociologist has been able to carry out field work
in Burma since 1962. Oft he studies done before that date, the most noteworthy is
Manning Nash's Golden Road to Modernity based on his research (during
residence) in two villages near Mandalay in Upper Burma. He says, quite rightly,
that other bopks on Burma have given a picture at the national level, ignoring the
villages and huts of the country in which the majority of Burmese live. However,
while he looks at rural Burma, hitherto ignored, he is not able to throw much
light (a fact that he recognizes) on the question of women, although where he
does make brief descriptions of the domestic load he is surprisingly accurate and
perceptive.
Manning Nash has also worked, together with his wife June, on a study called
Population Growth in Upper Burma. This is a useful and informative work and far
better than the two chapters written by me in two compilations Women in the New
The World of Burmese Women
Asia (B.E. Ward) and Women in the Modem World (R Patai). It is partly to offset
my own unfavourable recollections of these two articles that I so keenly wanted
to do the present work. In addition, the fact of being on an American university
campus where I would be able to make the time to write, such as I would not in
Burma, was also encouraging. Apart from the time thus available, it was
stimulating to be in Ann Arbor. If foreign sociologists had been cut off from
Burma during the last 15 years, we readers of books in English had been equally
cut off from the world of such books. Now, in the Graduate Library, I could see
that works on women in Javanese, Malay, Indonesian and Thai societies·
abounded. Their contents pointed clearly to a gap where Burmese women and
society were concerned. By assiduously attending conferences where papers
were read, I became familiar with the well-reiterated concepts to be sought out
and stated. It became clear to me that while the place to write was here in Ann
Arbor, the only place for sufficient field work was in Burma. I could not hope to
go back for field work and return to write as American scholars are funded to do.
Even ifI had the funds to return home, the procedure necessary to get out again
would cut seriously into my working time. Due to recently discovered
aberrations in my physique, I did not feel sure of being able to count on more
than another two years of reading sight.
I had, before coming, made some notes on certain areas oft he study, but these
were far from being adequate for my new purpose. I did, however, have at home
in Burma a good number of young people linked to me by blood or other strong
ties. This enabled me to ask their active help in searching out data, conducting
interviews, and sending summaries of the scenes I had already located. I
therefore spent the first six weeks of my work planning the chapters in detail and
drafting the scores of questions. There is a lack, even in a well-equipped place like
Ann Arbor, of statistical material on Burma. In Boserup's book Women's Role in
&anomic Development, which is rich in tables, there was, in many of them, a note
opposite Burma saying 'figures not available', 'for urban areas only' whereas
other Southeast Asian countries had full figures. In my letters to my band of
helpers I implored them to beg, cajole and press, to obtain information. I tried
friends at the U.N. from where, too, no statistical data was available. I tried a
week in Washington, where at the Library of Congress, Helen Po came to me,
loaded down with volumes and a magnifying glass. I took down the little I could
find and decided I would have to think out a way to write which would use all the
personal experience at my command against the background oft he poor amount
of statistical data available at the national level. The chapters on the household
were easy, as my young helpers were able to interview some 150 households in
village, country-town and capital-town with questions, the answers to which I
could use as a check on my own experiences and observations. Though the
questions asked by such sensitive Burmese oft heir own country folk could not be
so many as can be put by unembarrassed foreign questioners, we could try to
direct the few at the areas most vital to the housewife's view of her household
management.
The chapters on the economic input of women would suffer most from the.
11
Introduction
lack of statistical data, especially the one on modem industrial labour. In certain.
matters I decided to exploit to the full the fact ofm y being Burmese. This was the
case with the chapter on kinship. Professor Robbins Burling has written an
analytical paper on the Burmese kinship system debating the pros and cons of
two approaches to classifying or enumerating a comprehensive list of
relationships. Manning Nash has given summaries of relations within the family.
I would be able to add to these works data which a foreign observer could not be
expected to perceive in kinship terms and associations.
For the chapters on Family Law and Practices, I was fortunate enough to find
sufficient books in the Law Library of the University of Michigan. For other
chapters (such as the one on the Education and Training ofWomen) I was able to
get data from friends in London and Rangoon. The chapter on Women in
Religion was enjoyable to write as it came mostly from sources so far published
only in Burmese and from personal accounts by people who had known the
women in that line. Chapter I, in which I give an account of women's activities
during past centuries of Burmese history, might appear to some as an attempt at a
potted history of Burma in a linear trail of notes on women. I have depended, as
most writers on Burma must depend, on the work of scholars headed by the great
professors, Tin and Luce, writing in journals of The Burma Research Society. I
have, however, selected material which, after so many centuries, is reflected in
the activities of women today, as found in my own field studies. This chapter,
showing as it does, women and girls in economic, social and religious positions
so familiar to us today, I regard as the keynote of this book in that it reflects the
continuity of tradition in Burma. I have therefore attempted, in the closing
chapter of the book, to look more closely for trends and signs of change which
might correct my reading of this theme.
* * * *
This book should have been completed by October 1977. When it was half done,
around January 1977, family matters in Burma took a tum which necessitated
our presence there; we knew, however, that we would need to return to the
U. S.A to honour our commitments.
At the same time my eyesight began to worsen and I required brain surgery to
try saving whatever vision remained. Finishing. my duties at the end of April
1977, I went into hospital for that surgery. I had had a brain operation in 197 4 and
had left hospital only 9 days after it, and was riding tubes and buses in London a
month later. I therefore reckoned that I could be operated on. in early May,
recuperate in U. S.A right till the end of June, then fly the long journey to Burma
in early July when the fatigues of the journey would be amply offset by the care I
would receive from relatives,. especially two loving daughters, three sisters and
doctors at every tum to consult. I could fill all the gaps in my material, do visits
and interviews during the two month summer vacation and return to Ann Arbor
to write better.
Alas for human conceit when it believes it can plan according to need. My
iii
The World of Burmese Women
system did not respond as I had always known it to do. I never seemed to get well
- so that no fieldwork could be done in Burma and, due either to the rigours of
the operation, or the passage of time and inevitable deterioration of my original
pathology, I lost even the power to read which I had had up to the time of the
operation. I thought it would come back gradually if I trained my eyes on print
long enough, but it never did. I thus learned that one feature oft he operation had
failed and my general vision also was deteriorating alarmingly so that I might,
before long, be blind.
I could do nothing and was idle. Fortunately, one of my daughters had come
to Michigan with me, in case I needed help, and help was certainly needed now.
She could read to me and was alert enough to enjoy recapitulating the chief
points in the material for me to jot on stark white paper with a thick felt pen. I
'read' but I didn't write. I had to believe that my reading vision would return and
then I would chain myself down to write and rewrite. My chief pleasure in
writing, as with other writers I think, lies in the scoring out of most of the dreary
first draft, to an acceptable degree of readability. For this I thought I depended,
no! on hearing but, on reading slight only.
Realizing the hopelessness of writing plans based on the ability to read and
amend what I had written, I became very depressed. Fortunately, a friend with a
personality that can influence his associates deeply, visited me soon after. He
was, besides being a dear friend, the Director of the Center for South and
Southeast Asian Studies, which was our host department and to which I felt
accountable for making my stay here fruitful. The way, he, L.A Peter Gosling,
spoke to me convinced me that he could quite clearly see through to the
shambles of my wrecked willpower. In a determined effort to retain his good
opinion, I sat down to all the notes and drafted chapters I could not read.
Contrary to the writing procedure I adopt normally, I worked on each sentences
as read out by my daughter. It is my earnest hope that readers will view leniently
the shortcomings of this book due to my handicap in not being able to remedy
them by reading over what has been written.
My acknowledgements of deep gratitude must be long. First those Burmese
friends and relatives, who have supplied me with information. Headed by my
scholar cousin U Lu Pe Win, they are: Sao Hso Hom, Sao Soe Tint, U Aye
Maung and Daw Hla Kywe, Sao Hseng Sandar. Thi Thi Ta, U Toe Aung Kyaw,
Patricia Kingham, San Thida, U Kham Leng, Daw Khin Thein, Daw Toke Gale,
U Ba Aye and Daw Yin Yin Mya the professional women whose careers are
outlined in Chapter X, that superb reader of Burmese material, Ma Tu Mar, and
Hpyu Hpyu Soe for her proficient secretarial help at the most needed time. For
figures of the British period ap_d other material in London I am grateful to my
lifelong benefactor, FS. V. Donnison, who has also exerted himselfin seeking out
a publisher. For proofreading I thank another lifelong friend, Peter Murray.
I owe more than I can say to my daughter Ta Ta for secretarial and reading
help before our return to Burma in July 1978, and to my niece San Thida and my
nephew Leng Boonwaat for the same help after July 1978. My friends Betty
Musgrave and Karen Payne, I deeply thank for their generous gift of reading and
iv
Introduction
typing help.
There are also my Ann Arbor friends and colleagues: Professor AL. Becker
who was responsible for my being able to reside in the University of Michigan
campus, who would like this book to be written better than it can be by me, and
who must help even more than he has already done in the final reading of the
manuscript. There is also L.A Peter Gosling whose influence I have already
acknowledged in this introduction. There are Professors Tom Trautman, Gayl
Ness, Rhoads Murphey, Robbins Burling and others based on Lane Hall, South
State Street, Ann Arbor, who with their wives not only showed me so much
warmth of welcome but have also encouraged and helped me in my work. In the
great blessing ofA nn Arbor's system ofbeing able to call colleagues on the phone
and get information on that colleague's field of specialization, perhaps the best is
John Musgrave, always ready to tell or to track down whatever one needs, with
so much kindness and knowledge. I do thank him deeply.
There are the distinguished friends and relatives whom I have asked to read
over the draft of the manuscript: the eminent writer and jurist Dr Maung Maung
who made time from his national responsibilities at the highest level, and U Lu
Pe Wm who read so quickly as not to delay.
Finally, I must thank the Ford Foundation who helped me to work at this
book without the need to seek wage support. I thank also John D. Rockefeller III
Associates for help in getting me home to Burma where secretarial services have
been within my means so as to enable me to complete this book. In this, it is Leng
Boonwaat who has been with me in the last weary pushes to the finish.
However, when I felt that I had completed my work on this book I found that
the end result still needed revision and some cleaning up. In this it was only the
supervision and help of my husband Sao Saimong which provided me with the
finished product and enabled me to produce a bibliography and source notes.
* * * *
In attempting to show what I have called 'the world of Burmese women', I have
felt it desirable to give a fully-rounded account of the society in which they
function. Such a full description of the Burmese social background may
sometimes appear tedious and may even draw the reader's attention from the
main focus of the book. However, I have no doubt that the thoughtful reader will
soon be able to focus on the central point again and indeed, she may find that she
has added ·s omething to her perception of her Burmese sisters from the
background material. I have supplied. I have several reasons for having chosen
this method: I have a certain amount of national pride in the conditions of
women in my country. Then, several times at meetings and conferences I have
read speakers get up and declare the high position enjoyed by women in their
countries. I do not wish to prove any such thing by statement alone. Instead, I ·
prefer to give here as full a picture as I can and let the reader make her own
conclusion.
Thus, when dealing with the kinship system for example, I have given a fairly
V
The World of Burmese Women
detailed account of all its terminology in order to show it as a truly bilateral
system. In dealing with family law I have gone back as far as the original sources
of Burmese Buddhist law in order to show what a strong place it has in people's
lives today. I have also tried to show how, in spite of new legislation having been
passed, people still prefer to go by the old laws.
The spirit of any women will be derived from the spirit of the society in which
they exercise their personalities. Though the Burmese embrace the austere
doctrines of Theravada Buddhism, they are not an austere people. I would rather
say they are a fun-loving and happy people. This aspect oft heir character is most
easily evident in certain community festivities which, unfortunately, I shall not be
able to describe in this work. Suffice it to say that, as in various other aspects of
life, certain community and religious festivities allow an equal role for men and
women.
In giving the account of the housewife's work load I have, once again, given a
fuller account than is perhaps strictly necessary. Partly I have done this for the
reasons outlined above. But partly I have also emphasized certain aspects of her
role in order to show how different Burmese society is from that of its more
industriaized neighbours.
Finally, I would like to place one other point about my work in front of the
reader. This book is not written on the basis of national-level statistics. Much of
what is contained in it comes from the experience of one who has strong roots in
her native community. Some of the profiles of women, especially those who
work in the so-called 'non-professional' jobs, are given in great detail in order to
make them alive. In doing this I hope also to be able to retain the flavour of
Southeast Asia in the context of which this book on Burmese women should be
read.
vi
1. The Historical Background
The Historical Background - Women in the Making of Burma
Our first historical glimpse of women in Burma is in the Pyu Kingdom of
Sriksetra or Old Prome near Burma's southern coast. Today Prome is 180 miles
north of the sea; then it was much nearer.
Chinese sources refer to Buddhism as having already arrived in Burma in the
first half of the third to fifth centuries and note an orderly kinship and societal
system among the Pyu (Luce (i) pp 308-9). But it is. in the ninth century
descriptions of the Old Tang History (ibid, p. 318) that women spring to life:
'When they come to the age of seven, both boys and girls drop their hair and
stop in a monastery where they take refuge in the Sangha. On reaching the age of
twenty, if they have not aw aked to the principles of the Buddha, they let their hair
grow again and become ordinary townsfolk' (ibid, p. 319).
This is arresting information, for to go to a monastery and take refuge in the
Sangha (Order of Monks) is one of the greatest privileges given to human beings
in the Buddhist world. It is exciting to find girls of that time given it with boys.
(Did they go to monasteries of ordained nuns, or was it to monks they went for
teaching? The records do not say.)
The fact that girls were admitted to the Sangha becomes all the more
interesting when we note that the basis of monastic life is to keep distractions of
sex away from the monks. And the women of the Pyu period, it would seem,
would certainly have been considered in that light. 'Married women wear their
hair piled in coils on top of the head, and ornaments with silver and strings of
pearls. They wear blue skirts of silk cotton and throw about them pieces ofg auze
silk. When out for a walk they carry a fan' (ibid pp. 319-20).
The Pyu Kingdom came to an end in 832 AD. Soon after this, in the south
east, another people ofB urma, the Mons, gained prominence. Though few traces
have been found, as yet, of their kingdom, a woman's voice still reaches us from
it. It says, in an inscription on an image oft he Buddha found in Kawgun cave near
Pa-an: 'This image of Buddha, it was I, queen ofMartaban dwelling in the town
of Duw op who carved it and made this holy Buddha. The votive tablets of earth
in Duwop and elsewhere in this kingdom, it was I and my followers alone who
carved them' (Nai Pan Hla, p. 70).
1