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Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population. By Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. 329 pp. $37. Cloth. The field of [...]

Any author writing under the title Population in Asia must as a first priority disabuse the reader of a wide range of expectations that cannot possibly be met in one [...]

This article reports that marriage involves four major distinct stages in Javanese society. These occur in a variety of sequences and the modal or standard patterns have changed over time. From the viewpoint of the government, the key stage of the marriage arrangement is the legal ceremony and registration of the union. For the majority Muslim population this takes place in the Religious Affair Office at the village or neighborhood center. The specific ceremony depends on the religion of the couple with Indonesian law specifying different procedures for each of the major religions and for marriages between people of different faiths. In all cases though, the ceremony involves a legally sanctioned contract which has implications for inheritance, ownership of property, access to various civil rights particularly voting rights in the case of young people and recognition of the legal status of children born from or adopted into the union. From the viewpoint of the government this should be the first stage in the sequence. Prior to the development of legal institutions governing marriage, communities followed an elaborate series of customs which also had the function of recognizing and protecting rights of the couple and their offspring.