"An epidemic of runaway wives": discourses by Dani men on sex and marriage in highlands Irian Jaya, Indonesia.

In the province of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, highland indigenous peoples' lifeways have been affected by the in-migration of Indonesian citizens from elsewhere in the archipelago. In the Bauern valley, Indonesian migrants now dominate the economic and political landscape. The impact of a strong state at the local level has affected the Dani' s traditional beliefs and practices surrounding sexuality and marriage. In earlier times, men used their power and influence to try and regulate marital and sexual relations. This paper addresses the worried way Dani men now talk about a phenomenon they term "runaway wives. " These are Dani women who abandon marriages or who refuse to marry partners chosen for them. Men 's discourse on runaways condenses broader concerns about the waning power of men to regulate domestic and political domains. They invoke the power of money, the negative aspects of development, and the discriminatory attitudes of migrants to allocate blame for what they see as women 's out-ofcontrol sexual behavior. Through discourses of sexuality and marriage, Dani men make astute commentaries on the costs of their incorporation into the Indonesian nation-state.