One recent assignment for my psychology class was to discuss the interpersonal dynamics of marriage within a specific group or subculture, applying the psychological concepts we've learned relating to interpersonal attraction (e.g., propinquity effect, mere exposure effect, similarity versus complementarity, social exchange theory, collectivism versus individualism, etc.). I've been pretty interested in Taiwan's colonial past, and I came across this article:
Reference: "Cultural Brokerage and Interethnic Marriage in Colonial Taiwan: Japanese Subalterns and Their Aborigine Wives, 1895-1930" by Paul D. Barclay
Intercultural marriages have been a significant part of Taiwan's subculture at various points in its history. Despite cultural differences, these partnerships still commonly occur. This may partly be explained by the propinquity effect, where oppositely gendered individuals of the different culture happened to be those you came into contact with most, and the mere exposure effect would eventually lead to familiarity and liking. In this case, foreign men would often marry local Taiwanese women.
During the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, some officials married the daughters of aboriginal tribal chieftains to secure political alliances. These aboriginal wives would then typically serve as translators and mediators for the Japanese government, reminiscent of the role of Pocahontas. They were usually less wives than concubines; marriages with the Japanese were directly brokered by the government via the political-marriage policy, which permitted men to marry multiple women. The Japanese were politically motivated to gain access to Aboriginal territories, but on a personal level, they were also motivated to gain a reputation of being a celebrated bantsu, or "Aborigine hand," who understood the local language and customs. Thus both collectivistic values such as loyalty to their home nation and individualistic values such as individual social status played a significant role in their choice to get married, and it may be inferred that the level of "true love," whether passionate or companionate, would have been correspondingly less significant of a factor in determining these unions.
The early officials to get married to Aborigine women did not, however, understand the local customs or historical enmities with other Aboriginal communities. Nor did they exhibit the attitude alignment over time that one might expect regarding these central-to-self issues in such an intimate relationship as marriage. Hiyama was the first prominent official to marry into an Aborigine polity by marrying the daughter of a Wusha chief. He then incurred the Wushe's ire by inviting and lavishly gifting rival tribes at the wedding feast, and by distributing further goods among subsidiary tribes (the chief's prerogative). Hiyama's behavior is consistent with the official Japanese political stance, which aimed to treat all Aborigine tribes equally in order to earn their respect and goodwill. From these interactions, it is clear that Hiyama's primary allegiance, before and after marriage, centered on his community of origin rather than on the marriage relationship or the new ties made on an individual level, as would be expected from a member of a collectivist society.
This pattern of opportunistic intermarriage has been compared to the European liaisons with Javanese women that Dutch tobacco companies actively encouraged to "initiate subalterns into the local languages and customs of a booming frontier economy." The political alliances formed through the marriages of Japanese subalterns with Aborigine women were exploited to solve the problem of Aborigine administration and eventually led to Japanese conquest of northern Aborigine territory.
Notably, the Japanese government in Taiwan did not officially acknowledge these unions, recording zero Japanese-Aboriginal marriages while meticulously recording thousands of Han-Aboriginal marriages in the same period. Part of this maybe attributed to the common anxiety that interracial progeny would result in "hybrid loyalties" and "undermine a solidarity that must be maintained against threats of rebellion from the majority local population." This official position was also reflected in the treatment of the aboriginal wives by the Japanese officials. Abuse and general lack of respect were common, reflecting the Japanese men's sense of superiority as well as the cultural norm of treating Aborigine women as concubines/second wives/mistresses rather than wives. The relationships were further made unequal by the fact that the degree of education as well as the political power of the Japenese men tended to be much greater than that of the Aborigine women.
Ultimately, as one might have predicted from the social exchange theory, the exchange relationships between Japanese men and Aborigine women were not equitable enough to sustain the union. The differences in culture, language, political stance, etc. were in most cases too great to overcome. Some aboriginal tribes sought violent retribution for "recklessly defiling Aborigine women." The Aborigines (in particular the Atayal) were monogamous by custom, and valued gender equality, premarital chastity, and companionate marriage. While out-marrying was consistent with Atayal practices when accompanied with public ceremony and ample bride price, the Atayal would violently punish adulterers or men who engaged only in casual liaisons with their women. This stood in contrast to prewar Japanese traditions of male dominance and gender inequality in marriage, and the illicit relationships that resulted from this sense of sexual prerogative is thought to have led to the 1900 rout of Japanese forces in Xincheng, Taidong Province. (This historical situation is still very present in the communal consciousness, as reflected by the stories told in the oral tradition of the collectivistic aboriginal people. As one Taiwanese aborigine put it, "We viewed our women as our gods; those Japanese trampled on our gods, and we could not stand for that.").
It is worth noting, though, that some unions did last on an individual level, and these were typically cases in which the men had "gone native," becoming business partners and/or adopted sons of the tribe they had married into. This, too, exemplifies the importance of attitude alignment in close relationships, and by extension the idea that strong relationships are founded on similarities rather than differences.
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