<![CDATA[In the nyentana marriage tradition of Balinese Hindu society, a man marries into his wife's family and takes on the status of pradana. Prior studies document a structural contradiction: in social and economic obligations the penyentana is still treated as a full male, while in customary and inheritance rights his status reverts to pradana, yet these studies remain within adat-law critique without framing the issue theologically. This article traces the ontological meaning of purusa-pradana in Nusantara Hindu theological texts and assesses the internal consistency of its use in nyentana via an immanent critique judging it by the tradition’s own standards. The study uses qualitative-interpretive library research, reinforced by participatory observation as a pinandita, applying Gadamer’s hermeneutics of the fusion of horizons to read the Sāṃkhyakārikā, Manusmṛti, and the lontar texts Wṛhaspati Tattwa and Tattwa Jñāna. Findings show purusa-pradana in the lontar texts is a complementary, gender-transcendent cosmological principle, yet in nyentana it is reduced to a legal-adat category applied selectively: activated for rights, deactivated for obligations, producing a normative double-bind disadvantaging the penyentana. This distortion spans four dimensions (ontological category, scope, status, and authority) and conflicts with three principles: the genderless equality of ātman, the ritual-cosmological spirit of putrīkā, and the full complementarity of purusa-pradhāna. The article concludes that correction is needed not in nyentana itself but in the consistency of applying purusa-pradana within it, offering three reconstruction directions: restoring the cosmological meaning of lontar texts, consistent status application across rights and obligations, and the pada gelahang marriage model as an alternative.]]>
Copyrights © 2026
