Abstrack:
Madura with its four regencies has a variety of cultural tourisms ranging from dance art, traditional clothes, language, unique food, and local wisdoms. These valuable cultural assets are overlooked since Madura has been identified with violence, fight (carok), and underdevelopment. The fact is that there are a lot of local wisdoms which have supreme values. Discussions about Madura cannot be separated from discussions about Madurese women. Madurese women who from the viewpoint of outsiders are identified with work ethics, hard working, Madurese traditional medicine, and sexuality are interesting to be discussed. This is due to the fact that many Madurese local wisdoms are inherent in Madurese women?s life cycles. These wisdoms do have supreme values which can be Madurese women?s self- otentials. The objective of the study is to reveal Madurese women?s local wisdoms in their life cycles. Ethnographic data were collected by observations and in-depth interviews with key informants to grasp hidden contents or values in every form of Madurese local wisdom. Besides, the data were collected from written documents such as archives, news or opinions. For the sake of historical framework and sharpened perspective, reviews were done to a number of references related to the focus of interest which has been developed by other researchers. Madurese local wisdoms which are inherent in their life cycles include teenage phase, becoming a wife, and looking after the family. In the three phases above, the local wisdom imbued by their ancestors since their early life to Madurese women is confined in patriarchic cultural hegemony to the degree that they do not feel that it is in fact a gap. The patriarchic cultural hegemony inherent in Madurese women local wisdoms is materialized in three concepts adhandhen (dressing up), arembhi? (giving birth), and amasak (cooking) which must be done by a Madurese woman. Broadly speaking, the Madurese women?s local wisdoms which emerge from their life cycles are that they have to work hard, not to be lazy, devote their life to their family by looking after themselves and their family. On the other hand, Madurese women with hard working characteristic and high work ethic imbued since their early life have great potential to increase their own economic life and family as well as are proof of their existence.
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