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A Javanese Handbook for Would-Be Husbands: The Sěrat Candraning Wanita

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2002

Edwin P. Wieringa
Affiliation:
The Research School of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies (CNWS), Leiden University, PO Box 9515, NL-2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands. E. P.Wieringa@let.leidenuniv.nl

Abstract

The Sěrat candraning wanita (Book of descriptions of women) is a voluminous Javanese manuscript written in Yogyakarta in the 1930s. This handbook for would-be husbands is basically an instruction manual, informing its (male) readers how to choose a good wife/sexual partner (based on physiognomy) and how sex works (based on ‘the etiquette of sexual intercourse’). It can be regarded as the swansong of pre-modern Javano-Muslim erotology.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© 2002 The National University of Singapore

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