138 Local–Global BARLAKE Barlake: an exploration of marriage practices and issues of women’s status in Timor-Leste Sara Niner Introduction In Timor-Leste, indigenous customary practices that surround marriage and relations between the families or clans of the bride and groom are called barlake (pronounced “baa-lucky”) and today feature in an estimated half of all marriages. As early as the 1960s they have been blamed for the subjugation of women and more recently cited as central a cause of high levels of domestic violence. This condemnation its into broad global feminist critiques of traditional marriage practices as mechanisms for the control and exploitation of women by men. The contemporary discourse surrounding barlake in Timor- Leste is also part of wider debates about the roles and status of women in the new post-conlict nation. However, a dominant cultural perspective in Timor-Leste is that barlake is a cornerstone of East Timorese indigenous culture integral to a wider, complex system of social action and ritual exchange. This system has sustained life in the challenging environment of the island and through a long and recently concluded war with neighbouring Indonesia. This perspective has sometimes crudely been reduced to a nationalist defence and assertion of culture against the creeping incursions of ‘international standards’ regarding gender equity and the introduction of a western feminist agenda. 1 However, there is no doubt that in Timor-Leste these practices engender a deep sense of identity and meaning for most people and that they are dominant in day-to-day regulation of life in the villages and towns where 80 per cent of citizens reside. This perspective is also supported by the more classical anthropological approach which accepts cultural defences of practices despite them possibly being linked to abuses of rights. Sensitivities over barlake have come to the fore within a growing discourse on gender and cultural issues that falls between the two opposing views outlined above and which is reduced to a simple either/or debate: barlake is good because it is part of East Timorese culture and values and protects women, or barlake is bad because it means men buy women in marriage and this leads to domestic violence. This paper seeks to explore these perspectives on the functions and impact of barlake upon women’s status and ask the question: can these two views be reconciled? And further, are there any ways forward suggested in these debates about barlake in contemporary East Timorese society?