Inter-caste Marriage and the Impact on the Intra-cultural Communication Pattern of Balinese Hindu in Indonesia: An Ethnography Study

Intra-cultural communication of the Balinese community, acted as a representation of cultural and social identity. This intra-cultural relationship has consciously built relations of power in the life of the Balinese Hindu community including in very personal matters such as marriage. There are two kinds of marriages for Balinese Hindu, memadik (wooing) and ngerorod (eloping). The second married arose when women from high caste married with a man from a lower caste. In the Dutch colonial era, this kind of marriage was outlawed, since this time categorized as unexpected marriage. One of the consequences of eloping married, known as nyerod in Bali is a decline in the caste of the bride as same as the groom. Accordingly, the couple should change their ways of communication when they interact with the bride family. The aims of this paper is to describe the intra-cultural communications among the nyerod couple with their family and the indigenous environmental in Balinese Hinduism. The ethnography approach was taken to describing and analyzing the primary data from interview and observation. The result shows that the intracultural communication pattern among nyerod women and their parent, sibling and extended family, represent by their impression management. The foundation of interactions are the form of their identity which develops in four layers and bound by customary law.