Heterarchic In Sasak Muslim Families: Renegotiation Of Husbands' Permission And Women's Economic Leadership

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenon of shifting power relations within Sasak Muslim families in Gunungsari Subdistrict, West Lombok, where many wives have become the primary economic backbone of the family while Islamic family law construction particularly Article 79 of the KHI still preserves a vertical hierarchical paradigm. Using a phenomenological socio-legal approach following Alfred Schutz's framework on lived experience and the life-world (Lebenswelt), this research describes how Sasak Muslim couples interpret the husband's permission, qawwamah, and nafkah within a factual context that has diverged from the premises of classical fiqh. Data were obtained through participant observation and in-depth interviews with twelve couples across five villages (Sesela, Jatisela, Jeringo, Midang, Mambalan) between December 2025 and March 2026. Carole L. Crumley's heterarchy framework is employed as an interpretive lens, not as a tool for normative reform. The article offers three conceptual contributions: first, the identification of the pattern of "emic shift without explicit normative reconstruction" as a mode of adaptation in contemporary Muslim families; second, an interpretive reading of the husband's permission as partnership capital (ra's mal al-syirkah) within a heterarchic configuration; third, the concept of "discursive accommodation" that explains how classical fiqh doctrines and contemporary practice mutually accommodate one another through theological reframing without open confrontation. This study underscores that classical ushul fiqh maxims—such as al-hukmu yadūru ma'a 'illatihi and al-'adah muhakkamah—in fact provide epistemic room for such phenomenological reading.