Women's Abandonment in Kunaung Putri Bungsu Rindu Sekian

Women have been positioned as guilty beings when marriage is not blessed with descendants. They are demanded to be willing to be divorced for the sake of men to obtain children. This phenomenon does not only occur in the real world but is also represented by oral literature. This study aims to uncover the issue of women's neglect in the literary text entitled Kunaung Putri Bungsu Rindu Sekian. This study is qualitative. The data were gathered from the text of the Kerinci folklore. The unit of data research is in the form of literary codes contained in a series of lexia in the literary text. The data analyses were carried out semiologically by applying the theoretical concepts of Roland Barthes. The study indicates that the folklore text symbolically represents the neglect of the position of women in matrilineal society as a result of reproduction failure in the royal family in the Kerinci society. Women become guilty creatures when marriage is not blessed with a child. The woman's guilt must be paid for by the woman's willingness to accept the divorce verdict from her husband. Worse, the woman cannot refuse a proposition to reconcile from her ex. husband after he did not get offspring from another woman. The tragedy of the woman's painful fate is neutralized by men in a blanket in the name of eternal love. Women's negligence cannot be separated from the strong shackles of patriarchal power. Kunaung Putri Bungsu Rindu Sekian perfectly represents such a tragedy.