The first Austrian in Ayutthaya was impressed by the wealth of the kingdom and
the wise rule of the Siamese king as well as his "open door policy" and strict
law enforcement, says associate professor Helmut Lukas who recently talked
about Fernberger's diary at a Siam Society lecture organised in cooperation
with Chulalongkorn University's Centre for European Studies.
Lukas, however, doesn't agree with Fernberger's perspective of the women in
Ayutthaya.
"Like any big port, Ayutthaya had a well-established prostitution ring catering
to foreign seamen. But it would be wrong to assume that their behaviour was
indicative of Thai women of that era," says Lukas, an academic with the Social
Anthropology Research Unit, Centre for Studies in Asian Cultures, Austrian
Academy of Science.
As an independent observer with no obligations to a trading company,
Fernberger's diary may offer an alternative perspective to the often one-sided
Dutch sources, the Austrian anthropologist adds.
"But his pages on the women in Ayutthaya were based on his impressions of a
very limited area, which he wrongly extrapolated to the entire country," Lukas
points out.
Unfortunately, many Dutch merchants held similar views of the woman they took
as their "wives" in Ayutthaya, according to professor Barbara Watsan Andaya,
author of the paper "From Temporary Wife to Prostitute: Sexuality and Economic
Change in Early Modern Southeast Asia" published in the Journal of Women's
History in 1998.
"VOC employees in Ayutthaya even referred to their 'wives' as whores, sluts and
trollops and the like," writes the professor of History and Asian Studies at
the University of Hawaii.
While researching her paper, Andaya discovered that other than several works
covering prostitution, no historical investigation has been carried out into
the changing attitudes toward sexuality in Southeast Asia, despite the fact
that the "high status" of women is often cited as characteristic of the region.
Siamese women in the 17th century are also mentioned in the diary of French
ambassador Simon de La Loub่re, who arrived in Ayutthaya some 30 years
after Fernberger.
The ambassador writes in his memoirs about a brothel in the capital of
Ayutthaya, which was home to some 600 women from different levels of society,
including the daughters and wives of the court's noblemen.
La Loub่re, who was in Siam during the reign of King Narai, also relates
how prostitution tax, collected from those with permission to run brothels, was
first imposed in this reign and that the largest brothel was run by one of the
king's noblemen.
Prostitution in the port city of Pattani is also mentioned in the journals of
several 17th-century foreign traders.
The Dutch merchant Van Neck, who arrived in Pattani in the early 1600s,
describes the women at the harbour and their services.
"When foreigners come from other lands to do their business.men come and ask
them whether they desire a woman. The young women and girls also come and
present themselves, from whom they may choose the one most agreeable to them,
provided they agree what he shall pay for certain months. Once they agree about
the money (which does not amount to much for so great a convenience), she comes
to his house, and serves him by day as his maidservant and by night as his
wedded wife."
For his part, the foreign trader had to agree not to consort with other women
while the temporary wife was similarly forbidden to converse with other men.
The "marriage" was deemed to last for as long as the man kept up his residence,
"in good peace and unity".
Fernberger, who arrived in Pattani in December 1624, wasn't interested in
hooking up with a woman at the harbour. His attention was on the female ruler
with whom he had been granted an audience.
Pattani was under the rule of Raja Ungu, the third of four successive queens to
take the throne. Fernberger describes her as an absolutist ruler who did not
listen to any council.
In his diary he describes the royal entourage of 200 women. As a sign of royal
power, she kept about 50 elephants and possessed some 50 men who she used for
her sexual pleasure.
Lukas says the women of Pattani, and especially the queen, enjoyed many
liberties.
"This proves that being a Muslim doesn't mean being "macho" or a misogynist.
The gender equality in the old Pattani kingdom sets an example for modern
times," he says.
But some of Fernberger's accounts about the queen are much less credible.
Lukas smiles as he recounts Fernberger's reason for leaving Pattani.
He writes that after being granted an audience with Raja Ungu, she provided him
with a house and 10 slaves. He later helped her fight the Siam invasion in
January 1625 in which Pattani won the battle. The young Austrian describes how
the queen expressed her gratitude by sending him a present and passing on a
message that she would visit him at night.
"Fernberger says a Malay colonel gave him to understand that the queen intended
to make love with him. As he'd heard that men who had failed to meet her high
expectations were ordered to be killed, Fernberger clandestinely sneaked down
to the shore, boarded a small sailboat and went back to Ayutthaya. His stay in
Pattani lasted 71 days," says the professor, laughing.
The Nation
