THE ATTITUDES AND PERCEPTIONS OF SOUTH SULAWESI YOUTH ON UANG PANAI AND ITS IMPACTS ON THEM

Abstract

Uang panai is the core requirement in a marriage in South Sulawesi. It is commonly used to organize a wedding ceremony. The objective of this paper is to examine the attitudes and perceptions of South Sulawesi youth towards uang panai and its impacts on them. For this study, a self-administered survey questionnaire was distributed to 154 South Sulawesi youth. The respondents are South Sulawesi youth aged between 20-40 years old. Some of them have completed their tertiary studies while others are currently pursuing theirs. All data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24. The results show that South Sulawesi youth have positive attitudes and perceptions towards uang panai and its impacts on them have been relatively positive. The findings confirm that the amount of uang panai is more important compared to mahar in Islam. They also do not perceive uang panai as an expensive marriage custom in Indonesia and uang panai does not cause problem among the men. Uang panai is a South Sulawesi identity and this study endorses previous studies on the same topic.