Got an itch? Get hitched/ Why more Indonesian teens are giving up dating
1. itch /ɪtʃ/
to have an uncomfortable feeling on your skin that makes you want to scratch (= rub your skin with your nails)2. get hitched [ɡet hɪtʃt]
(informal) to get married
Wed now to avoid temptation, online conservatives urge
1 IT WAS LOVE at first like. When Natta Reza, a dashing Indonesian busker, discovered the young woman’s account on Instagram, he knew he’d found the one. He liked one of her posts, and they started chatting. Within hours he had proposed via an Instagram message. They married soon after, in February 2017.
1. dashing /ˈdæʃɪŋ/
attractive and fashionable
eg: a dashing young officer
his dashing red waistcoat2. busker [ˈbʌskə(r)]
[] waistcoat /ˈweɪskəʊt/
a short piece of clothing with buttons down the front but no arms, usually worn over a shirt and under a jacket, often forming part of a man’s suit[] love at first sight 一见钟情——love at first like 形容社交媒体上的“一赞钟情”
2 Since then Mr Natta and his wife, Wardah Maulina, have become celebrities on Instagram. They are the poster couple for a social movement sweeping Indonesia, home to the world’s largest population of Muslims. Its champions encourage single Muslims to renounce dating, lest they succumb to the temptations of premarital sex, which is barred by Islamic law. Better to marry young, and swiftly, and leave the matchmaking to a parent, cleric or the Islamic internet. Islam in Indonesia has traditionally been a moderate affair. Yet the eagerness with which teenage and millennial Muslims have embraced abstinence shows how a purist strain of the faith has tightened its grip.
3. lest /lest/
in order to prevent something from happening
eg: Lest anyone should doubt my story, I have brought documents to attest to its truth.
Lest usually takes a verb in the subjunctive
Lest anyone doubts my story… Lest anyone doubted my story…
= It is also acceptable to use should
Lest anyone should doubt my story…4. succumb to /səˈkʌm/
[intransitive] to not be able to fight an attack, a temptation, etc.
eg: He finally succumbed to Lucy's charms and agreed to her request.5. cleric /ˈklerɪk/
a religious leader, especially a Muslim one6. abstinence /ˈæbstɪnəns/
abstinence (from something) the practice of not allowing yourself something, especially food, alcoholic drinks or sex, for moral, religious or health reasons7. tighten your grip/hold on something
1> to control a place or situation more strictly
eg: Rebel forces have tightened their hold on the capital.
2> to hold someone or something more firmly
eg: Sarah tightened her grip on my arm.[] millennial /mɪˈleniəl/
3 It all began five years ago in a dorm room in a provincial Javanese city. La Ode Munafar was worried about his peers and the state of their souls. Many young Indonesians have no problem with dating, or fooling around; perhaps two-fifths of unmarried adolescents have had sex. So Mr Ode leapt into action. He started an organisation called Indonesia Tanpa Pacaran (ITP) or “Indonesia without dating”, launched a social-media campaign, and invited Muslim singletons to join sex-segregated WhatsApp chat-rooms to give each other succour as they hunted for a spouse.
8. leap/swing into action /liːp/ /swɪŋ/
to suddenly start doing something
eg: As the King approached, photographers leapt into action.9. singleton /ˈsɪŋɡltən/ 单身狗
1> a single item of the kind that you are talking about
2> a person who is not married or in a romantic relationship[] fool around 鬼混
to waste time instead of doing something that you should be doing[] adolescent /ˌædəˈlesnt/
[] succour /ˈsʌkə(r)/ N
help that you give to somebody who is suffering or having problems
eg: to give/bring succour to the sick and wounded
4 Mr Ode has been wildly successful. By 2018 ITP had at least 600,000 paying members, according to Magdalene magazine. YouTube videos of teenage girls calling their boyfriends and dumping them have racked up thousands of views, while the Instagram accounts of Mr Natta and Ms Wardah, who are ITP ambassadors, have over 1m followers each. Mr Ode’s message is getting through. Mia, a 20-year-old ITP member, thinks forgoing dating in favour of early marriage is “very noble”. The number of young girls tying the knot is startlingly high; in 2018 11% of women aged between 20 and 24 had married before 18.
10. rack up
to collect something, such as profits or losses in a business, or points in a competition
eg: The company racked up $200 million in losses in two years.[] rack
V to make somebody suffer great physical or mental pain
be racked by/with something
eg: to be racked with/by guilt
rack somebody/something
eg: Violent sobs racked her whole body.
N (often in compounds)a piece of equipment, usually made of metal or wooden bars, that is used for holding things or for hanging things on 支架；颈脊肉
eg: a vegetable/wine/plate/toast rack11. tie the knot
(informal) to get married[] tying是tie的现在分词
5 Mr Ode is by no means the first Muslim to condemn dating, says Dina Afrianty, of La Trobe University in Australia. What’s new about ITP is its use of social media. Mr Natta and Ms Wardah’s Instagram posts put a rose-tinted filter on the life of a young married couple. Their hip social-media personae make the case for chastity and early marriage far more effectively than any sermon. The ability of Mr Ode and other tech-savvy conservatives to market Islam to young Muslims accounts for the popularity of ITP and hijrah, the broader, grassroots movement to which it belongs. A survey by Alvara, a pollster, conducted in 2019 showed that Indonesians between the ages of 14 and 29 are more likely to possess “ultra-conservative” religious views than their elders.
12. tint /tɪnt/
V tint something (with something) to add a small amount of colour to something
eg: She’s having her eyelashes tinted.
N a shade or small amount of a particular colour; a small amount of colour covering a surface
eg: leaves with red and gold autumn tints13. personae /pəˈsəʊnaɪ/ plural
persona /pəˈsəʊnə/ si
the aspects of a person’s character that they show to other people, especially when their real character is different
eg:His public persona is quite different from the family man described in the book.14. chastity /ˈtʃæstəti/ UN
the state of not having sex with anyone or only having sex with the person you are married to; being chaste[] chaste /tʃeɪst/
(old-fashioned) not having sex with anyone; only having sex with the person that you are married to15. sermon /ˈsɜːmən/
1> a talk on a moral or religious subject, usually given by a religious leader during a service
2> (informal, usually disapproving) moral advice that a person tries to give you in a long talk16. savvy /ˈsævi/ n
practical knowledge or understanding of something[] media-savvy
having a good understanding of the influence of the internet, newspapers, television, etc. and how to use it effectively
eg: The company is targeting the social-media-savvy market of young women.
6 Hijrah’s popularity is a measure of how much Indonesian Islam has changed in the past two decades. The faith used to be syncretic and undogmatic. But after the dictatorship’s fall in 1998, conservative voices that had been silenced began to be heard. Salafism moved from the margins to the mainstream. Preachers educated in Arab countries set about remaking Indonesian Islam in the mould of its austere Arab cousin. Islam emerged as a political force in 2016, when hundreds of thousands of zealots demonstrated against a Christian politician whom they accused, on the basis of doctored evidence, of having insulted the Koran. He lost an election and was jailed.
17. syncretic sin-ˈkre-tik
describing things influenced by two or more styles or traditions.https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/syncretic
18. undogmatic
dogmatic /dɒɡˈmætɪk/ 自以为是的; 教条的; 武断的;
being certain that your beliefs are right and that others should accept them, without paying attention to evidence or other opinions19. dictatorship /ˌdɪkˈteɪtəʃɪp/
government by a dictator 独裁者20. Salafism
a militant group of extremist Sunnis who believe themselves the only correct interpreters of the Koran and consider moderate Muslims to be infidels; seek to convert all Muslims and to insure that its own fundamentalist version of Islam will dominate the world21. austere /ɒˈstɪə(r)/
1> simple and plain; without any decorations
eg:
2> (of a person) strict and serious in appearance and behaviour
eg: the lonely, austere beauty of his painting of a station in the snow22. zealot /ˈzelət/
a person who is extremely enthusiastic about something, especially religion or politics23. Koran /kəˈrɑːn/
the holy book of the Islamic religion, written in Arabic, containing the word of Allah as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad[] Arab /ˈærəb/
7 Conservative Muslims regard women as “the guardians of the family”, according to Ms Dina, and have looked on with indignation as women have carved out space for themselves. Feminists have won some important legislative victories. Last year for instance parliament increased the legal age of marriage for girls, from 16 to 19, in a bid to curb child marriage (the legal age of marriage for men is 19). But emboldened Islamist lawmakers are doing their best to return women to the hearth and home.
24. indignation /ˌɪndɪɡˈneɪʃn/
a feeling of anger and surprise caused by something that you think is unfair or unreasonable
indignation at/about/over something
eg: The government expressed its indignation over the way the incident had been handled.25. carve out /kɑːv/
to make objects, patterns, etc. by cutting away material from a piece of wood or stone, or another hard material26. curb /kɜːb/
curb something to control or limit something, especially something bad27. embolden /ɪmˈbəʊldən/
[usually passive] (formal) to make somebody feel braver or more confident
(be) emboldened by something
be emboldened to do something
eg:Emboldened by the wine, he went over to introduce himself to her.28. hearth /hɑːθ/ 壁炉
the floor at the bottom of a fireplace (= the space for a fire in the wall of a room); the area in front of this
eg: A log fire roared in the open hearth.[] legislative /ˈledʒɪslətɪv/
8 Among the bills to be considered by parliament this year is a “family resilience” bill which requires women to “take care of household affairs”. It has been roundly mocked by the urban elite, who point out that it was drafted by female MPs who cannot often be at home. But behind the ridicule lies fear. “The feminist space at the national level is shrinking,” says Mutiara Ika Pratiwi of Perempuan Mahardhika, an Indonesian women’s organisation.
29. resilience /rɪˈzɪliəns/
the ability of people or things to recover quickly after something unpleasant, such as shock, injury, etc.
eg:He showed great courage and resilience in fighting back from a losing position to win the game.30. MP member of Parliament 国会议员
31. ridicule /ˈrɪdɪkjuːl/ [U]/V
unkind comments that make fun of somebody/something or make them look silly
an object of ridicule
to hold somebody up to ridicule （make fun of somebody publicly）
ridiculous
9 It has long been under attack at the local level. A study from 2008 showed that 52 districts, out of a total of 470, enacted 45 sharia-inspired laws between 1999-2008. Aceh, a special administrative region governed by Islamic law, prohibits women from straddling motorcycles, playing football and leaving their homes at night. In 2015 officials in Purwakarta, a county in West Java, announced that unmarried couples caught together after 9pm would be required to marry or break up. Mr Ode would surely approve.
32. administrative /ədˈmɪnɪstrətɪv/
33. straddle /ˈstrædl/
1> to sit or stand with one of your legs on either side of somebody/something
eg: He swung his leg over the motorcycle, straddling it easily.
2> straddle something to cross, or exist on both sides of, a river, a road or an area of land
10 His organisation, which encourages women to defer to their male relatives and refrain from arousing male lust, has come under heavy criticism from feminists. They would do well to point out that, for every Mr Natta and Ms Wardah, there is a Salmafina Khairunnisa and Taqy Malik. In September 2017 Ms Salmafina, then an 18-year-old Instagram personality, married Mr Taqy, a 22-year-old heart-throb, even though they had met only two weeks before. Ms Salmafina soon learned that he was thinking about getting a second wife; polygamy in Indonesia is legal and encouraged by radical campaigners like Mr Ode. Mr Taqy soon discovered that his beloved was not the “submissive wife” he had expected. Within three months the couple had divorced.
34. defer /dɪˈfɜː(r)/
defer (doing) something to delay something until a later time
eg: She had applied for deferred admission to college.35. refrain /rɪˈfreɪn/
to stop yourself from doing something, especially something that you want to do
refrain (from something)
eg: Both sides should refrain from actions that would make the situation worse.36. lust /lʌst/ (often disapproving)
very strong desire for something or pleasure in something
eg: to satisfy his lust for power37. heart-throb [θrɒb]
[intransitive] throb (with something) (of a part of the body) to feel a series of regular painful
throb with something
eg: His voice was throbbing with emotion.38. polygamy /pəˈlɪɡəmi/ U
the custom of having more than one wife at the same time39. campaigner /kæmˈpeɪnə(r)/
40. Indonesia /ˌɪndəˈniːʒə/ or /ˌɪndəˈniːziə/
Indonesian /ˌɪndəˈniːʒn/, or /ˌɪndəˈniːziən/
