Perpatih women and entrepreneurship in Negeri Sembilan: A historical geography overview

Women s position in the Perpatih was fundamental to the reproduction and functioning of the Perpatih as a matrilineal system. Women were heirs to the customary estates of land and houses. This formed the very basis of the women’s economic survival from which arose their flair for entrepreneurship. This study is a historical geography overview of entrepreneurship of the Perpatih women in Negeri Sembilan using secondary literature sources. The results showed that with the coming of Minangkabau traders from the Perpatih core culture area of Paya Kumbuh, West Sumatra in the 11th-12th centuries Perpatih women’s entrepreneurship was able to thrive until the 19th century. Since then it had steadily declined following adverse British colonial land and agriculture policies and subsequent neglect of the original Minangkabau culture which both ultimately diminished the women’s role in agriculture and entrepreneurship. Today, the Perpatih women living in the villages of Negeri Sembilan had to depend on remittances from their urban migrant relatives for their economic survival. Their customary lands had become idle and their rubber holdings reverted to jungles.