Representations of Thai Women through Linguistic Devices in the discourse of the Three Seals Law in the Law on Husband and Wife

Abstract

The objectives of this paper are to study the representation of “Thai women” that are presented through the discourse of the Law on Husband and Wife in the Three Seals Law. The researcher collected data from the Law on Husband and Wife of the Royal Institute edition of the Three Seals Law, inclusive of 141 Sections. The results show that the content structure of the Law on Husband and Wife in the Three Seals Law consists of two main structures, namely Act Announcement, which is the same in every verse, and the nature of the case of the Law on Husband and Wife consists of 12 cases. The main content describes three main parts, namely 1) legal marriage conditions, 2) property between husband and wife, and 3) termination of marriage. The creator of the Law on Husband and Wife has used three language strategies to convey meaning: word choice, metaphors, and sentences. With the analysis of linguistic devices,” the representation of the Thai women can be divided into two types: the representations of good women, and the representations of bad women. That is to say, the good women were those who were well behaved within a set of “independent power” of the husband and the parents, while the bad women were those who violated the said set of rules.