Implications of Marital Peace in Marriage Counseling: An Ethnographic Case Study

ABSTRACT


INTRODUCTION
Peace is not only a fundamental human need but also a global aspiration for sustainable world development. It represents a long-term vision of an ideal future life. (Kartadinata, 2020;Nations, 2016) Achieving peace requires concerted efforts to foster harmony and minimize conflicts, both in the physical and virtual realms. This is particularly crucial in domestic life, where attitudes, thoughts, and values related to peace need to be transformed. Numerous initiatives have been undertaken to promote peace, such as the establishment of digital platforms (Katz, 2020), training programs to cultivate agents of peace (Kitabhinnekatunggalika, n.d.), creating a peaceful climate within formal education through various strategies, and analyzing peace values from the perspectives of influential figures (Askar, 2009;Eliasa, 2022;Ratu, 2022). Peace is seen as a dynamic and effective condition. (Kartadinata et al., 2015) Peace in domestic life is a bottom-up peacebuilding intervention effort (Brück & Ferguson, 2020;Cocodia, 2023;García-Sánchez et al., 2022). However, various problems that occur in households such as domestic violence (Alimi & Nurwati, 2021;Ariyanti & Ardhana, 2020;Demir & Park, 2022;Haque et al., 2022;Karim & Swahnberg, 2021;Lee, 2019;Van Koppen et al., 2023), infidelity (Irvine & Peluso, 2022;Luo & Yu, 2022;Pramudito & Minza, 2021), and the high divorce rate (Hidayati, 2021;Manna et al., 2021;Puspitawati et al., 2021;Zahl-Olsen, 2023) indicate that marriages are vulnerable to issues of disharmony.
Marriage is a transitional phase of the process in which a man and a woman develop physical and mental bonds to achieve family goals. Marriage becomes a process of implementing moral rules to glorify the descent of the holy spirit into humanity. In Javanese society, marriage is believed to be a sacred process, and this sacredness is the reason why Javanese society is very selective and careful in choosing prospective children in-law or determining the auspicious time for their marriage ceremony (Sholikhin, 2010).
This selective and careful selection of partners among Javanese community is viewed as a means to achieve the marriage goal, i.e., a physically and mentally happy, harmonious life forever, which is described in the local expression "kaya mimilan mintuha". Selecting a partner should be based on criteria called bibit, bobot, bebet, and salaka-rabi, which constitutes an effort to achieve ideal marriage goal of creating an orderly, good, and peaceful society that upholds Javanese way of life. This meticulous process is based on the belief that marriage is a long journey that demands ones to adapt and understand each other. In Javanese philosophy, peace is closely related to the principle of adem ayem lan tentrem, which is used by Javanese as a life guidance (Endraswara, 2010).
Peace refers to an internal condition that includes peaceful thoughts toward oneself (Fountain, n.d.), as well as the absence of violence by avoiding violent situations directly and handling conflict in a creative manner (Momodu, 2015;Navarro-Castro & Nario-Galace, 2008). Crews (2002) suggests three basic sources of peace: inner peace, social peace, and peace with nature. Iqbal et al. (2020) identified that peace refers to the absence of disputes that occur in the household. Their study showed that disputes in the household varies, from domestic disputes to divorce. In order to resolve domestic disputes, hakam (peacemakers) is assigned to Gampong Customary Court in Aceh through four stages that prioritize the values of deliberation, achieving peace, and togetherness in society both physically and mentally. Sahriza and Maemonah (2023) also explained the importance of premarital guidance is needed, which in Gayo custom is performed through five stages. This guidance constitute an effort to help individuals properly address various household problems, although the research results show that there are changes in tradition due to various reasons. The five stages in Gayo custom include be sierah erahen, I serahan guru, I gurun, ejer mu ara, and ejer merah.
Previous studies demonstrated the use of multi-stage efforts and presence of thirdparty as the peacemaker. This is in line with the implementation of marriage counseling aiming at fostering harmony within the family by focusing on developing personal capacity in marriage through building good communication. Marriage counseling aims to achieve marital peace and rebuild relationships between conflicting parties to create an environment of forgiveness and reconciliation to achieve a peaceful situation (Anand, 2014;Harris, 2000;Harris & Morrison, 2012). Marriage counseling becomes a professional service by that internalize the value of peace in its process. It is important to study the marital peace, although the current study in this topic still focus on efforts to develop peace and factors affecting marital peace.
This ethnographic study is positioned as an emerging stream of contributions to exploring the attainment of domestic peace. Drawing on post-conflict research, it aims to theorize how peace can be built through interactions and exchanges between one another rather than through expert interventions (Millar, 2018a(Millar, , 2018b(Millar, , 2021. Thus, attention is drawn to the application of ethnography to household case study research and the methodological and epistemological implications of shifting ethnography from the perspective of married couples.
In general, this article aims to explore the meaning of peace in the household and the factors that influence it in the context of an ethnographic approach. The result of this study will have implications for designing the marriage counseling based on Indonesian cultural values, especially Javanese culture as one of the ethnicities that have a deep philosophy, which can be used as a guide to household life. This research can be used as a basis for designing materials related to peace research in general and marriage counseling context.

METHODS
This study was categorized as an ethnographic case study. Creswell (2015) states that a case can be an "event, program, or activity" involving a person or group. In this study, the case was "domestic peace". Ethnography in this study focused on describing, analyzing, and interpreting patterns of factors that influenced domestic peace by married couples based on cultural behaviors that are performed and developed over time. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with two married couples in one family (child couple & in-law couple) who have been married for 7 years, namely the couple SY and FK, and 32 years, namely the couple Su and Rh. Two married couples in one family were selected, as previous studies indicated that peace is inheritable vision, implying that the family could be a place of peacebuilding. In addition, the age of marriage of above 5 years is considered to have passed the crisis period.
The data were collected through interview and observation. Interviews were conducted for four months, from June 2022 to October 2022. During the interview process, the researcher conducted observations and acted as a partial observation. Data analysis was carried out using ethnographic thematic analysis to describe thoroughly the cultural characteristics of factors affecting marital peace in marriages in Javanese cultural background

The Meaning of Domestic Peace
Domestic peace entails a mutually integrated condition and situation between the internal aspects (self-peace) and external aspects (peace with spouses/in-laws/ and the surrounding environment). This implies that fostering harmony is essential to establish a peaceful atmosphere in the household. Harmony, in this context, does not signify erasing differences but rather embracing them as an inseparable part of creating harmony. As one participant expressed: "Harmony is harmonious, suitable, and complimentary. So for me, that all people are the same, to be able to always be the same is not possible, but we may be in the sense of harmony in my opinion complement each other. so in my opinion to be able to match, maybe lower each other's ego. If, for example, the partner has a high ego, we complement him. maybe that's what I think harmonious means." (SY, 2022) Various efforts can be made to attain harmony, this is in line with the statement: "The marriage that I have lived has reached 32 years, of course, the process is not easy, mba, the financial problem started early, mba, that's why when Fathan's father was 1 year old, I went back to work, so his father's salary at that time was to build a house, I was for food. So we complement each other. Fortunately, we don't bother eating, we just eat the available side dishes, and eat clear vegetables with tempeh, it's enough. So if you say to eat, not really. In addition, if the father is angry, I am silent, as well as the father, we give each other time, and later it will also return to our habits." (Su, 2022).
The results showed that the effort to attain harmony is done by accepting each other (nrimo) differences and also the conditions and situations that occur in marriage. This is an effort made to understand the inner peace. Without acceptance, clashes or conflicts can be easily triggered. Inner peace becomes the center of building other peace. The importance of inner peace is a form of self-acceptance and the conditions outside themselves are efforts made as self-understanding, especially in households. Self-understanding is a process of recognizing oneself more deeply, exploring all the potential possessed, and accepting shortcomings as strengthening efforts in the advantages possessed. Self-understanding in households is also an effort made to be able to identify everything related to the achievement of inner peace, and is important to obtain when married. The achievement of inner peace has an impact on taking a more positive attitude, calm, and stable emotions (Petchsawang & Duchon, 2012;Fleischman, 2010;Dyer, 2022). This is in line with research by Sharma (2020) which suggests that self-peace is an inner state of mental calm that spreads outward to family, friends, and the wider community to ensure peace and harmony with the world outside itself. Achieving self-peace has strategies and ways to be done. these strategies and ways are revealed in research conducted by Keskin, (2021) which states that in Islamic teachings various concepts are closely related to inner peace, including sabr (patience), shukr (gratitude), ḥusn al-ẓann (positive thinking), riḍā (accepting with a happy heart), sakīna (tranquility), and iṭmīnān (satisfaction). The same thing was also conveyed in research by Chérif et al. (2022) who found that hope, enthusiasm, and gratitude are most likely the primary aspects of inner peace, with spirituality and forgiveness acting as secondary aspects of inner peace.
In the context of marriage and family counseling, one of the fundamental concepts emphasized is self-understanding. Self-understanding entails engaging in self-reflection as a means to develop a better understanding of oneself and make informed decisions, particularly when addressing issues that commonly arise within the household and can contribute to feelings of unhappiness. In addition to nurturing inner peace, achieving harmony with spouses/in-laws/ is paramount in individual existence, as it involves fostering a household environment that is free from internal conflicts. This necessitates a mindful approach to how spouses/in-laws are regarded, with an emphasis on demonstrating respect, upholding principles of justice, and fostering cooperation. Respecting others within the household necessitates a process of self-reflection, underscoring the importance of reciprocating respect in order to be respected oneself. Thus, the principle of sowing and reaping aptly applies in this context. Su argues that. Su argues that: "...But if I think the main thing is that we first as wives respect our spouses because the name of the husband is the leader in the household, mba... Yes, in the end, the father also respects us, understands our position, so you know yourself too, you share your work, so it's better, right mba, not all the work is delegated to us." (Su, 2022) Su implicitly suggests that the process of appreciating is a transcendental process, which means that there is no need for expectations to be given the same appreciation as what is done. Thus, the process of appreciating others is a process of self-maturation of the behavior shown to others. The same thing was conveyed by SY who explained "...ohh for me it's like this, let him first, then of course he will also let us. Like hah first, even though we want to go first. So by itself even though we don't come first, sometimes he comes first, or vice versa. So when we want to be respected, we try first to respect him, even though we actually want to be respected, but we respect first..." (SY, 2022) SY's explanation indicates that respecting others is an effort and behavior made to put others first compared to one's interests. Peace with others is a form of maintaining peaceful situations and conditions that can affect peace itself. This is because humans are social creatures who cannot live alone, there needs to be other people in the process of making meaning of life. Of course, the meaning of life cannot be achieved if social peace is not formed, because being harmonious with others becomes a meaningful value. This is in line with research conducted by Hendrick et al. (2011), which suggests that respect is a construction that plays a role in interpersonal relationships. Interpersonal relationships are relationships that have the ultimate goal of achieving happiness and satisfaction.
Interpersonal relationships are important as an effort to work together in building a peaceloving civilization. This means that global peace as the main vision in life can be realized in strong interpersonal relationships.
Other researchers, Hayes et al. (2019), found that trust and tolerance, learning and teaching, caring and compassion are at the core of accepting diversity, growing understanding, and increasing respect for other people, cultures, religions, and beliefs which have implications for a peaceful and harmonious future in a broader scope. This is in line with marriage and family counseling, that the ultimate goal of marriage is to understand each other and this can be realized by strengthening interpersonal relationships in the household environment so that conflicts between individuals can be avoided as a cause of domestic peace.
The third source of peace refers to peace with the environment which consists of peace with God as part of understanding certain beliefs for all decisions that occur in their lives and affect their behavior and acceptance. As well as care for the surrounding environment such as harmony with neighbors and also with pets. Care for the surrounding environment can also be realized by harmonizing with neighbors so that it can increase a sense of solidarity that starts with tolerance, understanding of diversity, and also cooperation. It is intended that a sense of solidarity can be exemplified as a form of assistance provided in the event of an urgent matter, such as efforts to help each other when having a celebration / certain event, strengthening each other both physically and mentally when facing various problems such as post-pandemic recovery, greeting each other and establishing friendship for mutual harmony (Rh08-21, FK08-71, SY08-12, Su02-94, Rh08-28, FK08-60, SY08-07, Su02-74). SY further explained "...And the good thing is that they are like this, the good thing about their tolerance is that at first, they were often dung dang dung dang dung since we have advised them several times, the in-laws, the in-laws say this, "There are small children, don't be noisy." Alhamdulillah, they understand, they know. If we have a celebration, then they are told, their cooperation is good, you know mba, but yes, there is drinking, even though we have not provided it, but they provide it themselves, finally we were reprimanded by the RT, but the anticipation is that we will return to the RT policy again, the important thing is that we do not provide it, they provide it, they want to stay up late, like that. (SY, 2022).
SY implicitly suggests that harmonization with neighbors is an integral part of community building in the neighborhood. Greetings, when meeting is the first step in getting to know one another, and meeting and gathering on a scheduled basis, can be a place to strengthen friendship and form togetherness and solidarity. The same thing was conveyed by Ainun (2021) who argued that solidarity can provide benefits for himself or social welfare in general if it is carefully directed and based on human values, a sense of helping, cooperation, cooperation, and a sense of solidarity. Research from Apip & Rahmawati (2021) illustrates that the right leadership can influence the solidarity process, especially during a pandemic.
The meaning of peace in marriage is a mutually influential condition, where young couples emphasize more on understanding the purpose of marriage so that they focus on building communication more effectively, while couples with 32 years of marriage or commonly called the pearl age emphasize that peace becomes an internalized part of the marriage that is lived so that they understand more fully about peace itself. This is in line with various studies, that household peace refers to happiness (happy marriage) (Carr et al., 2014;Harrison, 2009;Keller, 2013); satisfied marriage (Fye et al., 2020;Jung, 2021;Marques et al., 2013), or marriage blessing (Hapsa et al., 2019;Wilkinson, 2019). Thus, the focus that can be developed in the marriage counseling process can refer to building happiness, satisfaction, or blessing in the household as a form of aspect in achieving peace in the household, whether related to inner peace (inner peace), social peace, or peace with the environment.

Factors affecting Household Peace
The achievement of peace in households is certainly inseparable from influencing factors. Based on the results of data analysis, it is found that the factors that influence household peace are divided into two, namely factors due to understanding and selfawareness, and factors due to reflections from spouses and the surrounding environment.
Self-awareness is intended as an effort to self-understand the source of conflict in the household. The balance between expectations and reality gaps is an integral part of building self-awareness. SY revealed "...So why is it harmonious, I think if you did something wrong, try to apologize. You first explore why men are like that. It must be the end of us (women). (SY, 2022) The statement indicates that self-awareness begins with identifying various sources of problems and assumptions from the source of the problem so that it can take appropriate behavior to do to the partner. Self-awareness also has other impacts such as understanding the importance of continuity and improving the quality of the marriage itself (FK02-141, . Improving the quality of marriage is obtained by understanding emotions, which is intended as a recognition of both positive and negative emotions and the process of responding to these emotions. Based on the results of data analysis, several emotions arise in marriage, namely happiness, relief, anger, disappointment, and sadness . Understanding emotions is an effort to understand oneself so that it is easier to identify the behavior that must be done after the emotion arises. For example, FK emphasized with a statement: "...Usually I used to be angry at the beginning. Anyway, the default is like a bad mood, it's a little quarrel but not to the point where it gets out of hand. But gradually with time, I finally began to control my emotions, although sometimes I still like to let go too. (FK, 2022).
FK's statement illustrates that he can recognize the various emotions that arise and learn the behavior that must be done over time (the process of taking meaning from each event) which makes the behavior lead to a better one. Hitchens et al. (2017)  "...Definitely like this, mba, I feel a bit calm and comfortable at home when we come home from work, see the house clean, tidy, food available not chaotic, because when we have come, seeing a chaotic house it must be "uwa uwa uwa" (small nagging), the house is chaotic, there is no food, and then usually this clean house has a lot of piles of clothes, whatever, so anyway mba... (FK, 2022) FK identified that the cleanliness and neatness of the house support creating peace after working. An organized atmosphere also brings order to thoughts and emotions amid fatigue. In addition, the presence of children is also an inseparable part of getting peace at home and being missed to return home. FK emphasized "...So if you work for example, mba, you must think about the children at home, so you want to get home as soon as possible. Especially now that the child has started to understand, started to protest, so it feels curious to know what developments have been passed." (FK, 2022) The development experienced by children reflects that there is a sense of responsibility in starting the journey of children's lives, and it provides a willingness to stabilize emotions and situations that are conducive to supporting children's development, which in this case is related to the peace created in the household. This is in line with research by Preskila & Jatmiko (2020) which reveals that family harmony has a strong relationship to student social ethics developed by exemplary parents to develop relationships between families. Research by Herawati et al. (2019) emphasizes that there is a good relationship to children's spiritual education which is influenced by the greater the family support provided and the more harmonious the parents' marriage.
The reflection of the couple and the surrounding environment is also related to the understanding of individual diversity which includes understanding that couples have their backgrounds, whether personal, social, emotional, educational, economic, or other conditions that have an impact on the acceptance of the couple . An understanding of diversity has an impact on a condition to be able to accept, appreciate, and respect as well as satisfaction in marriage. In line with the research of McNulty et al. (2021) which found that out of 1,104 married couples, there is a relationship between individual differences, stress, and predicted changes in behavior with marital satisfaction and shows (a) the quality of the couple forms a behavioral exchange; (b) the behavior that arises due to the prediction of marital satisfaction due to the quality of the couple's survival; and (c) the level of stress between couples will determine the quality of survival and behavior predicts changes in marital satisfaction over time.
Openness is the basis for establishing trust between one another. Openness is also a process of confidence and courage to reveal everything to your partner without attaching subjective truths. If so, openness can be something that is chosen to be conveyed or not. In this study, openness is intended as a communication effort that has an impact on the process of mutual trust, without excessive anxiety and worry to avoid unnecessary possessiveness . This is reinforced by SY's statement which reveals: "...In my opinion, whatever it is, and why my husband listens to me more than the rumors that come out or what his relatives say. Because I always communicate with him. He would confirm with me first, "You are right like this. This is what he said, this is what he said, is that right?" So before he pokes at other people, he always asks me first...." (SY, 2022) Cosentino (2012) revealed that trust due to openness is a key factor in making a successful intimate relationship, but almost exactly 50% of participants have experienced infidelity or a breach of trust with their partner. This is reinforced by research Pramudito & Minza (2021) which states that openness is one aspect of building trust in the household, especially the recovery of the household after infidelity. Self-awareness, and reflections from the environment which include reflections from spouses/in-laws, and the surrounding environment are an integral part in influencing the process of peace in the household. Both young couples (SY and FK) and pearl couples (Su and Rh) emphasized factors caused by self-awareness more than other factors. Patience, sincerity, forgiveness, as well as tawakal and rila hati are psychological dimensions that are more widely expressed in seeking and creating peace in the household. This is related to the fact that marriage is a way for humans to be more devoted (dharma bakti) to God, so that the peace process created is peace by emphasizing divine values and dimensions compared to personal desires.
The problems encountered by marriage and family counselors in 2020 are more diverse than 50-60 years ago, especially in overcoming unexpected life cycle challenges such as those related to the Covid 19 pandemic. Indeed, marriage counseling became a continuum and worked with pre-marital couples, newlyweds, and married couples to guide them on the day-to-day aspects of marriage and family life. Thus, marriage counseling in some ways signifies the contemporary psychoeducational-preventive movement (Dallos & Draper, 2010;Murray & Murray, 2009).
Marriage counseling has various terms such as marriage counseling, marital counseling, or couple counseling which can be defined as an approach that tries to correlate the psychological process of dynamic individual behavior with family behavior in order to place individual clinical diagnosis and counseling within a broader framework of family diagnosis and counseling. Marital counseling as a professional assistance effort to married partners aims to solve problems and determine better solution patterns with various methods such as educational methods, and methods of reducing emotional tension (Sunarty & Mahmud, 2016).
There are several objectives of marriage counseling, namely: (1) Identifying the source of conflict that is done with the effort and involvement of the husband and wife; (2) helping each other in finding the partner's participation in the conflict; (3) communicating the mutual expectations to be achieved in a marriage; (4) strengthening the rules of function, roles and internal and external boundaries; (5) improving verbal and nonverbal communication and mutual relationships; (6) getting help to resolve conflicts constructively; and (7) assistance to decide on the continuation of the relationship or separation as an effort to achieve peace in their lives.
The achievement of marital peace can be understood as an effort that can be integrated in the formulation of the objectives of marriage counseling that can be in accordance with the values developed in Indonesian society. The meaning of marital peace has implications for marital goals that can be set in the formulation of marital counseling goals. Meanwhile, the factors that influence marital peace can be a part that provides usefulness in strengthening marital peace so that the process of identifying strengths in marriage counseling is based on the research that has been conducted.

CONCLUSIONS
Peace in marriage has an important role in creating a more conducive atmosphere in the household that can have implications for the optimization and dynamics of the household. Contextually, marital peace has a deep meaning in formulating marital goals that overcome various problems that can interfere with individual development, especially in the marital process. Marriage counseling as a given assistance effort can make the focus of domestic peace a formulation of the achievement of marriage counseling goals based on the values of peace that have been studied and exist in Indonesian society. This means that marriage counseling can be developed in context and construct regarding the purpose of peace in the household.