Woman and the Changing Marriage Pattern of Indonesia

=== [PDF page 1] === WOMAN AND THE CHANGING MARRIAGE PATTERN OF INDONESIA van der Kroef, Justus M American Catholic Sociological Review; Jun 1, 1957; 18, 2; ProQuest pg. 113 Woman and the Changing Marriage Pattern of Indonesia Among the new nations of Southeast Asia the Indonesian Republic is perhaps most representative of the major problems and ambitions of the area as a whole. Intensely nationalistic and proud of its newly won independence and unity, Indonesia is yet a crucible of many different and often divisive folk cultures and ethnic groups, of different world religions interacting with modern secularist trends, of ancient as well as novel social forms. One index to the accelerating processes of social change in the country is the status of the Indonesian woman, particularly in family and marital relationships as well as in the broader levels of societal interaction. Here one may encounter in a more diminutive form most of the cultural conflicts and institutional changes so typical of Indonesian society as a whole. By sketching the dynamics of this status change of the Indonesian woman in marriage and family life, it is hoped some of the larger social issues confronting other cultures of the area in a similar transition may be thrown into sharper relief. In the present analysis it is first of all essential to present some demographic data for the country as a whole; next the chief acculturation processes, including those of the traditional folk society, of Islam, and of the colonial and modern secular societies, need to be analyzed, in order to arrive, finally, at a suggestion of future trends. Demographic Background In common with other so-called “undeveloped” areas of the world, Indonesia lacks adequate population statistics, the last, more or less complete census having been held in 1930. Still it is possible to present some rough statistical indicators that have a bearing on the subject at hand. Indonesia’s total population in 1955 was conservatively estimated at 82.3 million, including 2 million foreigners, very unevenly distributed over the archipelago. The average density for the country is about 43.2 per square kilometre, but in crowded Java there are areas with more than 700 persons per square kilometre. Again, in common with other underdeveloped regions, about 40 per cent Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 2] === 114 THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW of the population is under the age of fifteen. While infant mortality data vary greatly from region to region, the average of Indonesia is about 150 per thousand, while the crude annual birth rate is at least 40 per thousand. Considering valid comparative estimates it is believed that nearly one-third of all children die before the sixth year. Because of unsettled conditions caused by the Japanese occupation and the revolution, it is very likely, however, that the average birth rate of 40 per thousand declined considerably during the period 1943—1948 and may have fallen as low as 20 per thousand in some areas. Hence the unusually small numbers of births around 1943-1945, and, perhaps, even in the following years, has resulted in an abnormally low number of persons now of school age, entering the working and marriageable age. The maternity death rate is one of the highest in the world, from 12 to 16 per thousand births, as compared to a crude death rate of from 10 to 15 per 1000 population.' Current accurate sex ratio data are not available; according to the 1930 census, there were in a total autochthonous Indonesian population of 59.1 million some 874,000 more females than males of all ages. The same census indicated that roughly 12 million Indonesian men and 12.5 million women were married; 592,000 men and 2.9 million women were widowed; 690,000 men and 1.4 million women were divorced; 15.1 million men and 12.4 million women were single, with the rest unknown. These data should be interpreted with great caution, however. Only scattered data on martial status since the revolution are as yet available. For the West Java province alone the number of divorces in 1954 amounted to 66 per cent of the total number of marriages (an increase of 5 per cent over the year before). Though Indonesia is nominally a Muslim country, polygamous marriages are not common: in 1930, of all married male Indonesians 94.4 per cent were monogamous, 2.3 per cent had two wives, 0.1 per cent had three wives, and 0.03 per cent had four wives, with a small percentage unknown. In West 1R. Mochtar et. al., “Penduduk Indonesia,” Ekonomi dan Keuangan Indonesia, 9 (Djakarta, 1956), pp. 373-402; Kurt Horstmann, “The Exceptionally Small Number of Children in Indonesia,” Ekonomi dan Keuangan Indonesia, 9 (1956), pp. 209-212; W. F. Wertheim, “The Forty Percent Test — a Useful Demographic Tool,” Ekonomi dan Keuangan Indonesia, 8 (1955), pp. 162-188; J. Leimena, The Upbuilding of Public Health in Indonesia (Djakarta, 1951), pp. 55-56. Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 3] === THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW 115 Java in 1954 the upper limit of polygamous marriage in any region was 5 per cent. The West Java data are probably roughly representative of the extent of polygamy throughout the country today, and the traditional Islamic divorce procedure has in all probability gained somewhat in popularity since the attainment of independence.’ Traditionally the Indonesian marries early; by the age of 18 and 15, respectively, man and woman have entered the marriageable state but sexual relations are commonly esstablished much earlier. While large families are on the whole unusual, this is not due primarily to high rates of infant and child mortality. From three to four children per family is about average, with this special observation that there is some evidence showing that the more well-to-do the family is, the larger its size is apt to be. A higher level of education or standard of living apparently has not as yet had a restrictive effect on family size. Although various forms of birth control are known in Indonesia (including institutionalized abortion in some cultures), a consistent and rational effort to curtail the size of family because of overriding economic considerations is a rarity.* Indonesia, then, may be characterized as a country of “high growth potential” in which the death rate is the chief regulator of the size of the population, with high birth, infant mortality, child mortality and maternity death rates — all of which are conducive to a high degree of marital] impairment. Tradition and Folk Society More than 60 per cent of all Indonesians retain some connection with a traditional communal form of life, village-based, highly cohesive though interlocking with clan and lineage social structures, and familiar with intricate patterns of folk law (adat), religion, and ritual. On the whole, the place of woman in this folk setting is a high one, in countless areas undoubtedly on a level of equality with that of the male. 2 Pocket Edition of the Statistical Abstract of the Netherlands Indies 1940 (Batavia, 1940), pp. 10, 11, 12; Merdeka (Djakarta), February 14, 1955. 3H. T. Fischer, Kinderaantal en Kinderleven in Indonesié (The Hague, 1950), pp. 5-38; H. J. Heeren, “De Sociale Omstandigheden der Studenten in Djakarta,” Indonesié, 7 (1954), pp. 514-519; C.B. van der Leeden, Het Aspect van Landbouwkolonisatie in het Bevolkingsprobleem van Java (Dissertation, The Hague, 1952), pp. 34-73. Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 4] === 116 THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW In a number of Indonesian cultures and historical epochs women occupied the highest political and socio-legal positions in their society, including that of radja or tribal head. Ancient inscriptions and documents of the Hindu period in Indonesian history testify to the existence of a separate legal personality of women with respect to debts and property. In Java, despite its more paternalistic culture, women can and have been village chieftains and judges. In traditional Indonesian folk religions woman as shaman or priestess played an important role. In economic life, especially in the cultivation and preparation of rice, Indonesia’s most important staple, woman’s role was as important as that of the man; indeed, mythology testifies to her special magico-religious competence in this connection. Especially her property, inheritance and divorce rights are carefully defined in most Indonesian folk societies. In Java, for example, she may inherit land, workshops, fishponds, and within the scope of adat transmit these to her chosen heirs. Among the Redjang of Sumatra she traditionally has control over most daily income and her rights to initiate divorce virtually are the same as those of the man. In many cultures she may take the initiative in a divorce action in such cases as infidelity or negligence on the part of her husband. Though family pressure or the normative prerogatives of village or kin group frequently supersede her wishes, it must be remembered that that traditionally holds true also for the individual male, and furthermore that her actual position in everyday life does not always coincide with the juridical precepts of the adat. Even in a partrilineally organized society, like that of the Bataks of Sumatra, for example, woman’s position may be regarded as influential, sometimes even as decisive: “Within the four walls of the house it is the woman who commands.” ¢ In most areas beyond Java the traditions of the extended family still prove to be potent. Kinship regulations of clan and lineage most frequently tend to revolve around an asymmetric connubium, in which two kinship units — one “women giving,” the other “women taking’? — regularly and symbolically confront each other in a far-reaching process of social] interac- 4 Masdoelhak Namonangan Nasoetion gelar Soetan Oloan, De Plaats van de Vrouw in de Bataksche Maatschappij (Dissertation, Utrecht, 1943), stelling 7; see further Pryono in Merdeka, August 28, 1954, and J. M. van der Kroef, Indonesia in the Modern World, (2 vols.; Bandung, Indonesia, 1954-1956), 1, p. 191, and literature there cited. Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 5] === THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW 117 tion that is closely related to indigenous cosmology, social classification, and religious ritual. In a number of areas under this system the mother’s brother is traditionally of more importance in the social structure and in the family than the husband and father; he remains protector of her children, even on occasion, against the desires of husband and father. Dowries play an important role in all Indonesian connubial relations, but their function is to add to the co-equal position of the female and thus to enable her to initiate a divorce if necessary; for community of property in marriage is carefully defined in a number of Indonesian societies. In West Java, for example, the woman retains control over all such property as she may have inherited or received during her marriage.® Islam The Islamization of Indonesia, beginning in the fourteenth century, has been a very gradual process and to all intents and purposes may be regarded as still continuing. With rare exceptions the entire framework of folk custom in the various Indonesian cultures has experienced the modifying influences of Muslim doctrine (in Indonesia primarily of the Shafi’itic school) and in the village society the Muslim schoolman (kiajih, ulama) holds a place of importance second only to traditional chiefs. But as in the case of the moderate Hinduization of Western Indonesia centuries earlier, the Indonesian folk societies have responded to Islamization with different degrees of eclecticism, mixing the tenets of Mohammed with those of autochthonous or Hinduistic origin. Hence the depth of Islamic influence is quite uneven, yet the pattern of Islamization is very much the same throughout the country: its focus invariably is indigenous marriage and inheritance law. The net result of its impact has been a decisive diminution of the freedom and rights of woman in traditional law. For example, according to Shafi’ite Muslim precept the son of a deceased should inherit twice the amount of the daughter; 5H. T. Fischer, Inleiding tot de Culturele Anthropologie van Indonesié (8rd. ed.; Haarlem, 1952), pp. 107-141; J. M. van der Kroef, “Dualism and Symbolic Antithesis in Indonesian Society,” The American Anthropologist, 56 (1954), pp. 847-862. €Cf. G. W. J. Drewes, “Indonesia: Mysticism and Activism,” p. 286 in G. E. von Gruenebaum, ed., Unity and Variety in Muslim Civilization (Chicago, 1955). Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 6] === 118 THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW but in not a few areas, such as parts of Java, the adat entitles the daughter to an amount equal to that of the son. Division of standing property acquired in marriage by the spouses is demanded by many adat codes; but Islamic law does not recognize community of property in marriage, to the detriment of the woman. Again, according to Islamic law, widows may inherit one-eighth of the property if there are children, one-fourth if there are no children; but according to adat in countless communities the widow’s share, regardless of offspring, is much larger. 7 Woman’s rights to initiate divorce are well defined in mos Indonesian societies; but Islamic influence has had the effect of: (1) reducing though not entirely obliterating woman’s initiative rights, (2) increasing the actual possibilities for divorce, almost exclusively from the husband’s viewpoint, (3) giving the husband greater freedom than the wife, and (4) creating the possibility of divorce without intervention from civil authorities and especially from adat chiefs whose regulatory powers are menaced unless protected by the state. While it is true that the woman may take the initiative in declaring that conditions of her repudiation by her husband have been met under Islamic procedure, such a divorce is generally “Indonesian in character” and such “permissibility of initiation of divorce action by a woman rests in adat law.” Modern Indonesian women’s groups today are especially vociferous in their opposition to the frequent laxity of traditional Islamic divorce administration in Indonesia, by which the husband merely goes to a mosque official or Muslim schoolman, informs him of his decision and the latter, “without investigating the matter from the side of his wife... has the divorce certificate ready in five minutes.””. Marriage, in the traditional Indonesian sphere, is a familial, even a communal concern; under the aegis of Islam, kinship prohibitions and accepted connubial patterns are weakened, and woman’s traditional rights, also in the carefully established pattern of courtship procedures, are gravely harmed. As a competitive religion, moreover, Islamization corrodes the ancient magico-religious basis of Indonesian folk societies and negates 77T. Hussein in Siasat (Djakarta), September 7, 1951. See also B. Ter Haar, Adat Law in Indonesia (New York,-1948), pp. 182-184, and E. A. Boerenbeker, De. Vrouw. in het Indonesische Adatrecht (Dissertation, The Hague, 1931), pp. 161-167. / Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 7] === THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW 119 the special competencies of adat leaders in their communities, with the result that woman is left bereft of her traditional communal protectors in marriage and divorce. Social conflict, expressive of a collision between ulama and adat leaders, has therefore a long history in Indonesian social evolution, and accelerates other processes of disorganization.® Yet, today, the authority of the wlama is as great as ever; indeed, with the passing of the colonial era it has considerably increased, and with this authority the ulama have come into ever greater conflict with modernistic and secular influences in Indonesian society. A recent example was the cause célébre of a seventeen-yearold girl of Tandjungraja in Sumatra who had secretly married the man of her choice and had refused to become the fourth wife of an elderly ulama who had obtained the approval of the parents of the girl of the match, although the girl opposed the plan.® A local court, basing its decisions on adat as well as Islamic prescript, convicted the recalcitrant girl to six months imprisonment, but aroused public opinion all but nullified the charge and conviction. Still Muslims persist in attempting to regulate relations between the sexes: a recent decision of an influential Islamic association in Djokjakarta held that a man and a woman, who because of the closeness of their blood relationship or because of other reasons cannot marry each other, may not even shake hands with each other.° The significance of these decisions is derived from the uncodified nature of so much of traditional Indonesian law and its receptivity to the influence of ulama and other Muslims increasing in prestige and authority in the communal rural sphere. Though actual civil codes may be far more liberal, in the village society, where most Indonesians still live, custom and unwritten law, expressing the cross currents of social change, may seem far more repressive; and as the adat changes under Islamic aegis so adat courts render radically different decisions in marriage law and in courtship practice that diminish the older, traditional freedoms of woman. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say, that modern secular-minded women’s groups 8 J, M. van der Kroef, “Adat and Islam in Indonesian Nationalism,” United Asia, 4 (Bombay, India, 1952), pp. 315-320. 9 Java Bode (Djakarta), October 27, 1954. 10 Tbid., June 22, 1956. Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 8] === 120 THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW find their chief agitation for the rights of women in Indonesia directed almost exclusively against Islam and its influence in the village society and in its adat. Inevitably the Islamic attempt to regulate behavior between the sexes has had its repercussions in the field of education, in forms of recreation, and in politics. Influential Muslim political leaders have opposed any form of co-education. Isa Anshary, a leading figure of the Masjumi (Muslim) Party, has declared: “Islam has, pedagogically speaking, its own philosophy and world view.... Unmixed education for boys and girls in high schools we regard as a necessity in order to protect the character and nature of both sexes, so that no calamities occur, as is frequently the case in the modern Western world.” Other Masjumi figures, like former premier Mohammad Natsir, take a more liberal view; but in private Muslim schools today there is as a rule no co-education, and groups of Muslim students and youths have in this connection frequently shown a tendency to out-Herod Herod by petitioning the government to ban allegedly licentious literature or motion pictures, by insisting on rigid orthodoxy in all social relations between the sexes. Another illustration of this has been the propagation of the so-called “Muda Mudi” dance, originated by a Javanese nobleman and sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Instruction, and Culture. The dance is designed to take the place of Western ballroom dancing, but is performed without any body contact by the partners. Such contact is frowned upon both by Muslim and many traditional adat standards. The “Muda Mudi,” the steps and movements of which suggest ancient Indonesian dance styles, is to be performed primarily by “young moderns”; unfortunately, it has proved to be rather unpopular precisely among those groups for whom it was intended. Despite concerted pressure from many secular-minded women’s groups, Indonesia still does not have a uniform marriage law; the regulation of familia] relations, left to the interpretation of local courts, has shown a marked tendency of late toward orthodox Islamic precepts. Polygamy is officially condoned by the state, and special pension provisions have been made to allow for deceased government officials with more than one wife. All this would not be cause for concern were it not for the vociferous opposition of many, including women’s groups, to polygamy as a matter of principle. This indicates Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 9] === THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLUGICAL REVIEW 121 the existence of radically opposite currents of thought in the country, which, as in the instance of the furor attending President Sukarno’s second (polygamous) marriage, are quickly transferred to the arena of party politics.™ Colonialism and the Secular Influences of the National Era The net influence of the colonial epoch on the position of Indonesian woman and on the Indonesian marriage pattern has been an ambivalent one. From the beginnings of Dutch control over parts of Indonesia in the seventeenth century, Dutchmen and other Europeans mixed their blood with various Indonesian groups, both on the basis of a legal marital connection and extra-maritally. The shortage of European women in most of the colonial era soon led to the institutionalization of concubinage, and the Indonesian “housekeeper,” at least in the nineteenth century, was a fully accepted feature of colonial European mores. In the present century, however, there is evidence that relations between Indonesian women and European males, both legally and extra-legally, have decreased, and the status of the Eurasian offspring of these unions have declined both socially and economically in the last few decades. Marriage with an Indonesian, unless she be of aristocratic blood, definitely came to be regarded as an undesirable mésalliance that might jeopardize a young man’s career. Connected with this divisiveness was the emergence of new patterns of social discrimination against the Indonesian by the Dutch élite in the later colonial period.’” But on the other hand the stabilization of Indonesia under a Pax Neerlandica brought with it the beginnings of modernization of the Indonesian woman, opportunities for Western schooling on a par with the Indonesian male, recognition of her legal personality in Dutch colonial law and increased legal security. The first champions of the new Indonesian woman 11 “Beperkingen van de Vrije Omgang,” Cultureel Nieuws Indonesié, 1952, no. 20, pp. 891-892; Mohammad Natsir, Capita Selecta (The Hague, 1955); J. M. van der Kroef, “Conflicts of Religious Policy in Indonesia,” Far Eastern Survey, 22 (1953), pp. 121-125; Pedoman (Djakarta), January 23, 1953. 12 A, van Marle, “De Groep der Europeanen in Nederlandsch-Indié: iets over ontstaan en groei,’” Indonesié, 5 (1951-1952), 97-121, 314-324, 481-507. Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 10] === 122 THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW emerged, among them the noted Raden Adjeng Kartini (1874— 1904), daughter of an old aristocratic family. Her collection of letters, Van Duisternis tot Licht (‘From Darkness to Light’), published in 1911, highlighted an earnest if tragic struggle against polygamy, enforced marriages, prostitution, and woman’s intellectual atrophy. She put forth educational effort in the form of so-called “Kartini schools,” originally designed for young girls of noble birth, continuing to bear fruit until today. The development of Indonesian nationalism also gave greater impetus to the movement for a “new woman,” to a revolutionary feminism, which in many ways supplemented the political agitation of nationalist groups. In the ’twenties and ’thirties a plethora of new women’s groups arose, representing many different ideological orientations — Muslim, Catholic, secular-nationalist, socialistic, and so on. In 1928 the first “all-Indonesian” women’s congress convened, and soon ideological conflicts arose between various women’s group’s not the least because of divergent programs and tactics among the rising number of nationalist parties. In 1935, however, a federation of women’s groups, united in a new “congress,” brought about a great deal of unity which lasted until the outbreak of the Second World War. This new congress adopted as its preliminary program the principles of nationalism, socialism, neutralism, and “womanhood,” and soon made its influence felt in educational life and in social legislation. In the opinion of some, however, the women’s groups were far more effective among the small minority of aristocratic and educated women than among women of the working class. In this connection it should be noted that the outstanding nationalist leader and present President of Indonesia, Sukarno, later delivered a booklength treatise that contributed much to the ultimate objective of Indonesian feminism.. According to Sukarno there are three distinct phases in the feminist movement: (1) the period in which activity is con- | fined to small changes in household and family life; (2) the actual emancipation phase, bourgeois in character, in which woman strives for a position of co-equality with the male, but in which the structure of society is still accepted without criticism, and (3) the period in which political consciousness and an understanding of the confines imposed by a bourgeois capitalist society are joined with feminist action, the period in short of “proletarian feminism.” Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 11] === THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW 123 “Indonesian women, become revolutionaries!” urges Sukarno at the beginning of the last chapter of his book. The new utopia for Sukarno is a collectivist state in which society has taken over much of woman’s task, thus allowing her leisure and opportunity to be together in unity with her family.1? While a substantial segment of the Indonesian women’s movement did not come to an acceptance of this third phase of feminism and its collectivist orientation, there can be no doubt that “political consciousness” has come to play an increasingly important role in the women’s movement as a whole. For one thing this was due to the policies. of the Japanese during their occupation of Indonesia in the Second World War. Japan’s efforts to arouse the Indonesian masses to political action, by means of skillful propaganda and a host of associations and clubs, were also not without effect on the emancipation aspirations of women leaders. The occupation dislodged the Indonesian from his traditional setting and made him increasingly vulnerable to the new techniques of mass manipulation. In the revolutionary period which followed the occupation these trends continued and in the midst of widening social dislocation and disorganization the status of woman tended to rise increasingly to a plane of co-equality with the male. From the start women were not only represented in the highest agencies of the revolutionary government, but as members of guerilla organizations fought shoulder to shoulder with men against the Dutch. Implicit in the revolutionary constitution of the Indonesian Republic, as well as in the present provisional constitution, is the co-equality of both sexes before the law, the latter constitution providing, moreover, that “the family is entitled to protection by society and the State” (article 39, sub. 1). Universal suffrage prevails, the election law providing the right to vote to those eighteen years of age or older, or to those who have married or have been divorced prior to the age of eighteen. The latter clause was included not the least in deference to women, who in most cases marry before eighteen in most Indonesian societies. 13H. Bouman, Meer Licht over Kartini (Amsterdam, 1954); J. M. Pluvier, Overzicht van de Ontwikkeling der Nationalistische Beweging in Indonesié in de jaren 1980 tot 1942 (The Hague, Bandung, 1953), pp. 148— 151; Sukarno, Sarinah. Kewadjiban wanita dalam perdjoangan Republik Indonesia (Djakarta, 1947, 1951). Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 12] === 124 THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW The general advancement of the Indonesian woman also became, at least officially, part of the continuous concern of the state. A Department of Women’s Affairs, under the Ministry of Education, Instruction, and Culture, came into being in 1949, specializing in the supervision of education for women, but “this education of women is to be related to national and international matters. The duties of this organization (the Department of Women’s Affairs) are intended to support the education of women in Indonesia, not only as such, but also as an international effort.” Among the listed objectives of the department are: (1) communication with other countries, which provide “a way to get material for female education”; (2) information and suggestions to women to participate in joint national reconstruction work; (3) advancing basic education of women by various means, including the establishment of special libraries, expositions ‘to assist and show the initiative of women’s efforts” in basic education, as well as in the arts and sciences and handicraft; (4) establishing a contact bureau with women’s organizations, organizing mothers’ courses, pregnancy and infant care, and so on; and (5) “Documentation: the history of female heroes, the conduct. of women.’ This ambitious program has only in part been realized, not the least because of certain confusions and overlapping in planning, the emergence of other government and private women’s welfare agencies, and a shortage of qualified personnel and funds. Even so, the gains in many fields have been impressive, not only in combatting illiteracy through a host of special courses, but also in other fields as, for example, the so-called “Adult Community Courses” offered at even the lowest levels of government, in which instruction is given in various practical subjects ranging from “the art of baking bread” to “handicrafts” and sewing, “the art of organizing cooperative societies and of marketing their produce.’’?® Government interest in the women’s movement has been matched by the development of new areas of service by the women’s organizations themselves. During the first months of the revolution, in December 1945, women’s groups met in Klatén, 14 Division of Mass Education, Women’s Affairs (Ministry of Education, Instruction, and Culture, Djakarta, 1950), passim. 15 Mass Education in Indonesia (Ministry of Education, Instruction, and Culture, Djakarta, 1953), pp. 84-108. Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 13] === THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW 125 Central Java, to form a new central organization, called PER- WARI, which until this day has remained a major forum of Indonesian feminism. A new women’s “congress,” the KO- WANI, was formed a few months later, and comprised initially thirteen different women’s groups. Intensely nationalistic, KO- WANI affiliates initially veered far to the left, taking up contact with the crypto-Communist Women’s International Democratic Federation, and assisting in the revolutionary effort by collecting food, clothing and medicine for Indonesia’s motley army, as well as in social welfare objectives like the foundation of war orphanages. The radical tone of KOWANI, however, did not find favor with more conservative and Muslim elements, among them such Islamic women’s groups as Muslimat and the Partai Wanita Rakjat (Women’s People’s Party).'® The dissolution of KOWANI in 1950 has been followed by the rise (and fall) of new coordinating bodies, like the present Indonesian Women’s Congress (Kongres Wanita Indonesia), and has contributed to a relatively greater associational autonomy, as well as to conflicts of policy between Islamic, Christian, Communistic, and secular Liberal women’s groups. These conflicts have tended to detract from the effectiveness of the women’s movement as a whole in its struggle toward such common objectives as a general marriage law, health and educational services for rural women, and implementation of the equality principle in government service and political life. There can be little question that the success of the nationalist revolution has accelerated already existing changes in woman’s status and in the country’s marriage patterns. Even in the later colonial period the emergence of the new emancipated Indonesian woman had become a much discussed problem among the growing Indonesian intelligentsia; the conflict between traditionalism and modernism in marriage and in the choice of marriage partner for awhile all but dominated the themes of Indonesian novels of the ’twenties and ’thirties.”’ With the revolution the demands of the emancipated Indonesian woman became more pronounced. As the talented Indonesian woman author Suwarsih Djojopuspito put it: “One says that the modern woman is difficult because she refuses to accept that different rights are accorded her in life than the men 16 Java Bode, November 23, 1950; Merdeka, November 29, 1950. 17 For an analysis of these novels see J. M. van der Kroef, Indonesia in the Modern World, 2, pp. 266-267. Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 14] === 126 THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW and because society has never wanted to understand the injustice done to her in the way that she wanted it understood.’’'8 Now, more than a decade since the outbreak of the revolution, confusing and conflicting social currents have increasingly tended to leave woman’s status and woman’s rights even more uncertain and undefined. The absence of a uniform marriage law, the continued operation of traditional adat courts, the influence of orthodox Islamic concepts of family and inheritance law — all have tended to create a variety of norms and societal levels, to which woman is expected to adhere, depending on her cultural environment, education, intelligence, and social position. The reluctance of the government or of parliament to promulgate a uniform marriage law lies precisely in their recognition of the great cultural and religious diversities in the country, and in the traditional Indonesian tendency not to drive a controversial issue to a head by insisting on rigid or partisan formulations. For the question of such a marriage law raises with it a whole range of problems in other related aspects of Indonesian life, among them the place to be accorded to Islamic (and more especially Shaifi’itic) law in the whole political and judicial structure of the new Indonesian state. Aware of the past conflicts between adat and Islam, between secularism and Islam, and increasingly conscious of the persistent diversities of culture among the Indonesian citizenry, government leaders are inclined to await the decisions of the recently elected Constituent Assembly in the matter. Yet, as a result of this indecision, legal certainty for the Indonesian woman has tended to recede and a transitional marriage pattern has emerged in which extremes of modernism and traditionalism meet; chance and individual choice determine the social basis of marriage. As a consequence, there has been an alarming spread of anomie in most areas of the archipelago. One may encounter it in the form of a new religious movement, the Agama Pantjasila, recently reported in West Java, whose chief “tenet of faith” seems to be that men and women may marry or live with one another without informing village or other civil authorities..° One may hear it in the addresses made during the recent conference of the Advisory Institute for Marriage and Divorce Affairs, during which the reason for the 200,000 di- 18 Suwarsih Djojopuspito, “Eva’s Domein,” Oriéntatie (Djakarta), 1. November 8, 1947, p. 30. 19 Java Bode, October 9, 1954. Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion === [PDF page 15] === THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW 127 vorces in 1955 in West Java alone was analyzed. Speakers explaining the high divorce rate pointed to such factors as a widening of financial difficulties, the “wild and unrestricted polygamy” operating on a basis of “free love” to make a travesty of Islamic concepts of polygamy, and a general lack of understanding of the value and sanctity of marriage as the basis of society.2° But not just in West Java, a region long known for its alarming aspects of social disorganization, does one encounter instances of marital instability and of transition in woman’s status. A recent case study of young women of the Makassarese ethnic group of South Sulawesi points up the disorganizing effects of urbanization very clearly.2! The contrast between the social patterns of the city of Makassar and the surrounding countryside is expressed in the divorce rate (1 divorce for 15 marriages in the rural area, 1 divorce for every 2 to 3 marriages in the city), in the growing number of city marriages concluded without parental approval and regulation as is prescribed by Makassarese custom, in the increase in abortion cases and in the appearance of suicide in the city. The suicides studied all involved young women who, pressed by parents and traditional norms of filial obligation, are forced to marry, whereas they themselves have other ideas about their future, such as desire for more schooling. The significance of the case study is that it shows the presence within the Makassarese ethnic group of a far-reaching conflict between modern urban and folk agrarian values which exacts its toll in marital instability and individual anomie. Without exaggeration one might say that a similar conflict is, in varying degrees, observable in all the major ethnic areas of Indonesia. The degree to which Indonesia will be able to absorb the shocks of this widening disorganization by mobilizing present agencies of social control is difficult to determine. Perhaps the very eclecticism that has characterized so much of Indonesian culture for so long will also prove to be its greatest asset in this difficult era of transition. JUSTUS M. VAN DER KROEF University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, Conn. 20 Oost en West (The Hague), October, 1956, p. 22. Parliamentary deputy Mrs. Sutiah Surjahadi informed members of the Indonesian parliament early in 1957 that in 1951 56 per cent of all marriages in Indonesia ended in divorce; in 1952, 60 per cent; in 19538, 51 per cent; 1OST. “we and 1956, both nearly 50 per cent. Oost en West, February, 21H. T. Chabot, “Jonge Vrouwen in Conflict,” Indonesié, 8 (1955), pp. 40-47. Copyright (c) 2007 ProQuest-CSA LLC. Copyright (c) Association for the Sociology of Religion