Editorial: New clubs in town

The Jakarta Post   |  Fri, 11/06/2009 11:04 AM  |  Opinion

A hand to rock the cradle, another to fix the roof. One to cook the food, another to offer a shoulder to cry on. From a distance, we can only imagine the domestic bliss of  four husbands and  a wife in the hamlets of eastern Bhutan. The men, all brothers, seem to have no problem with the arrangement, writes Her Majesty the Queen from her treks up and down the mountains.

Many Indonesians who are familiar with polygamous marriages have difficulties catching up with cousins and aunts, great uncles and nephews from grandmother number one, two and three.

Far from remnants of the past, we now occasionally hear news of someone we know taking a second wife, with male contemporaries  wondering whether they would one day dare to join that growing breed — the “modern”, financially secured Indonesians, now free to adopt an “Islamic” way of life. One  said to offer a radical, sensible solution to “natural” urges, rather than sleeping around or living a double life with a mistress or two.

And who wouldn’t pause to think about a chance to be promiscuous and holy at the same time?

The catch remains in convincing the modern wife, steeped as she is in her firm belief in equal rights to happiness. Reading the Koran, she finds the note on polygamy, that if a husband cannot be just to all wives, he had better stick to one, and that he probably wouldn’t be able to do so anyway.

Many women were glad to hear of an “anti-polygamy club”, set up last week by a number of men in reaction to the new Indonesian chapter of a Malaysia-based polygamy group. The latter aimed to share how polygamous households could be blissful. The first was set up with men saying the view that males must have more than one spouse is akin to regarding all men as animals, an encouraging but small voice amid recent temptations for men.

The glowing  brides-to-be in today’s wedding invitations need not worry about being dragged into arranged marriages; they neither expect becoming second or third fiddle. Women also have taken it for granted that while many of those entering such  marriages are uneducated or widows, such marriages are unlikely sanctioned by state nor society. The marriage law clearly spells out conditions for Muslim men intending to take on extra wives — the first condition being the permission of his earlier wife or wives.

Sixty years after independence, female citizens sadly sense they are no longer under automatic state protection. Increasingly, they will have to look out for themselves, as their fate is left to what direction the political wind blows, leading to more space for those who now can casually say it is “Islam” they will listen to, and “who cares about the law?” — an eerie parallel to the words of deeply devout terrorists.

Our leaders need to show where they stand, on whether indeed one is free to choose between whatever we understand of religion and our laws. Otherwise it would be incredulously hypocritical for us to say that thanks to reformasi, each and every Indonesian has a free choice.

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