A Price on Our Heads

When I told my (American) husband that the House of Representatives was considering a Rp 500 million (USD $54,000) “deposit” that foreign men must pay to marry Indonesian women, he instantly broke into his mocking, you-gotta-be-kidding laugh. When I first read about the bill, I was also stunned with disbelief.

It’s clear that my homeland, a re-emerging regional economic tiger and a country that elected its first female president not too long ago, doesn’t need an army of invaders to bomb its civilization back into the Stone Age, because it’s doing that all on its own. After all the progress that Indonesian women have achieved over the decades, we’re now being towed into regression. With a price tag placed on every woman betrothed to a foreigner, I wonder how long it’ll take before the collective national psyche wakes up to the fact that this move is internationally embarrassing in a huge way.

I also wonder how the people who proposed the bill came up with the figure of Rp 500 million and how they would itemize the amount against an Indonesian woman’s worth. What scientific methodology was used to conjure up the number, and what are the justifications?

First and foremost, however, is the preposterous notion that any price can be placed on a woman. I’m far from being a die-hard feminist, but the thought that anybody, much less a government, would mandate a fixed price on a woman’s worth is downright offensive. Proponents of the bill say it’s a way of protecting Indonesian women from no-good foreigners. I say being good or not can’t be measured in monetary terms. There are no studies to show any correlation between being rich and being morally good. Besides, “morally good” differs vastly across cultures, so pegging moral rectitude at $54,000 is as equally laughable as putting a price on a woman.

I also read that the “deposit” is meant for the woman in case of spousal desertion. Again, how is the amount calculated, how will it be disbursed, does it accrue interest over time, and does it take into account children borne from the union? Why does the government deem it fit to add to the already complicated machinations of divorce proceedings? Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I always thought divorce courts were meant to sort out the messy details of separation.

Additionally, women are quite capable of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps in cases of separation. Compared to Kartini’s era, Indonesian women now are better educated, highly skilled and independent. The marriage “deposit” bill smacks of a heavy dose of old-fashioned paternalism that I thought the post-Soeharto “reform” era had kicked to the curb.

Second, I often hear Indonesian women marry bule, or Caucasian men, for money and a comfortable life. Perhaps that’s true for some, but the fact is not every foreigner in Indonesia is asset-rich or even income-rich. I know a fair number of foreigners who are longtime residents of Indonesia and who are not rich even by local standards, yet are happily married to Indonesian wives. I also know a fair number of Indonesian wives who relocated to their husband’s country of origin to work even harder than they would have worked in Indonesia, especially considering that in many countries in the West, full-time domestic help is far from cheap, and many households need two incomes to finance the rent or mortgage, groceries, utilities, commuting expenses, after-school child care and other expenses.

It’s decidedly not true that every Indonesian woman married to a foreign man is living a more comfortable life than her peer married to an Indonesian man.
Perhaps those who drafted the bill assumed that, well, the foreigner may not be rich, but he can afford $54,000 if he really wants to marry an Indonesian woman. That’s the kind of mentality that reflects the belief – which I once heard from a couple of civil servants – that money doesn’t need to be earned because it can be found (i.e. by hook or by crook). If this is the mentality that generated the bill, then the marriage “bond” or “deposit” is yet another scam to line the coffers of bureaucrats.

Nor does the amount, or any amount for that matter, guarantee a life free from mental or physical abuse, or worse. Wealth has nothing to do with a person’s capacity to commit violent assaults (consider pop singer Chris Brown). Studies by Shafer, Caetano and Clark (1998) as well as Sorenson, Upchurch and Chen (1996) indicate that more than 10 million Americans a year experience domestic violence, most of which goes underreported. More recent numbers from the US Department of Justice show that in cases of simple assault (as opposed to aggravated assault or sexual assault) against women in 2008, 26 percent were committed by intimate partners (i.e. current or former spouses or boyfriends) while 39 percent were committed by friends or acquaintances.

This further trashes the argument that the marriage “deposit” is designed to “protect” women against abuse or maltreatment.

It would be interesting to see the statistics on domestic violence in Indonesia by comparison. Some studies on domestic violence suggest that pre-existing mental disorders among perpetrators is a major factor, while others suggest that childhood exposure to family violence sets a precedent for adult domestic violence. The bottom line is that being rich doesn’t necessarily prevent a person from being abusive or violent.

The marriage bill is reportedly also designed to “protect a sense of nationalism”.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out how putting a price on an Indonesian woman has anything to do with nationalism. If the bill is meant to deter foreign men from marrying Indonesian women, then its passage will simply drive more of these couples to marry abroad. Just take a look at the law prohibiting interfaith marriages in Indonesia: many couples of different religions still marry (albeit abroad), and come back to live in Indonesia.

Nationalism is evoked from a sense of pride for one’s country, but passing the marriage deposit bill is unequivocally not something to be proud of for many Indonesians, myself included.

+ Indira Pintak

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