The pleasure and pain of mixed marriages<\/p>\n
By Mehru Jaffer<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): If it works it is like a house on fire. However
\nif it does not work then the fire is for real and soon there is
\nnothing left to call a house. The reference here is to mixed
\nmarriages between Indonesians and people from other parts of the
\nworld. Some are found to work and some others seem not to. And
\nthe reasons why that happens are a million and one.<\/p>\n
Boris, 41 and Frida, 32, are lucky that even after five years
\nof knowing each other they still get along like the proverbial
\nhouse on fire.<\/p>\n
\"Most of my relatives and friends tell me that ours is a
\nunique relationship,\" said Frida, a marketing and communications
\nconsultant.<\/p>\n
She met Boris, her Yugoslav husband at work when she was 26
\nyears old. Eventually she decided to marry him simply because she
\ndiscovered that she could talk to him so easily.<\/p>\n
Frida even has a great relationship with her mother-in-law,
\nwho lives with them here in Jakarta, and they too have a lot to
\nsay to each other.<\/p>\n
\"We even argue, but we never get personal,\" said Frida, as she
\nfed her six-month-old daughter Ena, who at the moment is the
\ncenter of attraction of the entire household.<\/p>\n
Although film-maker Boris misses most of all the mountains and
\nskiing, and all the friends he has left behind in Belgrade, home
\nfor him at the moment is Jakarta. Frida adds that even in the
\nfuture she can't imagine staying away from Asia for any great
\nlength of time.<\/p>\n
Many modern day Indonesian women complain that men from their
\nown country are difficult to talk to; that men here prefer to see
\ntheir women, but do not bother to listen to them, often turning
\nmatrimony into a union of meanness and martyrdom. It is felt that
\nmenfolk from western cultures treat women with far more respect
\nand seriousness. They are also more willing to make an effort to
\ncommunicate.<\/p>\n
However many men from abroad, especially middle-aged ones with
\nhigh dollar salaries, are also responsible for having brought
\nill-repute to their kind by their numerous dalliances with local
\nwomen who are often very young and in dire economic need. Some
\npeople spoken to feel that it is a chicken-and-egg situation,
\nwhere it is difficult to say who is the real culprit in this
\nmockery of the man-woman relationship: the aging but affluent
\nexpatriate men, or the youthful, ever-willing native women, often
\nfrom a depressed economic background.<\/p>\n
\"In the end, marriages like my own work only if each side is
\nrespectful of the other,\" said Ries, who married an Englishman 27
\nyears ago.<\/p>\n
When she first met him as a young receptionist at Hotel
\nIndonesia, her first thought was not what nationality he was.
\nInstead she recalls going through that unbearable lightness of
\nbeing feeling, perhaps known as love.<\/p>\n
Her very conservative Muslim family from Minangkabau in west
\nSumatra was totally against the match. But when Ries refused to
\nsee reason where love was concerned, and it was discovered that
\nStephen had already converted to Islam, the wedding took place in
\nall its regalia.<\/p>\n
As a mother of three daughters and a son, Ries recalls that
\nthe most trying times were those spent in the U.S. She had to
\nmake sure that the children kept in touch with their religion and
\nculture. She was relieved when a few years ago the family
\nreturned to Jakarta. On the other hand, she does credit her stay
\nin America for bringing out the best in her own, once very timid
\npersonality. America taught her that it is not chains that hold a
\nhome, but hundreds of little threads that sew people together
\nthrough the years and make a marriage last.<\/p>\n
As a United Nations family member she has lived in different
\ncorners of the world, and today feels happy at the thought that
\nher grownup children have seen the best of both worlds in the
\neast and the west. While England will always be a second home for
\nher, it is in the hills of Bukittinggi in Minangkabau where both
\nshe and her husband plan to spend most of their time.<\/p>\n
It is not always easy indeed for parents to see their son or
\ndaughter marry foreigners. And things must be more difficult if
\nthis mixed marriage involves not only one, but two members of the
\nfamily. But a Central Javanese man, asked what it felt like to
\nhave given away both his daughters in marriage to foreigners,
\njoked that at least his daughters were married. He did add that
\nhis dislike for foreigners dated back to the time when as a young
\nfreedom fighter he was fighting the Dutch who had colonized his
\ncountry.<\/p>\n
With two white men in the family now he can't afford to be
\nprejudiced anymore, he said with a smile.<\/p>\n
Thomas, 49, has another story. He felt that he would not be a
\nthinking person today if his father had not brought home an
\nAustralian wife. He said it is because of his stepmother, Joan,
\nthat he is able to speak English fluently, and has also inherited
\nher love for books. His own mother he remembers as being kind and
\nloving but incapable of providing guidance to her children, or
\ntalking to them about what life is all about.<\/p>\n
But for Monika from Switzerland and her husband, the dream
\nlasted only during the courtship period. When the two woke up to
\nwedlock, life was not so easy.<\/p>\n
He is with Garuda airlines and she was a tour guide. They met
\nin Bali, and the rest as they say is history. Seventeen years and
\ntwo children later, there is little communication between the
\ntwo. Monika feels that she was never made to feel part of her
\nhusband's close-knit Javanese family, although she speaks fluent
\nbahasa Indonesia and was found participating in a group that
\nmeets periodically to study Koranic verses.<\/p>\n
This group has certainly helped Angela, originally from
\nEngland, to get to know what Islam is all about. Her husband
\ncomes from an Indonesian family with Arab origins. \"We are very
\nconservative,\" said Angela, who keeps her head covered and gives
\nreligious lessons to anybody who is interested.<\/p>\n
That perhaps is the best part of mixed marriages, to get to
\nknow new people, different cultures and countries notwithstanding
\nall those cynics of course who continue to wonder whether it's
\nworthwhile going through so much to learn so little.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/the-pleasure-and-pain-of-mixed-marriages-1447893297",
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