How women respond to polygamy

How women respond to polygamy

By T. Sima Gunawan

JAKARTA (JP): Could you share your lover?

Basically no one wants to share the one they love, but these things happen. Most people seem to favor monogamous relationship. But who knows? They might have other men or women, either in secret, or in public.

Some countries do not allow polygamy, let alone polyandry. Other countries, while opposing polyandry, legalize polygamy.

Multiple marriages are not unusual in Indonesia. Official data on polygamy in Indonesia is not available, but there is a wide practice of polygamy in all levels of society. Some men have up to four wives.

Indonesian marriage law allows a man to have more than one wife, upon the consent of the first wife. The government also rules that any civil servant who wants to take a second wife must have the consent of not only the first wife, but also his supervisor.

Obviously, no woman who wants to become a mistress or a second, third or fourth wife. However, when it comes to money, power, status or love, they might take a different stance.

Dewi, a flight attendant, was on duty, while Bambang, a manager of a state-owned company, was on a business trip when they met for the first time in 1986. Both stayed at the same hotel in Nusa Dua, Bali.

"We met in the coffee shop and as we talked, he told me he was having a problem with his wife. It seemed that we had something in common. I was also having a problem in my family because I did not get along very well with my father, who had married another woman. I enjoyed talking to him, but I did not take things seriously," she said.

"I did not even give him my real name," she added.

Dewi said that she was quite surprised when, two months later, a friend told her that Bambang had sent one of his subordinates to find her.

On their second meeting, Bambang told Dewi he loved her and since then he has shown great affection to her. He also told her he loved his three children very much, even though he could not get along with his wife.

"I liked him because of his fatherly love, which I did not get from my own father. And he always tried to reach me wherever I was, which made me feel that he needed me."

"But I did not want to hurt anyone. I myself was a victim of a multiple marriage. So, I tried to avoid him," she said.

Dewi's family, who knew of the affair, also objected to the relationship and resented Bambang.

"But he would not step back. He even introduced me to his wife so I could see what had really happened between the two. His wife told me I could go ahead and be with him but she stressed that she would not divorce him."

"I had to admit that I loved him, but I could not share his love. Again, I tried to avoid him. I dated other men. And then something happened. It was in 1989, when my mother was in the hospital because of cancer and I was very anxious. At four in the morning, someone knocked at the door of my house. Bambang came to me crying, saying that his wife had driven him away and that he had been beaten by his wife's brothers."

Dewi, who was then 24 years old, was carried away with her emotions and decided to marry the 36-year-old man, even without the consent of his first wife. After the marriage, Bambang moved to a new house and lived with her, leaving his wife and children. He visited his children once in a while, giving his children and their mother enough money every month.

His first wife, Ani, however, could not accept Bambang's second marriage and reported it to his boss.

As a result, Bambang was told to resign because, according to the government's regulation, a civil servant is not allowed to remarry without the consent of the first wife.

"In 1991 my husband resigned and he was jobless for a year," she said, stressing that money was not the reason why she married Bambang.

In the meantime, the relationship between Dewi, Bambang and Ani was worsening. Ani did not allow her children to come to their father's house, especially because Dewi was there.

It took Ani three years to make up her mind about divorcing her husband.

"She still detests me but she allows her children to see us," said Dewi, adding that she has no problem with the children.

Dewi denied Ani's accusation that she had destroyed Ani's marriage. She does not have any guilty feelings because she believes Bambang's relationship with Ani was already in peril when they met.

"Basically I am against polygamy because I believe that you can't share your love. In my case, even though we were married while my husband and his first wife had not yet divorced, their marriage was in name only. The reality was different because he gave all his time to me," she said.

Dewi has a daughter from her marriage with Bambang and is now five months into her second pregnancy.

Another viewpoint

Yanti, 21, tells a different story.

Being the second wife of a driver, she gets along with the first wife very well. They live at the same housing complex and often visit one and another.

Yanti, a junior high school graduate, was 17 when she met 35- year-old Hamid, a driver, at the shop where she worked.

"He told me he was married and that he had many problems with his marriage. He said he did not sleep with her wife, but he could not divorce her because he loved his children very much," she said.

Yanti said she felt sorry at his plight and that she did not refuse when he asked her to marry him two months later. Her parents, who live in a West Java village, did not object to the marriage because polygamy was not unusual among the villagers.

After the marriage, Yanti stopped working and moved into a house near the one in which Hamid lived with his family.

At the beginning, Hamid's first wife, Euis, did not agree to the marriage but she later accepted it.

"She feels that it is her destiny to live the way she does, and so do I," Yanti said.

She said her husband did not treat them discriminately.

"He spends alternate nights with us. One night here, the next night with his first wife, and so on," she said.

Hamid was actually Euis' second husband, Yanti said. Euis was a divorcee when she married Hamid more than 10 years ago.

Asked why she married a man twice her age, Yanti said that before she met him, she had just broken up with her boyfriend, who was much younger than Harto.

"Age does not count," she said.

Yanti said she was quite happy with her multi-marriage.

"You don't know what will happen in a single marriage. There might be disputes in a monogamous relationship. But thank God, we have never fought," she said.

Deep in her heart, Yanti does not like polygamy, but she married Hamid because she believed that it was her destiny to become a second wife.

"I don't want any of my siblings to be involved in polygamy. Let me be the only one who leads this kind of married life," she said.

Her parents, who have a monogamous marriage, had 10 children, three of whom are now dead.

Yanti, who has a four-year-old daughter, and is five-month pregnant, said that she had no problem with her neighbors.

"I know that sometimes people have negative feelings about second wives. Sometimes I feel as if people gossip about me, and I wonder how I can be like this. But I tell myself, it is okay. I am okay and I don't care what people think about me. What's important is that we live a harmonious life," she said.

How about polyandry?

"No way, what will people say about a woman who has more than one husband? She will be an outcast," she said.