Thu, 19 Oct 2000

Intervention by the state in sexuality unnecessary

This is the first of two articles on state and sexuality by sociologist Julia I. Suryakusuma, also executive director of the API Foundation for political research, information and publication in Jakarta.

JAKARTA (JP): Sex is a private matter. However, sexual behavior is regulated not only by social and religious norms; often states also regulate sexuality under the pretext of population policies, eugenics and morality. In Indonesia this is poignantly illustrated in government regulation no. 10/1983 (PP10).

Recently, there have been calls to revoke PP10, by, among others, State Minister of the Empowerment of Women Khofifah Indar Parawansa. She said that polygamy is a purely personal choice (of men), and that the state did not need to intervene.

On the other hand, First Lady Sinta Nuriyah Rahman stated that PP10 needs to be retained as it protects women. This opinion was echoed by a number of members of Dharma Wanita, the civil servants' wives association.

There are a number of problems -- and serious misperceptions -- in these two conflicting viewpoints. PP10 does not prohibit polygamy -- it merely requires civil servants to seek permission from their superiors to get divorced or marry a subsequent wife. As for protecting women, research proves differently.

A research I conducted on PP10 (published in Indonesian, in Prisma no. 7, 1991 and in English in L. Sears (ed.), Fantasizing the Feminine in Indonesia, Duke University Press, 1996) came to this conclusion: PP10 institutionalizes oppression, makes hypocrisy a norm and manipulation a mainstay of survival.

It is a tool of the authoritarian state, fraught with contradictions and inconsistencies and it oppresses not only women but also men.

From a purely legal point of view, PP10 begs explanation. Besides the 1974 Marriage Law, there are also religious and customary laws, so why should there be a special regulation for civil servants? The reason: bureaucrats, especially high-ranking officials, are meant to represent the state.

Therefore, they should set an example for the rest of society. As an indicator of the "integrity" and "morality" of an official, sexual behavior also has economic implications that can lead to corruption. Multiple wives require multiple funds too.

At the request of prominent officials in Dharma Wanita who were worried about their husbands' ill treatment as well as their tendency to have multiple partners, the government enacted PP10. Its distinguishing characteristic -- considered to make up for the weaknesses of the 1974 Marriage Law -- is that it obliges male civil servants to seek permission from their immediate superiors to take subsequent wives or to divorce.

Furthermore, it prohibits civil servants from cohabitating outside marriage.

Alas, none of the aims of PP10 were achieved. There is a fundamental contradiction in PP10 which attempts to prevent something that is legal according to the Marriage Law as well as according to Islamic law; this contradiction results in unnecessary complications.

Since its enactment in 1983, the number of sexual "transgressions", polygamous marriages and divorces decreased. Yet, at the same time, the number of "empty/false" marriages increased (to maintain the image of a happy and harmonious family); the practice of keeping mistresses, sex as a commodity, the use of prostitutes to "service" clients or business partners, and the use of women as rotating sex objects, increased, and became standard practice.

In the context of the proximity between business and government, what emerged was the practice of "one project, one woman".

In the end, the civil servants' association (KORPRI), like the military, is a "boys' club". Theoretically, it is difficult to obtain permission to take a subsequent wife or to get divorced, but in reality it was often quite easy.

Once permission was obtained, the wife was often reluctant to question the matter. Apart from the embarrassment of having to deal with her husband's superior, often the latter would blame her for the problems in the marriage and for her "inability" to prevent her husband's taking on a subsequent wife, or infidelity.

Even if the superior defends the wife, the husband could punish her verbally or physically, and still divorce her, even at the risk of losing his job.

As for the wife's permission, it can easily be manipulated or ignored. Furthermore, the implementation of PP10 can be arbitrary. It can be used to remove an official, but it is used selectively.

Should the official be one that the bureaucracy wants to retain, a way will be found around the regulations, whatever sexual infringement he has committed. What is at stake here is not the interest of the husband, never mind the wife, but that of bureaucratic state power.