Marriage problem

Marriage problem

There have been so many letters from your readers concerning
immigration laws and how the laws effect some people. I don't
intend to add to the diversity of opinions, but would like to say
that my wife and I experienced similar inconveniences because the
laws are different in different countries.

When we got married my wife was an American citizen and I was
Indonesian. We were married in a Moslem mosque in Kobe, Japan. In
order to make the marriage legal, I had to have a statement from
the Indonesian Consul in Japan. The year was 1946, so there was
no Indonesian Consul anywhere in Japan. In 1950, an Indonesian
official was attached to the Dutch Embassy in Tokyo, who stated
that, since the marriage was performed by a Moslem cleric, it was
legal and issued both of us a "temporary" passport. After that we
settled in Indonesia. For the sake of really legalizing our
marriage we petitioned the Pengadilan Agama (Court of Religious
Affairs) in Bandung. The Pengadilan Agama duly issued an official
document stating that our marriage was/is legal. We lived in
Indonesia for thirteen years. Nobody asked us anything and
everything would have been OK, if we stayed in Indonesia....Well,
we did not.

My wife wanted to visit her parents in the U.S. She took the
children to see the grandparents they had never seen. She planned
to stay in the U.S. for two months. After she was gone a month, I
got lonely and decided to join her for a month in California. All
of a sudden I was caught between the different laws of different
lands.

The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta refused to issue me a visa. I
argued that I just wanted a visitor's visa. The American Consul
countered: "Because your wife is in the U.S., we cannot issue you
a visa. We have reason to believe that you may not come back to
Indonesia but stay in the U.S."

I pleaded: "I'd really like to visit my wife and her parents.
What can I do?" Then the Consul said: "You can apply for an
immigrant visa." I said: "OK, give me an immigrant visa."

Now the Consul said: "We cannot issue you an immigrant visa,
because your marriage, which was performed in Japan is not legal
by Japanese laws. We, therefore, also consider the marriage not
legal."

I encountered: "My marriage was legalized by an Indonesian
court," to which the Consul said: "The marriage took place in
Japan, so it cannot be legalized by an Indonesian court."

...now what? At least the Consul suggested that we both go to
Japan and get married all over again, but now, legally.

We followed the suggestion and thought that all would be OK.
Wrong! In Kobe we went to the city hall, to get married all over
again. The Japanese official said: "Fine, but you both have to
have a statement from your respective consulates, that they have
no objections to your marriage."

My wife did not have any problem getting the proper statement
from the U.S. consulate. The Indonesian Consul refused to give me
a similar statement, saying: "You cannot get married, because you
are already legally married as per the Pengadilan Agama in
Bandung."

Poor me! What now? Well, to make a long story short, we
eventually got everything straightened out. We will have our 50th
wedding anniversary next year, God willing.

What is now really the moral of the story? If you want to
marry a citizen of a country different from your own and you want
to get married in yet a different country, make sure you know all
the legalities involved in your own country, your spouse's
country and the country where you plan to get married. The laws
are different, especially the marriage and immigration laws. We
cannot expect a country to adjust its laws to our personal needs,
we have to adjust ourselves to the rules of the land.

Like they say: "Look before you jump, or you'll be sorry."

DJOKO SOEJOTO

Bandung, West Java