Parents call the shots in Indramayu marriages
Parents call the shots in Indramayu marriages
INDRAMAYU, West Java (Antara): The harvest season and times of
scarcity send the hearts pounding of local teenagers, especially
the girls.
During the harvest when foodstuffs are abundant, many
teenagers are married off by their parents. But several months
later, when times of scarcity come, many of the married girls
shed tears of anguish because they suddenly find themselves
divorced.
Early marriage and quick divorce are notorious in this
northern coastal town, better known for its all-season mangoes
and rice.
Although it is a busy town and considered one of West Java's
rice-producing centers, Indramayu's residents are generally poor
and population growth is high despite a vigorous family planning
campaign.
Parents dictate when their children should get married and
when they can file for divorce with the local Islamic religious
office. Indramayu children could serve as models as far as
obedience to parental advice is concerned.
Recent research by Sakardi, a lecturer at the Jakarta Teachers
Training College, confirms parents are the determining factor
regarding when the divorce decision is made.
Sakardi noted the average marriage lasts no longer than five
years.
Marriages longer than five years are usually second trips to
the altar. It is likely to be a marriage between two divorced
people who feel too old to get divorced again and look for a new
spouse, or do not want to repeat their past marriage failures.
According to Sakardi, youths in Indramayu often fall victim of
their parents' matchmaking designs. For example, parents may want
their married child to live on his or her own or to get easy
money to help them.
Yet Indramayu residents are not upset or ashamed because they
have a string of marriages behind them. They are proud of having
remarried again and again. The more often they get married and
divorced, the more proud they will be, he said.
Budi, not his real name, married for the first time when he
was 19 to Nani, then 16. Budi, a junior high school graduate, and
Nani, an elementary school graduate, were both unemployed.
Recently, their parents agreed that Budi and Nani should
divorce. They enlisted a village cleric to tend to the paperwork.
Nani, who still loved Budi, was helpless. She knew her parents
wanted her to go to Jakarta and become a prostitute, like many of
her fellow villagers before her.
The simple reason for divorce was also obvious in the case of
Andi and Iyem, both pseudonyms. Seeing their children "lived a
free life", their parents agreed they should wed.
Iyem's parents later confided that they sanctioned the
marriage because Andi's parents were rich by local standards.
Andi and Iyem divorced less than six months later and found
new lovers shortly after that.
As for Iti and Timan, their marriage lasted for four months.
Iti filed for divorced after Timan slapped her in the face in a
bitter quarrel because she refused to fetch water from the
family's well.
Timan agreed to the divorce on the condition that Iti took
care of their only child.
Sakardi's study shows how dominant the parents' role in the
Indramayu family when it comes to marriage and divorce of their
children.
He said maturity was determined based on physical size.
People's educational levels are low and so is their religious
morality.
Sakardi, who himself hails from Indramayu, claimed to be the
only local whose education reached postgraduate level.