To marry an expatriate

To marry an expatriate

In the early 1970s a group of senior Indonesian lawyers
visited the Netherlands to discuss cooperation with the Dutch
government to revise the Dutch colonial laws.

Being stationed in that country for my studies, I was invited
to a dinner party with that group. A senior member of the group
told me that there were so many colonial laws which were not
compatible with a free Indonesian state. As an example he quoted
the law on Indonesian women who were married to an expatriate
(western, Chinese or Arab). The law considered this marriage as
illegal, but the offspring of this marriage was legally owned by
the expatriate father.

My obvious layman's question was: "When are we going to change
that law" and the answer was: "To change a law needs a long time.
You cannot change a law overnight and besides there are so many
laws that need to be changed, and so, you need priorities."

When the late president Sukarno expelled the Dutch from
Indonesia in 1950, Dutch people left this country for the
Netherlands taking with them their children, but leaving their
wives (the mothers of their offspring) behind. Some of these
women were supported financially from the Netherlands, some were
completely abandoned and forgotten.

When nowadays Dutch tourists arrive here, many claim that they
are part-Indonesian, because they have their mothers in some
partly forgotten small town. And now they are going to search for
their "lost" mothers. I am dumbfounded that they have the heart
to leave their mothers behind for almost 40 years, many of these
women have probably passed away.

Many bills on marriage have been passed, but obviously this
particular colonial law still lingers. You must be a lawyer to
understand this condition. And how about the priorities of lady
fighters for equal rights for women?

S. SUMARSONO

Jakarta