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