Chapter 9 - Promoting Gender Equity through Interreligious Marriage: Empowering Indonesian Women

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The Compilation of Islamic Law in Indonesia was promulgated on 10 June 1991 through Presidential Instruction No. 1/1991. Comprising regulations on marriage, inheritance, and religious donation, it is the official legal guidance for judges in religious courts all over Indonesia. The Law consists of three books: Book I on marriage, Book II on inheritance, and Book III on religious donation. With 229 articles, the biggest portion is on marital law (170 articles).

The Law was the government's response to the “social unrest” arising from different verdicts issued by the religious court on similar cases. The diversity is actually a logical consequence of the various jurisprudential references of the judges. However, instead of perceiving the diversity of views as a treasure of legal sources, the government responded by homogenizing the law. On the one hand, the Compilation made it easier for judges to issue a verdict and for other parties looking for legal references. On the other hand, it restricted the creativity and ijtihad (independent judgement, based on recognized sources of Islam, on a legal or theological question) efforts in the legal field.

When analysed carefully, the Compilation of Islamic Law contains no less than nineteen crucial issues including, among others, the definition of marriage, marriage representatives, marriage registration, stipulation of marriageable age, dowry, interfaith marriage, polygamy, the right of the wife to divorce her husband and to return to her husband after reconciliation, love token given by a man to a woman at a betrothal or at the beginning of a sexual liaison (idah), mourning upon the death of one's husband (ihdah), the earning of a living, marriage vow, the wife's refusal to obey or follow what her husband asks her to do (nusyuz), rights and responsibilities, issues of inheritances involving different faiths, portion of inheritance for sons and daughters, religious donation involving different faiths, illegitimate children, and methods/formulae for calculating the different portions of inheritances (aul and radd).