When Nasaruddin Umar, director general of Islamic guidance at the Religious Affairs Ministry in Indonesia, recently announced the government was presenting a bill aimed at protecting women, he was thinking of women like Santi and Masruhatin.
Santi first married when she was 20 and had three children in rapid succession. But one day her husband left their eastern Javanese village and never returned. She was left alone without any legal protection for herself or her children. Her marriage, in fact, never really existed.
Santi had married under the Islamic ritual known as nikah siri. The rite should be performed by a religious leader in front of witnesses, but it is often a very private and swift affair. Time and again, it is also followed by an equally swift divorce or the disappearance of the husband. Wives just have to cope, while their children are destined to a life of difficulties, as they are often legally fatherless and cannot be registered for a birth certificate. The document is necessary to enrol in secular schools, among other things.
Last year Santi remarried under another private nikah siri. She now has a newborn child and lives in Bali. But she is worried that her new husband may one day leave her, too.
In the populous neighbourhood of Tebet Barat in Jakarta, Masruhatin has good days and bad. She had been married to Agus for a few years when, one day, he returned home with a new bride. The younger woman had become pregnant while she was having an affair with Agus. Although the law would have required it, Masruhatin never consented to her husband marrying again and had little option but to accept the new wife.
Agus, who claims to be a Christian and to have received 'special indulgence from the bishop', has taken advantage of cultural traits that keep polygamy legal in Indonesia, although only among the Islamic community.
