Under the Shadow of Custom and Colonial Law: Forced Marriage and the Discourse on the Protection of Indigenous Women in the Dutch East Indies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29408/fhs.v10i2.35839Keywords:
colonial law, Dutch East Indies, forced marriage, protection of women, womenAbstract
The practice of forced marriage during the Dutch East Indies colonial period was inseparable from the interaction between social structures, customary law, and colonial legal policies that restricted women's freedom. This article examines how the practice of forced marriage occurred in colonial society and how social policies and government efforts responded to this practice in the early 20th century. This research uses historical methods that include heuristics, source criticism, interpretation, and historiography, utilizing primary sources in the form of colonial newspapers, women's media, and official publications of the Dutch East Indies government. This study aims to analyze the reality and significance of forced marriage in social life, regulatory efforts by the colonial government, as well as anti-forced marriage discourse voiced through the mass media and its influence on the views of indigenous communities. The results of the study indicate that the practice of forced marriage was influenced by family domination, customs, and family authority in society. On the other hand, women's organizations and the mass media began to criticize the practice of forced marriage through ideas about education, emancipation, and women's freedom. Although the colonial government began to establish legal regulations to protect women, the legal policies implemented were ambivalent; on the one hand it provides legal protection, but on the other hand it maintains the dominance of family and customary law in colonial marriage practices.
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