Siri . . Siri . . . Siri . . . .

Hmmm…as for this post, you can think of it as a continuation to the previous post. For those who don’t understand what the title means, well . . . it refers to the practice of secret marriage. The act of secret marriage has long been done in Indonesia for all sorts of reasons. And the current news is that it’ll be considered a criminal act for the perpetrator’s and the facilitators. Hmm . . . quite the debate this is (Yoda Mode: ON).

But before we step on how we should think about this matter, allow me to explain the different facts in regard to this type of marriage. The first type, is where you conduct a marriage as according to what is asked in the Islamic Law. The only difference is that you do not register your marriage to the civilian register. The second type is where you marry someone, but with the absent of the bride’s guardian.

With what’s going on, the worst part is the government is banning this practice by generalizing the above facts into one. Even though they did not, it is clear that banning this kind of practice not only contradicts Islamic law, but it also won’t even settle the problems they say happened due to this cause.

Despite the facts above, the proponents seem to be generalizing stuffs without taking a deeper look on why such phenomenon has happened. The cause itself is due to a wide range of reasoning, from poverty, intention to hide a certain marriage, working reasons, and all other possible cause. For poverty, well, it is known that the cost to register a marriage isn’t cheap in this country, so rather than banning sirri marriage, I was thinking why can’t the state make marriage registering cheaper or even free? Then at least people won’t have to hide their marriage.

Speaking of hiding marriages, some even do it due to working contract constraints or work conditions. It is well known that some work require for us to be single for a certain period of the work. In regards to this, I would rather hide my marriage. But it would be better for any kind of work to be not decided on our marital status. I mean. Marriage itself is a personal and sacred thing, why make it harder for married couple to get a job. Wouldn’t this just promote further acts of pre-marital sex? And when you already love someone and are determined to live the life of matrimony, wouldn’t it be just cruel just to hide your marriage for the sake of your work? It would be in my thoughts . . .

In short, the thought of banning this kind of marriage should really be reconsidered. I wouldn’t say it’ll even make things better, but it’ll just make things worse. To make things better, I’ld rather recommend to change and reform the practice of the marriage registration, make it cheap, make marriage simple, now wonder people now are used to having pre-marital sex cause they already think that marriage itself is a tedious yet expensive precesiion to begin with . . .