The Gender Politics of Confucian Family Law: Contracts, Credit, and Creole Chinese Bilateral Kinship in Dutch Colonial Java (1850s–1900)

Abstract

How did colonial family law reshape the ethnic and gender norms of a creolized entrepreneurial minority? While the literature on colonial Indonesia has tended to view the Dutch colonial preservation ofadat(customary) law as helping to preserve Indonesian women's autonomy and property rights, this essay shows how, in the case of the Indonesian-Chinese entrepreneurial minority, the colonial government's institutionalization of Confucian “Chinese” family law gradually introduced more patriarchal norms for creole Chinese families. The Dutch colonial state's legal regulation of credit and commerce in Java took a moralistic turn in the mid-nineteenth century, giving shape to a more patriarchal and “Chinese” form of the family in Java by the century's end. This legal-moralistic turn took the form of a critique of creole Chinese women on one hand, and the Sinological construction of a body of Confucian “Chinese” private law on the other. For almost half a century, this encroaching colonial ethno-moral critique of creole Chinese credit manipulations and marriage arrangements came up against resistance from Peranakan Chinese matriarchs and patriarchs. In this article, I show how colonial Confucian family law eventually ended creole Chinese women's contract-making and credit-manipulating autonomies by subjecting the “Chinese” household to the civil law authority of the “housefather.”

The Dynamics of Family Law in Indonesia: Bibliometric Analysis of Past and Future Trends

“…DOI: 10.22373/sjhk.v8i1.21890 http://jurnal.ar-raniry.ac.id/index.php/samarah to create conditions where all individuals, regardless of gender, have the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities in all aspects of life. 19 Gender equality is not only a matter of women's rights, but also about overcoming the inequalities and discrimination that may be faced, the implementation of gender equality policies requires support and commitment from all parties, including the government, the private sector, 20 and society as a whole. These steps can help create an environment that supports gender equality and address inequalities that may arise in various aspects of life.…”