The Law Is Made to Be Broken

Based on ethnographic research on interfaith couples and marriages in Java, Indonesia, this study explores the quandaries for interreligious couples of all kinds: those who are not yet married, those who are broken up because of religion, and those who contemplate marriage but are stymied by the complex logistics of interfaith marriage in Indonesia. Some take drastic steps to overcome local laws and customs outlawing their union, saying, “The law is made to be broken.” For others, the legal status of interreligious marriage in Indonesia is the least of their worries, because their concerns are largely social and familial, sometimes theological, and sometimes domestic, particularly in the case of rearing children and promoting them into faith and religious education. This study employs techniques of historical, textual, and ethnographic analysis to present the legal, social and logistical challenges of specifically Catholic/Muslim relationships in Jogjakarta—also noting that, as scholar Lawrence Rosen wrote, “The law is whatever people think it is.”