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$77,000 to marry?
[Straits Times] ALARM bells, not wedding bells, are ringing over Indonesian proposals to demand a 500 million rupiah (S$77,000) 'security guarantee' from foreign men who marry Indonesian women.

Enraged brides-to-be are threatening to flee the country and marry their boyfriends abroad if the government approves the plan, which is part of a wider marriage law reform being pushed by Muslim conservatives.

And befuddled foreign grooms are asking why they are being targeted when stories of foreign men being exploited by gold-digging women are rife in the South-east Asian country.

The proposal requires foreign men wishing to wed Muslim women - it will not apply to Christians, Buddhists or Hindus - to put a guarantee of 500 million rupiah into a bank.

If the couple divorce, the wife will be entitled to take the money. If they stick together for at least 10 years, they can claim it as 'shared property'.

'The provision... is intended to protect the rights of women and their children if their husbands neglect, fail to provide for, leave Indonesia secretly... divorce or do anything which harms their interests,' the Bill says.
Is it the law in Indonesia that Muslim women may only marry a Muslim man, while the stipulation of marrying within the religion does not bind women of other religions? If so, this new law suggests that Muslim men are untrustworthy dogs, unlike non-Muslim men... although the intent of the law is clearly to protect only Muslim women from the depredations of foreigners.

Posted by: Fred 2010-06-02
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=298047