Kartini—“Mother Of Indonesian Women”

Press, Volume C, Issue 29509, 10 May 1961, Page 2

Kartini—“Mother Of Indonesian Women”

The name of Kartini has become a symbol today in Indonesia. The portrait of the young princess, the pioneer of women’s emancipation in Java, now hangs in girls’ schools throughout Indonesia, and the meeting place of every women’s association has a picture or a bust of the woman who has been called the Mother of Indonesian Women, Ibu wanita Indonesia.

Why has she been given this name and why has the date of her birth. April 21, been chosen to commemorate her memory in all Indonesia? Because she was the first to demand the right to education for the women of her class and for the people of her country. Her life was almost entirely without noteworthy events, but her inner life was intense and radiant Raden Adjeng Kartini was born in 1879, at Mayong, a village in the regency of Japara, the second of six daughters in a family of 11 children. Her father, Raden Mas Adipati Ario Sosroningrat, was the boupati or regent of Japara (that is, in the Dutch administrative system, a grade equivalent to that of governor of part of a province). The post of boupati was the highest to which any Indonesian could aspire and those who filled it were always selected from the aristocracy. CONFINED TO HOME At the age of 121, Kartini had to give up her life as a carefree child, and leave the school which she enjoyed so much. Henceforth she was to be confined to her home, in obedience to the custom of adat What she regretted most of all was that she could no longer continue her studies. She wanted to know as much as her brothers who were attending a secondary school at Semarang. So she asked her father to send her there with them, but he refused her request Since the doors of school were closed to her, her father’s house became her universe. It was a big house with a large and beautiful garden but it was surrounded by high, thick walls. She was imprisoned not only by the house but by the rigid etiquette of the Javanese aristocracy. The games and joyous chatter of her childhood were over: she now had to remember that she was of noble birth and that a patrician woman must be silent and immobile, making only essential gestures, walking slowly and with tiny steps whenever she had to move, and speaking only the the few words required by a polite answer If she laughed, she could not laugh heartily —she could not even open her mouth and show her teeth. All these rules seemed rather hard to obey. The days passed by monotonously. Kartini envied her younger sisters who were still going to school. She tried to study alone, but with noone to guide or counsel her. it was too difficult and she sadly put her books aside. Yet she read and she thought. Her older sister was of a different nature. She enjoyed silence and solitude and she criticised Kartini’s exuberance which was so contrary to the ancient and ceremonious tradition of adat to which she. herself, was so deeply attached Kartini’s younger sisters also left her alone. What hurt the young girl most of all was the attitude of her mother who seemed to turn against her daughter when she' saw how different she was from other girls. CORRESPONDENT After leaving school. Kartini tried to read a great deal in Dutch. She subscribed to several newspapers and magazines. One of them had a correspondence column, and Kartini sent in an advertisement, stating her wish to correspond with a European girl A young post office employee answered Beginning in 1899. they exchanged long letters and anyone reading them can see clearly the influence that this g'rl. four years older than Kartini. exerted over the young Javanese Stella (first Miss Zeehandellar and. later. Mrs Hartshalt) was active in feminist, pacifist and socialist movements. Her modest income never enabled her to make the long trip which would have enabled her to meet her correspondent, and Kartini’s plans for studying in Holland, which were discussed at one time by her family, never materialised But even though the two women never met. they were united by a long and very reel friendship. In 1902. the eldest sister

married. Kartini and her sister, Rukmini, opened a little school for girls at Janara. In the beginning, they had seven pupils but requests for enrolment soon poured in and they were cverjoved by this success. They carried out their task as educators with enthusiasm. but with the feeling that they were insufficiently prepared for it. SCHOLARSHIP The two girls had asked the Dutch Government for a scholarship to enable them to study at the normal school in Batavia (now Djakarta) and to pass the examinations which would qualify them to be teachers. Their parents, who had been alarmed by their plan, broached a few months earlier, to study in Holland, made no objections to a trio which would not take them so far away. However, the girls had opened their school at Japara before receiving an answer. When it finally arrived. Kartini’s father had already received a letter some months before from the Regent of Rembang, asking him for his daughter’s hand Her parents did not urge her to reply: on the contrary, they advised her to think over the offer, allowing her plentv of time. She considered it carefully and only agreed to the marriage because she knew that her future husband had an open mind and. far from opposing her activities, would help her to achieve the goal she was seeking. When the government decree awarding her the scholarship was published, she was already engaged Raden Adipati Joyo Adiningrat. some years older than Kartini, was a widower with several children whom she treated as her own as soon as she met them, according to the true Javanese tradition. All the letters written after her marriage express great happiness and show that a perfect understanding existed between her and her

husband. Like her, he considered that they were bearers of new ideas which had to be spread and put into practice. MARRLAGE She was married on November 8, 1903, and, in January the next year, she opened a small school at Rembang, as she had done at Japara, where she gave her first lessons to her husband's children —“her children,” as she called them — and to a few girls from the neighbourhood. Pregnancy did not slow down her active life, which was divided between her home and the little school which she was now running alone. Her letters to her friends were less frequent and not as long, but they all reflected her one all-absorb-ing desire: to serve the cause of Javanese women and of the Javanese people. The thought of her forthcoming child added to her confid. enee. A few months after her death, her sister Rukmini said Kartini had often expressed a presentiment of an early death. Nothing, however, in the letters which have come down to us re. fleets this presentiment. But. on September 13. 1904. Raden Ayu Adiningrat gave birth to a son and died four days later. Kartini’s biographer, Mrs Hurustiati Subandrjo, accords to the ''Mother of Indonesian Women” a role in the struggle for nationhood although a nationalist movement, the Budi Uttomo, only appeared in 1908. four years after Kartini’s death. Perhaps it is only natural that an Indonesian woman who has continued Kartini’s work and who is still taking part in her country's feminist movement. should add this trait to her heroine’s image. The world depicted by Kartini was a prison formed by a society. She helped to shake off its bonds by leading the fight for freedom with no other weapons but love and patience. (UNESCO.)