Role of house wives in Indonesia entering transformation

Sumenep, Madura (ANTARA News) - The role of house wives in Indonesia was reported to have entered the process of transformation which may cause moral decadence on children and an increase if divorce cases.

The remark was made by Ishmah Cholil, chairman of the Hiztbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), one of Islamic organizations in Indonesia, in a dialogue with house wives at Nurul Muhammad Mosque here on Tuesday.

While in big cities many married women asked for a divorce for economic reasons, lack of happiness and involvement of a third party, and others, this condition will harm the interest of their children.

"Many married women fail to correct their shortcomings in their families," Ishmah said in a dialogue held by the HTI Sumenep chapter on the role of mothers in building a good generation.

According to him, divorce applications in 2005 were mostly filed by wives which is a bad thing to do as a moslem.

He took as example the high divorce rate in Yogyakarta in most cases of which it was the wives who made the initiative totalling 3,105 cases (59%), while those filed by husbands reached 1,462 (28%).

In Bandung, divorce application filed by wives reached 15,139 (48%) and by hushands 13,415 (42%). In the meantime, the figure of divorce requested by wives in Surabaya was also higher than that by their husbands, respectively 17,728 (36%) and 27,805 (57%).

A similar situation also prevailed in Semarang with 12,694 (32%) filed by husbands and 23,653 (60%) by wives, followed by Medan with 811 (13%) by husbands and 1,967 (65%) by wives, Makassar with 1,093 (23%) by husbands and 3,081 (65%) by wives.

In Padang, he added, the divorce rate was also high, whereas the applications filed by wivies reached 902 (31%), by husbands was 1,572 (54%). Comparisons in divorce rates in Aceh was high on the part of wives with 905 (33%) and 363 (13%) for husbands.

The causes of divorce include lack of harmony (54,138 cases), irresponsibility (46,723 cases), economic problems (24,251 cases) and third party involvement (9,071 cases), and politics (157 cases), he said.

He further said that the role of mothers had been dominant in the house, conducting house chores and never left home without the permission of their husbands and affected the moral values of their children in addition to serving their husbands. But that role was entering a process of transformation.

Many women have starting their intrinsic role in the family particularly promoting moral values and building harmonious relationship with their children at home.

The glory of women in the gender era and the stipulation of law on anti-violence in the house ran counter to the nature of the mothers themselves. Many wives are eager to earn money by themselves, thus forgetting their role to take care of their children.

In fact, the building of a harmonious family and good morality of the children begins from the family, namely mothers who are responsible for the building of morality of the younger generation before being influenced by their external environment.