Kartini

Collection of Tropenmuseum, part of the National Museum of World Cultures, ca. 1900

Kartini is an important figure for Indonesian women. She lives only for 25 years, but her name is always remembered. Today, her birthday, 21 April, is celebrated all across the country to revive her message for Indonesian women: she wanted women to have the freedom to learn and study.

Raden Ajeng Kartini was born in 1879, daughter of a second wife of Raden Mas Adipati Ario Sosroningrat, a noble who was regent of Jepara, in central Java. She was among the first Javanese women to receive training in a Dutch school. She remained at school until age 12 and has close relations with several Dutch friends.

She writes many letters to express her views on the social conditions of native Indonesian women of her time. Her most important interlocutor was Rosa Abendanon-Mandri, the Spanish wife of J. H. Abendanon, and Estella (“Stella”) Zeehandelaar, a young Dutch feminist she found through an advertisement for pen pals in a Dutch feminist newspaper. Kartini also writes for some of the local Dutch-language journals.

Husband of Abendanon collect 106 of Kartini’s letters to his wife and a few of her letters to others and published them in 1911 as From Darkness to Light. Another book, On Feminism and Nationalism, translates the complete texts of the 14 letters to Zeehandelaar that appeared in abridged form in Abendanon’s original collection in Dutch. We know many of her thoughts from these two books.

Here are some quotes from her letter. In a letter to Stella, we find a rebellious, but oddly happy Kartini:

Nothing can be done about it, one fine day it will happen, must happen, that I will follow along behind an unknown husband. Love is a fairytale in our Javanese world. How can husband and wife love each other if they only see each other for the first time when they are already well and truly bound in marriage? (On Feminism, p. 16)

Kartini articulated her passionate desire to embrace modernity when she had just turned twenty: 

I have so longed to make the acquaintance of a ‘modern girl’, the proud, independent girl whom I so much admire; who confidently steps through life, cheerfully and in high spirits, full of enthusiasm and commitment, working not just for her own benefit and happiness alone but also offering herself to the wider society, working for the good of her fellow human beings. I am burning with excitement about this new era and yes, I can say that, even though I will not experience it in the Indies, as regards my thoughts and feelings, I am not part of today’s Indies, but completely share those of my progressive white sisters in the far-off West. (Letter to SZ, 25 May 1899, On Feminism and Nationalism, 23).

She also writes about the Javanese aristocratic norm of polygamy which she deplored. 

And can you imagine what hellish pain a woman must experience when her husband comes home with another whom she has to recognize as his lawful wife, her rival? He can torment her to death, mistreat her as much as he likes for as long as he chooses not to give her her freedom again; she can whistle to the wind for her rights! Everything for the man and nothing for the woman is our law and general belief. (Letter to SZ, 6 November 1899, On Feminism and Nationalism, 34-35).

 

Collection of Tropenmuseum, part of the National Museum of World Cultures, made in 1890-1904

In July 1903, Kartini was told by her father to marry the resident of Rembang, Raden Adipati Djojo Adiningrat (a man with three living wives and six children, but who had recently lost his chief wife). She married in November of that year, and the letters became less frequent. She was now the head of an important household, with many children to raise. On September 17, 1904, four days after delivering a baby boy, Kartini died of complications of childbirth. She was 25.

Dangerous Women Project: Raden Adjeng Kartini
Letters from Kartini by Raden Ajeng Kartini and On Feminism and Nationalism by Raden Ajeng Kartini
Wikipedia: Kartini