Page 14 - IAV Digital Magazine #494

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Growing Trend in Indonesia: ‘Marriage Without Dating’
Frustrated after a string of break- ups, Dwita Astari Pujiartati quit the casual romance circuit and turned to a growing trend among Indonesian sin- gles — marriage without dating.
The 27-year-old professor exchanged resumes with prospective suit- ors — helped by a Muslim cleric- cum-matchmaker — until she was contacted by a long-lost acquain- tance who also wanted to give contact-less dat- ing a whirl.
There was no hand holding or kissing. The pair didn’t even meet in person for almost a year,
chatting on the telephone instead.
“Once we felt ‘the click’, (my now husband) asked my parents if he could propose to me,” Pujiartati said.
The practice
known as taaruf, or introduction, is derided by critics as old fashioned and more fitting to conservative Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia than relatively lib- eral Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim majority country.
But Pujiartati saw it as a way to ditch dating that went nowhere and be a
devout Muslim at the same time by avoiding pre-mar- ital touching and sex.
“Why should I
choose some- thing that wastes my time and doesn’t please God?” she said.
While the prac- tice isn’t wide- spread, Pujiartati is not alone.
A movement called Indonesia
Tanpa Pacaran (Indonesia with- out dating) is blossoming in the Southeast Asian nation where people born from the mid-Nineties make up about one-quarter of its more than 260 million people.
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