Much of what we know about Adjeng
Kartini comes
from the letters she wrote to friends
and family in Java
and in Holland. The letters reveal a
young Javanese
woman influenced by her connections to
the Western
world, longing for an education and the
right of
women to obtain one. Ironically, the
only way possible
for this high-born Javanese woman to
create the kind
of world she wanted was to surrender
her independence
and marry. Toward the end of her short
life,
Adjeng Kartini started a school for
girls in Jakarta,
Java’s capital. She died in childbirth
at the age of 25.
Kartini came of age just as Java’s
interactions with
Western ideas and values grew more and
more unsettling.
By the 17th century, most of the
Indonesian
archipelago was under Dutch control,
and it remained
so until the Japanese invaded Indonesia
in 1942. After
Japan’s defeat in 1945, Indonesian
nationalists organized
under the leadership of Sukarno (1901–70),
who
proclaimed independence from Holland
and became
president of Indonesia in 1945. Several
years of negotiations
and warfare followed, with the Dutch
granting
independence in 1949.
Holland’s history with imperialism,
especially in
Indonesia, was full of strife (see MATA HARI). The
colonial system came under sharp
criticism around
the end of the 19th century from its
officers stationed
in Indonesia and humanitarian reformers
in Holland,
for its neglect of the welfare of the
Indonesian people.
Most of the people with whom Kartini
corresponded
supported the new colonial policy
called the “Ethical
Policy.” This program emphasized
increased education
for Indonesians, fuller participation
in local government,
and efforts to raise indigenous
standards of
living. Kartini did not live to see
this policy put into
effect. In the end, the policy resulted in the demand
on the part of the Indonesians for
self-determination
and an end to the colonial system
itself.
Adjeng Kartini was born on April 21,
1879, to
the regent, or governor, of Japara
district in Java.
Although Adjeng’s title was “princess,”
she was not
actually one in the true sense of the
word, in that her
father was not sovereign over a royal
domain. He
served at the discretion of the Dutch,
who put him in
charge of an administrative district. A
Dutch adviser,
the assistant resident, ensured that
all decisions made
coincided with Dutch interests. Kartini’s
father spoke
Dutch fluently, which was unusual among
Javanese
regents. Kartini’s father and uncles
had been educated
by Dutch tutors; her brother, Kartono,
graduated
with honors from a colonial Dutch high
school
and continued with his higher education
in Holland
and Vienna.
As for Kartini, her schooling ended
after she
reached the age of 12. From the age of
six until the
age of 12, she attended a Dutch
elementary school,
established in Japara for the children
of Dutch
colonists. A handful of Javanese
children were
allowed to attend, if they could learn
the Dutch language.
At the Dutch school, Kartini learned
the differences
between Western and Eastern cultures.
What
impressed her most was the fact that
the Dutch children,
from an early age, exhibited a strong
sense of
independence and choice absent from
Javanese culture.
Each child cultivated a sense of control
over her
personal future and of directing her
future for herself.
This idea was especially foreign to a
Javanese girl.
Upper-class girls were forbidden by law
to leave their
homes from the age of 12 through 14, or
until they
married. Although Kartini admired the
Western
notion of independence, she retained
her respect and
affinity for Javanese religion.
Javanese aristocratic culture mandated
isolation
for daughters before marriage as a sign
of the family’s
high rank and pure blood. During her
confinement,
Kartini began two habits that would
follow her
throughout the rest of her short life:
she established
relationships with outsiders through
letter writing,
and she read the books sent to her by
her brothers.
Kartini’s father made one important
exception in
the rule of his daughter’s isolation:
he introduced her
to the wife of the new assistant
resident, Mavrouw
Ovink-Soer. This Dutch woman, a fervent
socialist
and feminist, became a tutor to
Kartini, and she
imparted much of her political ideas to
her charge.
Kartini vowed to Ovink-Soer that she
would never
marry, agreeing with her tutor that
marriage crippled
a woman’s autonomy. She would later
renounce her
promise. Also during her confinement,
Kartini established
another friendship with a radical
thinker, Stella
Zeehandelaar, through correspondence.
When Ovink-Soer left Japara in 1899,
Kartini
asked her father if she could join her
brother in Holland
for study. He refused. Kartini met a
new Dutch
friend, J. H. Abendanon, one of the
earliest proponents
of the Ethical Policy. As director of
the Department
of Native Education, Abendanon made
women’s education a priority, albeit
only as a vehicle
for insuring that his children were
better educated
(see Dorothea BEALE for changes in attitudes toward
women’s education in Europe). With
Abendanon’s
help, Kartini’s father allowed her to
study for a year in
Batavia, the colonial capital, with the
ultimate aim of
becoming a teacher in a school for the
daughters of
regents, to be established by
Abendanon.
Soon, however, it became clear that
such a school
would not be successful. Nearly all of
the Javanese
regents reported that they would never
send their
daughters to such a school, or any
school, for that
matter. Clearly, there was deep
antagonism to the idea
of education for girls. A year later,
Kartini befriended
a member of the Dutch Parliament, H. H.
van Kol
(the two met through Kartini’s pen pal,
Stella Zeehandelaar).
Upon hearing of Kartini’s ideas for a
girls’
school, van Kol, a Social Democrat,
arranged for Kartini
to get a governmental grant for her
education in
Holland. To that end, he had published
an account of
his travels in Java, in which he
described Kartini. The
publicity outraged both the Javanese
and the Dutch
in Japara, who began accusing Kartini
of being sexually
promiscuous. This intensified her
father’s insistence
that she marry.
And she did. Her father arranged an
alliance
between Kartini and the regent of
Rambang. Although
we do not know exactly why Kartini
changed her
mind, she may have come to realize that a Javanese
woman could only act unconventionally
if she were
married. In Kartini’s case, her
marriage turned out to
be beneficial for her cause, since her
husband supported
her ideas. The school in Japara was
established
in 1903. A year later, on September 17,
1904, Kartini
died in childbirth.
Today, several Kartini schools exist
throughout
Java, thanks to the initiative of
Kartini’s old friend
Abendanon. He established the Kartini
Foundation,
a private organization dedicated to the
funding of
girls’ schools. Abendanon also had
Kartini’s letters
published in 1911, under the title Through Darkness
Into Light.
Further Reading
Kartini, Raden Adjeng. Letters of a Javanese Princess, Hildred
Geertz, ed. Lanham, Md.: University
Press of
America, 1985.
———. On Feminism and Nationalism: Kartini’s
Letters to
Stella Zeehandelaar, 1899–1903. Clayton, Victoria,
Australia: Monash Asia Institute, 1995.
Zainu’ddin, Ailsa Thomson, et al., Kartini Centenary:
Indonesian Women Then and Now. Clayton, Victoria,
Australia: Monash Asia Institute, 1980
Source: A to Z of Women in World History by Erika Kuhlman
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