Inter-Religious Mate Selection Negotiating Process Relationship in Indonesia

Abstract

This research explores the process of inter-religious mate selection and the important role of third parties as social forces in the process among individuals in urban areas in Indonesia. The scope is sociology of family using hybrid typology for the process and Kalmijn (1998) for the third parties. The article enriches those elaborated by Netting (2010), Tsutsui (2013) and Casier et al. (2013) on combination of traditional and love mate selection process, and Kalmijn (1998), Connolly (2009), Yahya and Boag (2014) on the third parties in intermarriage. A qualitative field research with snowball method by doing retrospective interviews in greater Jakarta is conducted among 4 individuals from Islam and Christian. The period of research is from the year 2018-2021. It is revealed that all of the individuals going through the hybrid mate selection process which starts from the love typology and ends in the traditional typology. The process begins with individual choosing his/her mate on his/her own and in the end only able to get married by approval of his/her family. It is revealed individuals’ capability to negotiate his/her standpoint to preserve the relationship until succeed to marry, with several and multilayer third parties specially his/her conjugal family and the state. The process reflects the existence of inter-religious tolerance. A mate selection theoretical contribution on how hybrid process and negotiating with the third parties as social forces also applies in inter-religious context, are also elaborated.