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In traditional Javanese philosophy, the popular advice given to a newly elected leader is: Ojo silap karo harta, tahta, lan wanita (Do not easily be tempted by wealth, power, and women). The advice continues to say that “leaders should serve those whom they lead".

This advice evolved from an epistemological construction that women are contested objects. It long marked the thinking of the patriarchal feudal nobles of the Javanese kingdoms. Housing dozens of wives in the keputren (similar to a harem in the Middle East, zenana in India or a playboy mansion in the modern world), and treating them as precious jewels was the prerogative of the prince as the absolute master.

How about the laymen? Those outside of the nobility mostly practiced monogamy. Women and men worked together in the rice fields. Compared to the women who were confined to the keputren and were forbidden from entering the public arena, ordinary women were able to move quite freely outside of domestic life. Even traditional Javanese markets were dominated by women vendors. This is still clear from the well-known Klewer textile market in Surakarta, where women vendors prevail. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace laureate who founded the Grameen bank in Bangladesh to help women access micro credits, was speaking the truth when he said that “women are better with money". These women could prove their independent roles within the public arena as well as their ability to serve their families in the domestic arena.

One of the Prophet Muhammad’s legacies is his view of women as “complete human beings", as opposed to jahiliyah (dark age) Arab society, which regarded women as “semi-human beings". Muhammad’s perspective changed the position of women from contested objects to independent subjects. This universal truth is also upheld by the Republic of Indonesia, a state that espouses democracy as a basic philosophy that guarantees the rights of women.

The practices of polygamy and nikah siri (unofficial marriage) run counter to the Islamic principles of equality and serving others. These practices further give rise to corruption in the administration of state.

The current corruption landscape is characterized by the perspective that women are nothing more than contested objects. “Women” are objectified and equated to sources of temptation, in the same way that temptation attaches to “wealth” and “power". The reciprocal hybridization and interpenetration of the “communal” textual patriarchal interpretation of sharia and the “egocentrism” of modern Western cosmology have been used by corrupt state leaders to justify their violations of the principal of monogamous marriage. They loudly proclaim: “Do not mix private matters with state policy.” They are clever indeed.

On the one hand, they strongly and loudly demand that their gender-biased interpretations of sharia to regulate how women behave in public be incorporated into state policy, as evident from the issuance of 23 sharia-based ordinances that have robbed women of their rights to participate in the economic sphere and their freedom to choose the way in which they wish to dress. Meanwhile, on the other hand, they loudly denounce women’s activists who seek the amendment of the Marriage Law.