Intermediaries and illegal gratification in the Indonesian bureaucracy of Muslim marriage

Family law has been a fundamental issue in the negotiation of the relationship between the state and religion at the national level. For more than 50 years, the everyday functioning of the administration of Muslim marriage has depended on intermediating roles played by informal religious leaders. During the last decade, the central government perceived the practice of receiving informal fee for bedolan (marriage outside the office) as illegal gratification. The central government, therefore, launched reform in some ways. It made marriage ceremony free of charge and abolished bedolan fee. It removed informal religious leaders from marriage functionaries. In practice, Muslims do value the religious aspect of a marriage ceremony and regard the administrative one as a complement. It is informal religious leaders who can meet this perception. This article investigates how intermediaries play roles in marriage administration and delves into local relations between state-promoted officials and informal religious leaders to understand why the reform did not affect the latter’s position. In day-to-day practice of Muslim marriage, the co-existence of different authorities handling marriage is continuously negotiated.