Reluctant resignation (1885–1911)

In 1909 a letter from Dr. C.W.Th. baron van Boetzelaer, the Dutch Consul for the Missionary Societies in the Netherlands Indies, arrived, which was addressed to Nommensen as the Ephorus of the Batak Mission.³⁹ The letter informed the Batak Mission that the Netherlands Department

37 VEM, F d/2,1 Ref. Volkmann 1893:14.

38 Kaplan’s (1985) exquisite analysis of marriage strategies among Jews in imperial Germany based on dowry of the bride demonstrates convincingly that these strategies did not deviate significantly from similar practices in the German gentile and bourgeois circles.

39 This function had been created in 1906. The zendingsconsul had the task of working towards uniformity in the policies of the missionary societies working in the Netherlands Indies and liaison with the Dutch Indies government on behalf of these societies in all matters pertaining to religion (Jongelingh 1966: 25-46).

of Education and Religion of the Netherlands Indies Government intended to introduce a uniform marriage law for all native Christians throughout the colony.⁴⁰ The letter stirred up a renewal of debate in the Batak Mission over the next two years, not only on the Christian By-laws, but also on the brideprice, der Frauenkauf.

The 1910 missionary conference reviewed the all-too-well known objections against the custom. The participants vehemently condemned specifically the practice that a man could make use of his daughter as a corollary for debt, the arrangement known as ‘a girl with a debt on her head’ (boru ni hotang). They found this unacceptable because they regarded the girl’s condition as similar to slavery (which it probably often was).⁴¹ Also abhorrent to them was that ‘at present a girl can now and then be made responsible for a considerable sum which she never has used for herself’.⁴² This statement is noteworthy because it reveals the missionaries’

view on the individual as an independent legal subject responsible for his or her actions only, a concept alien to the Batak.⁴³ That marriages formed in this way often ended in divorce they saw as another drawback. Remarkably, they did not regard it as their task to do something about the custom. Instead, they expressed the hope the colonial government would use the new marriage law for indigenous Christians outlawing the practice—at that time still in the making.

The leadership of the Batak Mission apparently considered the subject still insufficiently explored, because at the 1911 conference, missionary H. Brakensiek presented a paper ‘The sale and purchase of women illuminated from all sides: for and against’ (Die Frauenkauf allseitig beleuchtet: Für und Wider).⁴⁴ Possibly, he was given this task because he worked on the island of Samosir at the time, the district with the smallest percentage of Christians, where the old customs were still generally upheld by the majority of the population.

As indicated by the paper’s title, Brakensiek started with an explanation of the positive aspects of the brideprice: it fostered marital stability and functioned as a protection of the wife as well. He made an interesting comparison in this context: because of the brideprice, Batak women were more respected and less often molested by their husbands than Christian women in Europe. Subsequently he went over all the old arguments against the brideprice; but unlike other missionaries who had covered the subject in the past, he pointed to the economic background of the institution. Forced child marriages were rooted in poverty: daughters were betrothed because money was needed to pay the brideprice for a brother’s wife, to buy a rice field to feed the family or a buffalo to plough the fields. Brakensiek reported that a girl was sometimes even betrothed to two, three, or more persons by a dishonest parboru, a strategy that perhaps was the only way he could ensure his family’s survival.⁴⁵ Although he did not refer to it, he thus came to the same conclusion as Controller W.G.T.M. Dekker who had investigated slavery and debt bondage in Toba in 1904; Dekker’s report probably had circulated amongst the missionaries.

Brakensiek also pointed out that the rajas fared well under these conditions, as all the disputes arising out of these practices provided them with a nice income.

40 VEM, F/b 1,5 KP 1909:202.

41 It is plausible that their attention had been drawn to the extent of this problem by the report of Controller W.G.T.M.

Dekker in 1904 on slavery and debt bondage in Toba.

42 VEM, F/b 1,5 KP 1910:20-1).

43 I will return to this subject in the conclusion of the next chapter and Chapter 12, section 12.7.

44 VEM, F/b 2,1 Ref. Brakensiek 1911: 2-3. This treatise is the most elaborate and best informed on the subject of Toba Batak marriage produced by a missionary during the colonial period.

45 Note that the poverty-stricken sons in the myth about the seven sons and only daughter of a widowed mother used the same strategy to obtain money for their mother’s funeral (Chapter 4, page 11)

The solution to these problems suggested by Brakensiek was not the abolition of the brideprice but the establishment of the right of daughters to inherit the same portion as given to their brothers:

If the female sex is not granted the right of the child, then the sale and purchase of women must remain. Then, the woman is and will remain a commodity and equal to a slave. If however the female sex will be given the right of the child, then the legal basis for an honourable position for her in human society is provided for and as a result, the sale and purchase of women will disappear automatically. Then we also possess the external foundation on which a Christian marriage can be built and flourish.⁴⁶

How inheritance rights for daughters could lead to the disappearance of marriage payments, however, the missionary did not explain. Nevertheless, at the conference an even more farfetched idea was ventured: that an individual could make use of the option to register as a European, an option already open to Minahasan Christians. In that case, European civil law would apply, which included inheritance rights for daughters. Change would then follow organically.⁴⁷

The RMG board pointed out, however, that inheritance rights for daughters would not remove the cause of child marriages, which was poverty. Advocacy for the abolition of the brideprice was therefore opportune only if economic conditions in the region had improved.⁴⁸ The RMG board probably also had second thoughts about the abolition, remembering that a few years earlier missionary Warneck had cautioned against it, because in Mandailing in South Tapanuli, it had allegedly led to ‘horrifying moral conditions’ (greuliche sittliche Zustände). At that time, Warneck had thought that the issue was best left unregulated. That would provide the necessary room for a gradual transformation of the custom as a result of the slow but persistent moral influence of Christianity.⁴⁹ Warneck did not stand alone: his point of view was shared by P.

Wegner, the RMG caretaker (Haussleiter). A few years later, Warneck (1912b:74) wrote that one should wait to abolish the brideprice until the Christians themselves demanded it.

The debate in the circle of the missionaries did not escape the attention of the local administration. In 1911, the military officer in charge of civil administration (civiel-gezaghebber) of Habinsaran, H.J. Köhler, wrote a letter to the Commission for Adat Law in which he followed Brakensiek’s arguments closely and professed himself a supporter of the abolition of the brideprice (Köhler 1913). The exchange of marriage payments not only awakened ‘the vilest passions of the Batak’ (vuilste hartstochten), but over half the lawsuits in Habinsaran (recently brought under colonial rule) were directly or indirectly related to it. He thought that the local population, aware that they were in the process of transition, would feel relieved when freed of the ‘burden’ of the sinamot and would be willing to accept its abolition. His ideas were not shared by higher-level officials.⁵⁰

After 1911 the Batak Mission refrained from pushing for the abolition of the brideprice and inheritance rights for daughters. This policy of abstention was based not only on a more

46 VEM, F/b 2,1 Ref. Brakensiek 1911: 12.

47 VEM, F/b 1,5 KP 1910:22.

48 VEM F/b 1,5 Letter Barmen Board 1911:4. For the rest of the discussion on inheritance for daughters, see Chapter 8, section 8.8.

49 VEM F/m 1. Letter by J. Warneck to Missionsinspektor Wegner, 21-5-1907; Wegner to the C. Seegers, Barmen, 9-7-1907 and 22-7-1907.

50 J.C. Kielstra, drafting a new customary code of law in 1914, did not question the custom.

realistic evaluation of Toba Batak facts of life. The relationship between the Toba Batak rajas and the Batak Mission had become strained over the years. The rajas had not been very cooperative in applying the Christian By-laws even after these had been endorsed by the colonial government in 1892, for reasons explained in Chapter 9 (section 9.1). The Christian Batak elite of pastors (pandita), teacher/preachers (guru) and church elders were also not prepared to support the missionaries’ push for radical change. They continued to marry their children in the traditional way by exchange of marriage payments. That some of them felt uneasy about this is evident from a paper presented by the Batak pastor Lamsana Lumbantobing at a separate conference of pandita in 1904. He explained apologetically that although the payment of brideprice was not a laudable custom for a Christian society, it could not be abolished simply by legal means. Only after Christianity had become a moral force could one consider this.⁵¹

After 1911 the missionaries awaited further developments concerning plans for the codification of marriage laws for indigenous Christians. The outbreak of the First World War provided them with so many other pressing problems that the issue of the abolition of the brideprice faded into the background, never to return.