The Division of Community Property in Polygamy that Gives Legal Protection to the Wife

Abstract

Article 35 of the Marriage Law paragraph (1) states: Community property is property acquired by a couple during marriage. KHI article 94 states that community property in polygamous marriages is separated and independent. However, there is an opinion stating that article 94 is unfair for first wife, because they received the least portion among the other wives. In fact, first wife accompanied her husband for a longer time, and continued to accompany him in the next marriage. Of course it is considered unfair because first wife suffer the most, especially in terms of mental condition, because no woman is actually willing to share her husband with other women. The technical administration and technical guidelines for the Religious Courts are applied in the Religion Court based on the decision of the Chair of the Supreme Court of Republic of Indonesia Number: KMA/032/SK/IV/2006 concerning the implementation of "Book II Guidelines for Implementation of Duties and Administration of Religious Courts". It has been revised in 2006, 2010, and 2013. It was incomplete norm because Marriage Law does not explain the division of community property in polygamous marriages. It only contains the requirements of polygamy, so that it is not legal and could not protect the wife. The research method used by the author in this study was normative or doctrinal legal research. It was concluded that division of community property is the absolute requirement in polygamy, in order to protect the rights of wives. It is based on Marriage Law, Compilation of Islamic Law and Supreme Court Decision of the Republic of Indonesia Number KMA/032/SK/IV/2006. In terms of polygamy, Religious Courts also provide a verdict in the form of stipulation of community property. This is in line with the concept of legal protection which provides protection through legal certainty and guarantees justice for wives.

Keywords: legal protection, polygamy, community property.

DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/94-23

Publication date: February 29^th 2020