Comments and Discussion.

As the papers and discussion on the first day of the conference suggested, the tension between civil and religious loyalties is central theme of citizenship in Southeast Asian nation-sates. The separate law, courts, and customs of Muslim citizens and the complexity of dealing with marriages and divorces involving a Muslim and a non-Muslim were recurring themes in a number of the essays. Sociologist Mehrun Siraj's paper focused as well on the issue of how a law that is seen as God-given, such as the Quran, can be made more accessible, so that the fundamental gender equalities dictated by the Quran can be found. Finally, there was discussion of what divorce or polygamy or marriage meant where religious differences, rural-urban differences, or gender differences marked radically different practices. The discussion of polygamy also took up rural/urban differences, as well as class differences, but there was more focus on its economic and symbolic significance, for both men and women, across national and ethnic boundaries. The discussions of divorce and of polygamy are closely connected in that both raise the question of rights for different women who are or have been married to the same man. In addition, both divorce and polygamy raise questions of interpretation and questions about official versus unofficial practices.