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Legal Analysis of the Position of Women as Heads of Households in National Law

Authors
  • Rizqa Febry Ayu

    Akper Teungku Fakinah, Banda Aceh, Indonesia

    Author

  • Muhammad Hassanal

    Qassim University, Buraydah, Saudi Arabia

    Author

  • Musa Obubakar

    University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Author

  • Sholehoddin Sholehoddin

    Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta, Indonesia

    Author

Keywords:
Head of family, Legal protection, Marriage law, National law, Position of women
Abstract

Rapid social changes in Indonesian society have underscored the urgency of discussing women's position as heads of households. The purpose of this study is to analyse the legal position of women as heads of households in Indonesian national law and to examine the compatibility between applicable legal norms and the principles of gender equality and the social reality of society. This study uses a normative legal approach with a descriptive-analytical research design. The results show that the head of the family in Indonesian national law is not merely an administrative label, but rather a normative technology that locks in the distribution of authority, recognition, and resources through the patriarchal assumption that family leadership is synonymous with men, so that when social reality presents more and more women as primary caregivers, the law actually produces new injustices. At this point, the sharpest contradiction is not only between the marriage law and the constitution, but also between the state's promise of equality and the design of a bureaucracy that still operates on a normative family model increasingly incompatible with the diversity of contemporary Indonesian families. As a result, discrimination does not always manifest as overt prohibitions, but rather as procedures that appear neutral yet systematically exclude female heads of households from social assistance, administrative recognition, and legal protection.

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References

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2026-02-02
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Copyright (c) 2026 Rizqa Febry Ayu, Muhammad Hassanal, Musa Obubakar, Sholehoddin Sholehoddin (Author)

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Legal Analysis of the Position of Women as Heads of Households in National Law. (2026). Indonesian Journal of Gender Justice and Family Law, 1(1), 52-68. https://ejournal.mahkotascience.org/index.php/ingefal/article/view/4