A brief history of inheritance practices in the 1950s-1960s

The debates among judges during this period were about (a) whether the widow is an heir entitled to her husband's separate property—property brought by her husband into the marriage but separately owned; (b) the position of mother or daughter regarding the inheritance of marital property, and their respective shares; (c) whether a daughter is an heir of her father's and how much her share is; (d) whether the inheritance right of a widow may be replaced by the inheritance right of a child.

The first Supreme Court judge who fought for women's inheritance rights was Wiryono Projodikoro,¹ a prominent adat (customary) judge and the second Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after Independence². He was fighting for the right of widows to inherit the estates left by their husbands, both the marital and separate property. Wiryono also fought for access to the estate for daughters, even though his idea was opposed by many adat law judges and judges from the lower courts. They considered the view of Wiryono as too extreme and paying insufficient attention to the reality of justice among adat communities at that time.

However, there was some doubt among judges regarding the development of adat law, since hardly any research was conducted at the time about the development of adat law. The materials available were those collected before the war by Van Vollenhoven and Ter Haar. This situation has remained the same ever since, as we still lack research into the development of adat inheritance law in different regions and situations across the country.