A Geek in Indonesia. Tim Hannigan

stigma in most parts of Indonesia. It’s unfortunate that sex education is rather lacking. I’ve been to a depressing number of wedding ceremonies for what in Indonesia are known as “marriages by accident”—where the bride is displaying a distinct bump beneath her wedding dress…

      Regional ethnic identity comes to the fore on the wedding day for a Batak couple in Sumatra.

       TYING THE KNOT

      If the dating scene in Indonesia is more liberal than many foreigners might imagine, marriage is still a very important thing, and choosing to remain unmarried is, for both men and women, something akin to a deviant act—and certainly something that will result in incessant hectoring from parents, aunts and uncles, and society at large. The question in Indonesia is not “Are you married?”, but “Are you married yet?” And if the answer is “Not yet,” then the next question is, inevitably, “Why not?”