Overpopulation in Asia

The religious significance of marriage in Sivaism in Java was not only situated in a fertility-cult. At the marriage-ceremony of man and woman a low was realized on the personal and social level, which dominated the whole Universe. Marriage was a religious and cosmic event, as the issue was the continuance of the Universe.
According to the study of Mrs. Hooykaas-van Leeuwen boomkamp (1957) Sivaitic marriage signifies that from the embrace of Siva and Sakti a drop (windu) was born, which combined in itself the force of Sakti with the insight of Siva, and which was the seed for a new world.
When this cosmic embrace took place and Siva, the god of love united with Sakti, the Mother of all that lives, then Siva and Sakti form a new divine figure, half man, half woman, called Ardhanari. Ardhanari is one of Siva’s shapes, the immaterial, but form-adopting Saviour, in whom wisdom and energy are equally represented. He warrants the salvation of man and the survival of the cosmos. The mystical union of Siva and Sakti may take place in a ascetic or in a human couple, in whom these deities are incarnated and who by means of it become Ardhanari. This embrace of Siva and Sakti therefore stands for the great fact of salvation. Marriage does not mean a personal human act, but it is becoming possessed by Siva, the cosmic lover, and his partner. And so in the small world of marriage the emotion of human passion is a faint reflection of the act of creation in which Siva and Sakti unite to bring forth the drop (windu), which makes the Universe survive.
In microcosmic marriage microcosmic marriage is repeated, out of which everything originated. It is this deeper meaning, which Javanese marriage has had throughout many centuries. Contracting a marriage is equal to the highest initiation. It is on the day of matrimony that bride and bridegroom are supposed to be exalted above everybody, even the monarch, in rank. They are considered as “Radja Sehari”, prince and princess of the day, maybe as a divine couple.
The connection between the fertility of woman and field is still evident from old folk-custom to further the fertility of the fields by sympathetic magic. During the weeks preceding the flowering of the rice, the man goes in the nightly dark together with his wife, both naked, along the sawahs and there they perform the coïtus. (Schrieke, 1921).
The intention is to make the special working, attached to the act of sex, to be beneficient to the growing crops.
After the introduction of Islam in the 14th and 15th century the Muslim marriage-conception was also spread in Java, however without supplanting the Sivaitic idea there. It was Islam in its mystical form, which spread in Java and very gradually elements from this religion were assimilated in the magico-mysticism of Java, However Muslim marriage too promotes the forming of large families. The significance of Muslim marriage is indeed very different from Sivaitic marriage. According to Al-Ghazali marriage was instituted very specially for the benefit of the wishes, joy and welfare of the husband. It serves the salvation of man in this life and in the hereafter. The temptation of the senses, which would divert the man’s attention from his duty of devoting himself to the service of Allah, is within matrimony smaller than outside it, so that marriage is of the greatest importance for the spiritual life and for the peace of mind of the husband. The man is strongly urged to contract a marriage. He who marries, coöperates for the fullfilment of allah’s wish. Being married belongs to the sunna (prescription, norm of behaviour) of the prophet Mohammed. “He that is against my Sunna, does not belong to me. To my sunna belongs being married. He that loves me, he follows my sunna”, in this way tradition renders a pronouncement of the prophet. The married man is above the unmarried, like the warrior is above the man staying at home. The blessing of parenthood has consequences for the salvation of father and mother, as the child dying in young age will be its parents’ intercessor with Allah. “The child draws his parents with him into Paradise” says an adage of the prophet. A child will, after his parents’ death, remember them in his prayers for their salvation. Progeny is the profit of marriage, but salvation of the soul is the capital. “Neglecting the soul’s salvation is equal to the loss of eternal life” (Al Ghazali). Muslim marriage exists exclusively by the wish of the husband. It may be dissolved at any moment by pronouncing the “tolak” by the man. For Allah has given the wife in the husband’s hand. Islam allows a man four wives, while an unlimited number of concubines is permitted. In Java however polygamy is rare. But dissolution of marriage is far from rare.
It may be easily understood that those two conceptions of marriage are hardly consistent with a rational way to a responsible family life with small families. Sivaitic marriage is, like all the thinking and acting of the Javanese population, entirely dominated by symbolism. Javanese marriage so closely interwoyen in a symbolic way with the great context of the cosmos, that this cannot be loosened from this enthralling constellation without awakening great resistance. Logic argument would disturb the accepted “cosmic order” of Java, as this order is arranged according to another classification system than a logical. Symbolic cohesion between man and animals and plants with the invisible worldorder is in Java esteemed to be as real as the most stringent causal relation is to scientists. This cohesion is not done away by logic argumentation. In a world, in which causality and identity have found only a subordinate place and in which the affect above all things dominates events and life-contexts, a rational approach finds hardly sufficient meeting-places but rather great chances of rejections.
The attitudes of the many Muslim authorities concerning responsible parenthood with small families vary greatly, ranging from acceptance to complete rejection.
One gets the impression that these pronouncements favouring practical toleration of this type of parenthood is a compromise extorted by the necessity of circumstances, a compromise brought about between the enormous size of the population problem, as it exists in Egypt and Pakistan, and the original Muslim conception of marriage, Marriage, if so much dominated by the wishes of the man and in a number of cases polygamous, promotes in its very nature the formation of large families. Possible barrenness of a marriage, which is as a rule imputed to the woman and in that case may be a ground for divorce, causes the wife to be ready to oblige the husband as much as possible in this matter, and has as a consequence a great number of children. With Iman Al Ghazali we find extensive discussions on the divergent opinions about coitus interrupt us being admissible or not. Al Ghazali comes to the pronouncement, that it may be seen as the omission of the better and perfect thing, but that there is no absolute prohibition. One is not standing on the summit of perfection, if this better thing is neglected.
Some Egyptian Muslim authorities of late years have made pronouncements somewhat in favour of the idea of responsible parenthood with small families.
Sheikh Khaled Moh. Khaled (1950). speaking about the population problem in Egypt, and pointing to the high birth-rate, low standard of living and the problem of society being incapable to supply the basic needs for the great number of newborns, gave the pronouncement: “This crisis is due to our misconception of religion. Islam permits birth control in the interest of society and for the welfare of the individual”.