Judicial Legal Reasoning on Wife-Initiated Divorce (Cerai Gugat) and Its Social Determinants at the Surabaya Religious Court: A Parsonian AGIL Analysis

Abstract

This research analyzes the social factors underlying the dominance of cerai gugat (wife-initiated divorce) at the Surabaya Religious Court, and the judges' legal considerations in adjudicating such cases, using Islamic legal sociology and Talcott Parsons' structural-functional theory (the AGIL scheme). This empirical legal research employs a qualitative approach. Primary data were purposively drawn from a semi-structured interview with a judge of the Surabaya Religious Court and analysis of two illustrative cerai gugat verdicts, selected for evidentiary richness rather than statistical representativeness; secondary data were sourced from statutory regulations and court reports. Data were analyzed through reduction, display, and conclusion drawing, with validity reinforced through source triangulation. Results show economic factors as the most dominant cause of cerai gugat in the cases examined, followed by domestic violence, infidelity, and loss of affective and communicative functions between spouses. Viewed through Parsons' AGIL scheme, the family's four basic functions show signs of concurrent strain in these cases, illustrating a loss of equilibrium in the family as a social system. These social facts are transformed into legal facts through the judges' legal reasoning: applicable norms serve as the major premise, and facts proven at trial as the minor premise, yielding the juridical qualification of broken marriage as ratio decidendi for granting the petition, alongside the ex officio imposition of iddah maintenance, mut'ah, and child support. The study contributes by tracing how family-system strain is qualified into the statutory grounds courts rely upon.