<![CDATA[The criminal offense of falsifying marital history is a crime that rarely comes to light but has the potential to cause harm to others, especially when a person’s prior marital status is concealed from a prospective partner. This normative legal study analyzes the concept and legal framework of this criminal offense under Indonesian positive law, as well as its enforcement in practice, using legislative, case law, and conceptual approaches, with primary legal sources consisting of legislation and the Cibinong District Court Decision No. 260/Pid.B/2025/PN Cbi, which were analyzed using a qualitative-deductive method. The results of the study show that the concept of falsifying the origin of a marriage is not regulated as a standalone offense, but is scattered throughout Articles 277 –280 of the former Criminal Code, with the core of the offense consisting of the concealment of a legal impediment to marriage (wettelijk beletsel) accompanied by the element of the perpetrator’s knowledge (wetenschap), which intersects with the Marriage Law, the Population Administration Law, and their updates in Articles 401–404 of the National Criminal Code. Law enforcement faces structural challenges, the nature of complaint-based offenses, the difficulty of proving intent, the lack of integration between population and marriage data, and a legal culture that tends to resolve these issues through informal, family-based means.]]>
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