<![CDATA[Qiwāmah is often treated as a stable doctrine of male authority, yet in Indonesian Muslim family law its legal meaning is continually renegotiated across religious, state, customary, and judicial norms. This article argues that qiwāmah is better understood as a negotiated legal category whose legitimacy is increasingly conditioned by provision, protection, reciprocity, and substantive justice. Using a qualitative library-based normative-doctrinal design, it analyzes Qur’anic exegesis, fiqh, the Marriage Law, the Compilation of Islamic Law, Supreme Court policies, published religious-court decisions from 2021–2025, and relevant scholarship through doctrinal-documentary and thematic analysis. Its novelty lies in tracing qiwāmah across three levels that are usually studied separately: normative interpretation, women’s strategies for negotiating marital authority, and judicial reasoning. The analysis shows a shift from gender-based hierarchy toward functional and reciprocal responsibility, while also identifying persistent constraints created by economic dependence, social stigma, evidentiary asymmetries, inconsistent findings of nushūz, default judgments, and weak enforcement of post-divorce rights. By linking legal pluralism, women’s agency, and adjudication, the study reframes qiwāmah as an arena in which legal meaning is produced through interaction among norms, actors, and institutions. It concludes that more consistent gender-responsive reasoning and enforceable remedies are necessary for substantive protection of women and children.]]>
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