Siti Oetari

Siti Oetari was born in 1905 in Ponorogo city, Ponorogo Regency, Dutch East Indies, the eldest child of Sarekat Islam leader H. O. S. Tjokroaminoto and his wife Raden Ajeng Soeharsikin.[1] Tjokroaminoto was studying in Surabaya at the time of her birth, and although he did visit his wife and child when he could, it was only in 1907 that he was able to bring them to live with him.[1] In 1912 her brother Harsono Tjokroaminoto was born, who would later be an independence activist, politician and ambassador.

Sukarno, the future independence fighter and first president of Indonesia, was a student boarding in Tjokroaminoto's house in Surabaya during the late 1910s. He became quite close to Tjokroaminoto, and was treated as his foster son and protégé.[2] It was in 1921 that Sukarno, then 20 years old, married Siti Oetari.[3] That same year, he graduated from the Hogere Burgerschool in Surabaya and soon he and Oetari relocated to Bandung so he could enroll in the Technische Hoogeschool te Bandoeng.[4] However, according to Sukarno's autobiography, their marriage was a so-called "hanging marriage" which was never consummated because of their young age.[5] While they were living in Bandung, he became enamored of their landlady, Inggit Garnasih. Therefore, he asked Oetari for a divorce and returned to Surabaya to settle things with Tjokroaminoto.[6] Shortly thereafter he remarried to Inggit.

Oetari eventually remarried in 1924 to a man named Sigit Bachroensalam. They remained married until Sigit died in 1981. Oetari herself died in 1986 at age 81.