practice among young female Javanese nobles, to prepare them for wedlock. During seclusion, girls were not allowed to leave their parents' house until they were married, after which the authority over them was transferred to their husbands. Kartini's father was more lenient than some during his daughter's seclusion, giving her such privileges as embroidery lessons and occasional appearances in public for special events. During her seclusion, Kartini continued to self-educate herself. She was fluent in Dutch and acquired several Dutch pen pals. One of which, was a girl named Rosa Abendanon, who later became a close friend. Books, newspapers, and European magazines fed Kartini's interest in Europe and feminist thinking and overall fostered the desire to improve the conditions of indigenous Indonesian women, which at the time had a very low social status. Kartini's reading included the Semarang newspaper, to which she began to send her own contributions that were published. Before she was 20 she had read Max Havelaar and Love Letters by Multatuli. She also read De Stille Kracht (The Hidden Force) by Louis Couperus, the works of Frederik van Eeden, Augusta de Witt, the Romantic-Feminist author Cécile de Jong van Beek en Donk, and an anti-war novel by Bertha von Suttner, Die Waffen Nieder! (Lay Down Your Arms!). All were in Dutch. Kartini was not only concerned with the emancipation of women, but also with other social justice issues within her society. Kartini saw that the struggle for women to obtain their freedom, autonomy, and legal equality was just part of a wider movement. Marriage, death and legacy Kartini's parents arranged her marriage to Joyodiningrat, the Regent of Rembang, who had already married three wives. She was wed on 12 November 1903. She detested the marriage proposal at first, but her husband understood Kartini's aspirations and allowed her to establish a women's school on the eastern porch of Rembang's Regency Office complex. Kartini's only child was born on September 13, 1904. A few days later on 17 September 1904, Kartini died at the age of 25. She was buried at Bulu Village, Rembang. Inspired by R.A. Kartini's example, the Van Deventer family established the R.A. Kartini Foundation which built schools for women, starting in 1912 with 'Kartini's Schools' in Semarang, and followed by other women's schools in Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Malang, Madiun, Cirebon, and other areas. In 1964, President Sukarno declared R.A. Kartini's birth date, 21 April, as