335
either dictate to the wali and the bridegroom what they have to say or else have themselves empowered by the wali and enter into the marriage contract as his wakil. This last method, which is adopted throughout the whole of the E. Indian Archipelago, is also the one most generally resorted to in other Mohammedan countries, as for example in Arabia. This is indeed what we should naturally expect, for under the first-named system there is much greater risk of the whole affair being upset by the inadvertence of one or other of the parties. Under the more usual method, on the other hand, the authorization of the official deputy by the wali (a proper formula for which the latter dictates, to make it easy for the former)[1] is given before the marriage contract is concluded, so that this official wakil has to devote his attention to the bridegroom only. On the latter he impresses beforehand his comparatively simple duties. "So soon" (thus runs his lesson), "so soon as ever I have given utterance to the offer I shall pull your thumb" (which the official holds fast during the ceremony for this purpose) and then you must immediately repeat the words which I dictate".
Such is also the practice in Java; the formulas used on such occasions vary locally in sundry particulars, but are everywhere the same in essentials. Mr. van den Berg, who clearly made his first acquaintance with these matters quite recently[2] from Winter's brochure and the dictionaries of de Wilde and Coolsma, draws therefrom the entirely
- ↑ In making this authorization, however, the wali is not restricted to any particular formula; he may make it by simply replying in the affirmative to a question of the registrar.
- ↑ This is quite manifest from the third edition of his Beginselen which came out in 1883. He there states (p. 145) that the bridegroom and the wali may empower another to represent them, but fails to note that this is almost invariably done in the wali's case. Again on p. 149 we find a further error: "In Netherlands-India and probably (sic) in other Mohammedan countries as well, this takes place in presence of a "priest", who receives for his pains some small recompense, and who recites a passage from the Koran or a prayer". In his latest essay Van den Berg revokes this absurdity, it is but he substitutes a new one in its place when he says: "he (the "priest" in Java) does not invoke a blessing on the marriage, but he joins the couple in marriage, just as the Registrar does with us". This is not so; in Java as in other Mohammedan countries the official as wakil or agent offers the woman to the bridegroom, in the name of the wali who has empowered him.
marriages in Java, even in the chiefs towns of the divisions which are of course at the same time the capitals of their own districts ("distrik kota"). Very often the official mariage-maker is a minor mosque-officer, for suitable persons are found among the personnel of the mosques, and the naib has often other work to do. It is only the marriages of women who have no wali which are always concluded by the pangulu or some one appointed by him, who exercises the kuwasa kakim; but occasionally where the bride is of very good family, an ordinary marriage is concluded by the pangulu in person.
