Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/105

 he agree offhand to a man of his gampōng marrying outside it. "There are plenty of women here", he objects, "why should you go and scatter your seed elsewhere?" This hampering of the freedom of marriage, which is based alone on the adat and is positively in conflict with the hukōm or religious law, has at present much greater practical significance than the adat-theory forbidding intermarriage between certain kawōms, which we noticed some time back.

The keuchiʾ will rarely raise objections to the marriage of girls of his gampōng to men from elsewhere; the increase of population due to such unions is half of it pure gain.

As we see, the Achehnese are far from being afraid of over-population. The gampōng as a whole takes all the more trouble to keep its component parts together and ensure increase of numbers, because the individuals are often too little disposed to contribute their share. The Achehnese themselves assert that married couples with a number of children are very much in the minority; by their own confession they make much use both in and out of wedlock of expedients for preventing pregnancy or causing miscarriage.

II. The teungku, says the proverb, is the mother of the gampōng.

Teungku is the title given in general to all in Great-Acheh who either hold an office in connection with religion or distinguish themselves from the common herd by superior knowledge or more strict observance of religious law. In Pidië and on the East Coast the holders of worldly offices or worldly distinctions also enjoy the title of teungku, but such persons are in Great-Acheh distinguished by that of teuku. The keuchiʾ, the panglima, the imeum and the ulèëbalang are all called by the latter title, and so also are wealthy people, elders and even persons without any real claim to distinction, by those who regard them as their superiors or wish to flatter them. In the case of ulèëbalangs or distinguished imeums the word ampōn is affixed both in the