Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/372

 suspected of an attempt to rob the pangulus of their privileges. There would however be no lawful means of frustrating such "amateurs", unless the Government declared the district pangulus to be exclusively empowered to act as attornies of the walis.

In all Mohammedan lands, however, in the inland parts of Java just as much as in Arabia, we find exceptions to the rule of invoking the services of apppointed or licensed makers of marriages. For instance where a recognized expounder of the law gives in marriage a woman whose wali he himself is, or where he is empowered by a friend of his own to act as wali, no one thinks of raising any objection. Nor again would any Mohammedan Court ever protest against the validity of a marriage on the ground that no "minister of religion" was present thereat.

What is true of the office of wali applies also to that of witness. A marriage is not valid unless it has been concluded in the presence of two witnesses who in the opinion of the judges on whose verdict the disputed validity depends, satisfy the requisite standards as to suitability and morality. There can thus be no better means of guarding against danger in this respect, than by selecting witnesses who have been for good and all declared to be suitable by the judge or his representative.

In point of fact we find in many Mohammedan countries, as an appendage to every qādhī's court, a number of professional witnesses called ʾadl, who lend their assistance for a moderate fee in marriage and other contracts. This also holds true, mutatis mutandis, of the Indian Archipelago. Here the district pangulu, or whatever other name the maker of the marriage contract may be known by, causes one or two of the officers of the mosque to attend marriages, and these obtain for their services a share of their chief's fees.

The above refutation of errors which, clumsy as they are, have persisted owing to the appearance of authority with which they were enunciated, puts us in a position to begin our description of the Achehnese marriage contract.

It is usually concluded in the chapel which also serves as the meeting-house and caravanserai of the gampōng, the meunasah, one or two days before the euntat mampleuë or wedding which has been described above.