Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/391

 the taʾlīq-adat; Acheh and the Menangkabau territories. In both of these the woman is, so far as lodging and maintenance are concerned, practically independent of her husband, since she continues to form an integral part of the family wherein she was born. An Achehnese woman whose husband has gone as a pepper-planter to the East or West Coast and gives no sign of his existence for years, may indeed feel unhappy; but as she lives in her own house either together with or in the immediate neighbourhood of her own family, she is seldom constrained to demand a dissolution of marriage by faskh. In the same way there exists no necessity for facilitating by conditional divorce, such dissolution of wedlock which as we have seen is most difficult to obtain by faskh.

We may now proceed to mention certain adats which are observed during the period immediately following the completion of the marriage. We shall at the same time find an opportunity for discussing the results of marriage as regards the property of husband and wife.

After the wedding, some months, indeed sometimes as much as a year or so, will pass before the family of the bridegroom takes any further notice of the bride. The latter does not make her first visit to her parents-in-law, until her husband's mother comes to "fetch her away" (tuëng meunarō).

The elder woman brings with her a number of female companions from her own gampōng and a money present for the young wife. The guests are entertained at the bride's house at a formal feast with idangs.

This visit however is not sufficient according to the adat to constitute an invitation. Some time later the request must be repeated by a woman sent by the husband's mother. The messenger thus addresses the mother of the bride: "The reason why I have directed my