Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/400

 feast (kanduri) consecrated with prayers. In the set speech in which the father abandons all direct interference with the concerns of his daughter for the remainder of her married life, he sums up all that she has received from him, so that no unpleasantness may arise on any subsequent distribution of her property. Either he or another in his name delivers himself somewhat as follows:—"The reason why I have summoned you hither, Teuku Keuchiʾ, Teungku and all ye elders, is that I have now "put forth" my daughter N; be this known unto all of you, O elders. What I have given her is as follows: a pair of anklets 6 bungkay in weight, one yōʾ of rice land, a pair of earrings, this house and all its equipment. This is what I wished to inform you of, be it known unto you all." The keuchiʾ replies in the name of the assembled company: "We have heard it."

Just as all that the husband brings to the home of the pair, even in the form of presents to his wife, remains with few exceptions his own property, so the wife retains an indisputable right of ownership over all that she can show to have been brought thither by her. In districts where it is the custom for the wife to assist the husband in his employment, the property accumulated during the marriage by their respective toil is in the event of a divorce divided in equal shares between the man and the woman or their respective heirs. Where one of the two dies, the survivor obtains in addition to this half share his lawful portion of the heritable property, to which the other half of their common earnings is regarded as belonging. Thus we find in Acheh the same peculiarity that exists in Java and Madura ; and most Malayan countries, viz. that where the woman is the