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he has not during his long residence in these regions given even a passing notice to many of the most characteristic of these phenomena.
We thus preface our remarks on the actual Achehnese marriage contract, not by a complete description of the Mohammedan contract, but by so much thereof as is absolutely necessary to show what portions of the Achehnese contract are peculiar to that country, and to rectify by the light of authoritative Mohammedan works the errors disseminated by Van den Berg.
The marriage contract is, according to the Shafiʾite law-books, an agreement in which the man and his wife appear as the parties, the latter being represented by her wali. The subject of the contract is sexual intercourse and all that is connected with it; in return for this advantage, which is assured to the man by the contract, he binds himself to pay a dowry, which may be either then and there fixed by the contract, or else settled later on according to the wife's position and the local custom. He also undertakes to supply his wife with suitable food, clothing, lodging and attendance, or if he should wed other wives, not to devote more of his time to them than to her, except with her consent, etc.
At the making of the contract there must be present two witnesses who fulfil the required standards of capacity, religion and morality. The "acceptance" of the bridegroom must follow directly on the "offer" of the wali, and a settled form of words must be employed for both „offer" and „acceptance". Neglect of any of these rules renders the contract null and void.
Van den Berg. In short, this essay shows that Van den Berg has never studied on the spot the subjects he treats of, and that the printed works containing comments thereon by sundry lay writers were never even opened by him until after his return to Europe.
The woman is of the subject of the contract into which her guardian enters on her behalf, as Van den Berg states in his Afwijkingen; certain Shafiʾite teachers allege that the subject is the woman, others the man and wife, but they always add, that it is not their persons, but the enjoyment of connubial bliss that is intended to be signified. That the woman is a party to the contract appears most clearly from the fact that she herself may prefer before the judge independently and without the intermediary of a wali, any claims arising from the marriage, such as the claim to maintenance, to suitable lodging or even to divorce. The duty of the wali is to maintain the honour of the family, and to take care that the woman does not contract an undesirable marriage ((
Arabic characters), as the law-books have it), and thus the contract is concluded through his intermediary. After completing this task he has nothing more to say to the marriage and to the woman who contracts it, till such time as she desires to marry again.
