MOTHERRIGHT 289 



propertied castes of India as elsewhere connected with 

 the right to succession. " A man's sister's son, and a 

 woman's own son, as their respective nearest blood- 

 relatives, perform (if their age permits) the funeral 

 rites on their decease, and observe mourning remain- 

 ing one year without shaving or cutting the hair." 1 

 It is accordingly on them that the movables of the 

 deceased devolve. The Malays of the Padang High- 

 lands of Sumatra have institutions bearing many 

 points of similarity. On marriage neither husband 

 nor wife changes abode. The husband merely visits 

 the wife, and the fact of his conjugal relation to her 

 is disclosed only in the form and intimacy of his visits. 

 As in the case of the kindred Orang Mamaq, the 

 husband has no rights over his children, who belong 

 wholly to the wife's suku, or clan ; her eldest brother 

 is the head of the family and exercises the rights and 

 duties of a father to her children. 2 The husband of a 

 Papuan woman about Blanche Bay has a right to his 

 wife's labour, and wields certain authority over her. 

 But the power over life and limb is vested in her 

 uncle or her brother. It is even her brother, not her 

 husband, who punishes with death her adultery. He 

 makes good to the husband the price he has paid for 

 her and takes his part against the adulterer. She 

 does not wholly leave her family on marriage ; it is to 

 them she looks for nursing in case of sickness. The 

 husband has no rights over any property she may 

 leave. If she die childless it returns to her family ; if 

 there be children, both they and her property go to 

 the owner of the potestas, that is to say, her uncle or 



1 /. A. /. xii. 292. 



1 Wilken, Verwantschap^ 678 ; Bijdragen t xxxix. 43. 



i 



