THEIR MARRIAGES. 147 



riage the bridegroom has to pay for his wife instead 

 of receiving a dowry with her : this does not so much 

 obtain amongst the higher ranks as in the middle 

 classes of life ; so that for a man of the class abarig- 

 abang to marry is a very expensive and difficult affair ; 

 he has, perhaps, to pay slaves, goods, and money, to 

 the value of several hundred dollars for a girl whom he 

 has never seen, and who, when he does see her, may, 

 perhaps, soon give him cause to repent of his bargain ; 

 but though, under the Mahometan law, divorces are 

 easily obtained, they do not often proceed to this ex- 

 tremity, as were the wife to be divorced without her 

 own consent, the husband being unable to prove 

 against her adultery, or any other cause of equal weight, 

 he would lose the whole of the money and property he 

 had given for her, and which it had, perhaps, been 

 difficult for him to collect ; so that they generally find 

 it convenient to agree together, the husband con- 

 soling himself sometimes,but not frequently, with taking 

 another wife or concubine or two. 



Polygamy, however, is very seldom practised by the 

 people of the middle class, though tolerated by law ; the 

 rajahs and nobles alone keeping large numbers of con- 

 cubines. Many of the respectable people of Sarawak 

 have frequently told me that one wife was quite as many 

 as they could govern, and that in many instances they 

 themselves were governed by that one. On account of 

 the practise above detailed of paying for their wives, it 

 frequently happens that free people of the poorer 

 classes are unable to get married, unless they sell 



L 2 



