Rule III. 
Rule IV. 
On divorce 
the man re- 
turns to care 
of his mother’s 
family. 
Customary 
theory of mar- 
riage. 
A Rembau 
marriage for- 
mally corres- 
ponds to the 
Mohamedan 
marriage con- 
tract. 
o2 REMBAU HISTORY, ETC. 
At no time does the husband acquire any rights over the 
separate estate of the wife. Hence even if the value of that 
property be enhanced by improvements he has made, by addi- 
tions to the house, or by trees planted in the kampong the 
wife resumes sole interest therein on divorce. 
The claim of the husband, or should he be dua of his 
family, to effects brought by him to his wife’s home, is 
sustainable on divorce only if such property was duly declared 
by him at the time of marriage. His family seldom find it an 
easy matter to recover their property in cash which the hus- 
band was permitted to remove. ‘The wife naturally alleges 
that it was all spent long ago in bringing up the children.: 
But if the man’s family can point to the wife’s investment in 
mortgaged lands or buffaloes, their claim to recover by sale is 
valid. 
After the divorce or death of his wife, his mother’s family 
resume responsibility for a man, and are entitled to profit by 
his subsequent acquisitions until he re-marries. Even if he 
elect to live as a widower with his children in their mother’s 
house, his sisters and not his children succeed to any property 
he leaves at death, if an indisputable offer of a home has been 
made to him by his mother’s family. His refusal of that offer 
does not extinguish the right of the sisters to inherit his estate, 
but they are liable, on succession, to pay or refund the cost of 
their brother’s funeral. 
It remains to discover from the practice of marriage and 
divorce in Rembau, the customary theory of marriage. In 
what light did the Adat regard marriage ? 
A modern enquirer into the attitude of the custom 
towards marriage finds his search confused by the induction 
on ancient pre-Mohamedan usage of the ideas and practice 
of Islamic law. Under the Hukum Shara,—at least under 
the Sunni law—marriage is a contract between individuals 
requiring attestation by competent witnesses, and validated 
for the woman, by her walz, or natural protector. In Rembau, 
as a professedly Mohamedan State, this form is observed, 
but cloaks a widely different conception. 
Jour. Straits Branch 
