REMBAU HISTORY, ETC. 93 
The divergent theories underlying the two systems are 
apparent from examination of the position which the walz 
holds in Rembau. Under Mohamedan law the natural wale 
of the bride is her father or grand-father. In default of these 
she must fall back on the representative of civil law. His 
individual interest in the woman as his own offspring is the 
sanction of the natural wals. In Rembau, and generally 
throughout the Peninsula, the position of wade is not restricted 
to the father. An uncle or a brother is competent to give 
away his niece or sister in marriage. But in Rembau the 
normal competency of the uncle is subject to one luminous 
exception. The children of two brothers, who have married 
into different tribes, do not marry, though such an union 
does not violate the exogamic rule—because, to Rembau ideas 
the uncle is debarred from exercising at such a marriage his 
right to act as wali to his niece. His competency in such 
circumstances is quashed (batal wali), for in Rembau his 
individual relationship to the bride, whence the wali derives 
his competency, is qualified by his status as member of a tribe. 
A conerete case will give the best illustration of this point. 
A and B, two brothers, marry, the elder into the 
Mungkar, the younger into the Tanah Datar tribe. <A, as 
allied to the Mungkar tribe during his married life, is compe- 
tent to protect the interests of Z, his Mungkar daughter. B’s 
tribal interests are not, theoretically, so oppcsed to his 
instincts of kin as to incapacitate him from taking his brother’s 
place as wali, should A have died before the proposed marriage 
of Z to X, a man of the Batu Belang tribe. But the tribal 
interests of B do clash with his duties as protector of his 
Mungkar niece, if he sanction her marriage with a member of 
the Tanah Datar tribe, to which his own wedding has 
allied him. 
Again, the Malay treatise quoted’ shows that with the > 
acceptance of the marriage fee a regular marriage is, practically 
concluded. Whether or not this fee—-a payment alien to 
(1) vide pp. 79 and 80. 
R. A. Soc., No. 56, I910, 
But the un- 
derlying the- 
Onyee, Giiserns 
from the the- 
ory of Moha- 
medan law. 
Difference 
patent (a) in 
position of the 
walt in Rem- 
bau. 
(b) in’ the 
nature of the 
wedding fee— 
a tribal pay- 
ment anda Iri- 
bal receipt. 
