REMBAU HISTORY, ETC. 95 
fortunate outcome of such a marriage leaves the man’s tribe 
exactly where it stood before alliance was contracted, and the 
bachelor earnings of the husband may have passed to the 
wife’s tribe. A married man, by the fact of his marriage, is 
severed from his own tribe, which has no claims on him and no 
obligations towards him except in regard to ~ life and blood,”’’ 
so long as his married life continues. Such practice is a 
travesty of a tribal alliance. 
To the wife’s tribe alone a successful marriage brings 
certain gain: and this is the result which all Rembau marriage 
custom tends to foster. Tho life of a tribe depends on the 
acquisition and retention of property in mambers, lands, and 
goods. In the eyes of custom marriage is simply an institu- 
tion providing the readiest means of sustaining tribal life by 
the acceptance from without the woman’s tribe of further 
property, immediately, in the person of the husband, poten- 
tially, in his progeny and acquisitions. 
This view explains the insistence of the custom on 
monogamy. The husband’s position in his wife’s tribe is 
based on his possibilities as a wealth-producer. As custom 
denies him two wives in one tribe, a second marriage destroys 
half his value as a tribal asset. Not all the laws of Islam, nor 
the ridicule of Rajas are strong enough to induce Rembau to 
admit a practice striking at the root idea of marrige, as 
understood by custom. 
The very entrance of the husband into his wife’s home is 
subject to his providing her tribe with a marriage fee, as 
earnest of his profit-bringing powers, and a check on their 
speedy diversion to another tribe’s benefit. A woman’s tribal 
chief may refuse to accept a suitor to her hand into his tribe. 
and it is generally, though unintelligently, held by present 
day lembagas that no debtor can marry the girl of his choice. 
Refusal to accept his marriage fee disposes of a suitor’s 
chance. If man and woman. persist, notwithstanding this 
opposition, in marriage, they have no option but to flee the 
country, and in a foreign land, drag out a useless existence 
likened by the sayings to a poisonous fungus, that, cast into 
R. A. Soc., No. 56, [910. 
Rembau mar- 
riage custom 
a means of 
invigorating 
the life of the 
woman’stribe. 
Explanation 
of insistence 
of custom on 
monogamy ; 
And of im- 
portance of 
the marriage 
fee. 
