FASCICULI MALATENSES 
7 i 
the Malays of Nawngchik boys frequently marry at fifteen or sixteen, in Jalor 
rarely before they are twenty, and in Jhering, where the peasants are poor and 
idle, often not before thirty. The early marriages in Nawngchik are very 
probably due to Siamese influence, as this race is very prone to youthful 
unions, while Malays hold views far more closely approximating to those of 
Europeans on the subject. If a Siamese marries young, however, he generally 
divorces his wife after a few years, as it is customary for Buddhist youths to 
enter celibate orders, for a period of longer or shorter duration, on reaching 
the age of twenty-one. 
The question of marriage is probably the one which induces more con¬ 
versions from Mahommedanism to Buddhism than any other, as the Malays 
invariably refuse to marry an infidel {prang kappir) ; indeed, such a union 
is, under Siamese and Mahommedan law, illegal. If the woman refuses to 
become a Mahommedan, there is nothing for it but for the man to become a 
Buddhist, and it must be remembered that Buddhists and Mahommedans live 
together in the same village on perfectly friendly terms. A Malay woman 
who has cohabited with an infidel has to undergo a ceremony of purification 
before she can marry a Malay. Hence it comes about that there is very little 
or no intermarriage between the Malay and the Chinese, or half-caste Chinese, 
population of the Patani States, while such intermixture is extremely common 
among the Siamese, who are bound by no such scruples ; as it is extremely rare 
for a Chinaman to bring his wife with him from his own country. The follow¬ 
ing statistics regarding the intermarriage of the two races were obtained for 
me at Biserat by an official in the Government offices, who assured me that 
every Chinese household in the village was noted in them, though there were 
several other Chinamen there at Biserat who were not married and had 
no house of their own. Biserat is the headquarters of the Chinese community 
in Jalor, though Chinamen are certainly more numerous in the mining district 
round Bendang Stab. 
The last three men mentioned in the table were not pure-bred Chinamen, 
but had had Siamese mothers, while the ancestry of the ‘Chinese' woman was 
probably similar. All these families had settled at Biserat within the last ten 
years, and seemed to regard it as their home ; the children were reckoned as 
Chinese. Not a single Malay woman was living openly with a Chinaman in 
the village. 
Marriages are generally arranged, both in Malay and in Siamese families, 
by a go-between instructed by the bridegroom or his family, but widows or 
divorced women often make their own arrangements. Marriage is not legal, 
with the exception of women in one of these positions, without the consent of 
