CHAPTER 14.

MODES OF MARRIAGE, AND CUSTOMS RELATIVE THERETO.  POLYGAMY.  FESTIVALS.  GAMES.  COCK-FIGHTING.  USE AND EFFECTS OF OPIUM.

MOTIVES FOR ALTERING SOME OF THEIR MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.

By much the greater number of the legal disputes among these people have their source in the intricacy attending their marriage contracts.  In most uncivilized countries these matters are very simple, the dictates of nature being obeyed, or the calls of appetite satisfied, with little ceremony or form of convention; but with the Sumatrans the difficulties, both precedent and subsequent, are increased to a degree unknown even in the most refined states.  To remedy these inconveniences, which might be supposed to deter men from engaging in marriage, was the view of the Resident of Laye, before mentioned, who prevailed upon them to simplify their engagements, as the means of preventing litigation between families, and of increasing the population of the country.  How far his liberal views will be answered by having thus influenced the people to change their customs, whether they will not soon relapse into the ancient track; and whether in fact the cause that he supposed did actually contribute to retard population, I shall not pretend to determine; but as the last is a point on which a difference of opinion prevails I shall take the liberty of quoting here the sentiments of another servant of the Company (the late Mr. John Crisp) who possessed an understanding highly enlightened.

REASONS AGAINST THIS ALTERATION.

This part of the island is in a low state of population, but it is an error to ascribe this to the mode of obtaining wives by purchase.  The circumstance of children constituting part of the property of the parents proves a most powerful incentive to matrimony, and there is not perhaps any country on the face of the earth where marriage is more general than here, instances of persons of either sex passing their lives in a state of celibacy being extremely rare.  The necessity of purchasing does not prove such an obstacle to matrimony as is supposed.  Was it indeed true that every man was obliged to remain single till he had accumulated, from the produce of his pepper-garden, a sum adequate to the purchase of a wife, married pairs would truly be scarce.  But the people have other resources; there are few families who are not in possession of some small substance; they breed goats and buffaloes, and in general keep in reserve some small sum for particular purposes.  The purchase-money of the daughter serves also to provide wives for the sons.  Certain it is that the fathers are rarely at a loss for money to procure them wives so soon as they become marriageable.  In the districts under my charge are about eight thousand inhabitants, among whom I do not conceive it would be possible to find ten instances of men of the age of thirty years unmarried.  We must then seek for other causes