ed with marriage, considered by the natives themselves
to be such important concerns of life. Marriages
are seldom, if ever, consummated until the
age of puberty with the women, and not for two
or three years after it by the men. To marry
their daughters about that age is a point of honour
with parents, for obvious reasons, in a country
where inclination is not restrained by the discipline
of education and morals. At the age of
eighteen or twenty, a woman in Java is called an
old maid, and an old maid is a suspected thing
among the Javanese. No age, however, excludes
a woman from the chance of a husband ; if she
cannot, at the usual age, make an eligible match,
she will be sure in time to make some match or
other; so that I never saw a woman of two and
twenty that was not or had not been married.
Prudential motives often induce the men to delay
marriage even as late as the age of five and twenty.
Widows marry at any age, even to fifty ; but they
marry men of corresponding ages with themselves5
widowers do the same thing; so that among the
Indian islanders one seldom sees any of those
discordant matches, from disparity of ages, that
frequently occur in other countries of the east.
Examples are even afforded of unions where the
husband is younger than the wife, and those where
the ages are equal are sufficiently common. The
present sultan of Java, at whose nuptials I was
10
present, was married to his own cousin, a very
pretty and interesting young woman, three years
older than himself.
The courtship, if it deserve the name, is conducted,
not by the parties themselves, but by their
parents. Their youth, and the state of morals,
generally render this necessary. The slightest interference
of the young people themselves would indeed
be deemed matter of the utmost scandal. Conversing
with an old chief on this subject, he told me
that the bridegroom and bride were looked upon,
in his phrase, as puppets in the performance.*
Marriages are of three kinds. The first, which
* “ But little apparent courtship precedes their marriages.
Their manners do not admit of i t ; the bujang and gadis
(youth of each sex) being carefully kept asunder, and the
latter seldom trusted from under the wing of their mothers
Besides, courtship, with us, includes the idea of humble
entreaty on the man’s side, and favour and condescension on
the part of the woman, who bestows person and property for
love. The Sumatran, on the contrary, when he fixes his
choice, and pays all that he is worth, for the object of it,
may naturally consider the obligation on his side. But still
they are not without gallantry. They preserve a degree of
delicacy and respect towards the sex, which might justify
their retorting on many of the polished nations of antiquity,
the epithet of barbarians. The opportunities which the
young people have of seeing and conversing with each other,
are at the bimbangs or public festivals, held at the balei, or
town-hall of the dusun. On these occasions, the unmarried
people meet together, and dance and sing in company. I t