;
but this marriage serves only the purpose of initiation, and is often
performed by a stranger. On the fourth day the fictitious husband is
required to divorce the girl. Afterwards any number of marriages may
be entered upon[159] without any other restrictions than the
prohibitions relative to cast and tribe. These later unions, unlike
the solemn initial rite, have no ceremony connected with them, and are
entered into freely at the will of the women and their families. As a
husband the man of the Nayars cannot be said to exist; he does not as
a rule live with his wife.[160] It is said that he has not the right
to sit down by her side or that of her children, he is merely a
passing guest, almost a stranger. He is, in fact, reduced to the
primitive role of the male, and is simply progenitor. "No Nayar knows
his father, and every man looks upon his sister's children as his
heirs. A man's mother manages his family; and after her death his
eldest sister assumes the direction." The property belongs to the
family and is enjoyed by all in common (though personal division is
coming into practice under modern influences). It is directed and
administered by the maternal uncle or the eldest brother.[161]

The Malays of the Pedang Highlands of Sumatra have institutions
bearing many points of similarity with the Nayars. On marriage neither
husband nor wife changes abode, the husband merely visits the wife,
coming at first by day to help her work in the rice-fields. Later the
visits are paid by night to the wife's house. The husband has no
rights over his children, who belong wholly to the wife's _suku_, or
clan. Her eldest brother is the head of the family and exercises the
rights and duties of a father to her children.[162] The marriage,
based on the _ambel-anak_, in which the husband lives with the wife,
paying nothing, and occupying a subordinate position, may be taken as
typical of the former conditions.[163]

But among other tribes who have come in contact with outside
influences this custom of the husband visiting the wife, or residing
in her house, is modified.

From a private correspondent, a resident in the Malay States, I have
received some interesting notes about the present condition of the
native tribes and the position of the women. In most of the Malay
States exogamous matriarchy has in comparatively modern times been
superseded by feudalism (_i.e._ father-right). But where the old
custom survives the women are st