London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

Many queens have, in different States, occupied the throne. The sex is nowhere in the island, as a rule, treated with coarseness, violence, or neglect. They are industrious, and hard-working, but they labour more through desire of praise than through fear of chastisement, and are admitted to the performance of many honourable tasks. Among the wealthier classes men sometimes act tyrannically in their households; but this must be taken as the characteristic not of the race, but of individuals. Those who seclude their wives do so only from the common eye; English gentlemen have often been introduced into the most private chambers of the harem, while the wives and daughters of the greatest chiefs have appeared at the entertainments given by the European residents in Batavia, Sumarang, and other cities, where they conduct themselves usually with modesty and good grace.

Polygamy and concubinage are tolerated, that is, they are practised among the nobility of Java, who do not allow public opinion to interfere with the gratification of their desires; both of these customs are looked upon, however, rather as vicious luxuries, than as established social institutions; yet, however limited their extent, they never fail to degrade the position and to vitiate the character of the female sex. Some circumstances in the feelings of the people prevent either practice from being generally adopted, and the evil is thus, in its moral influence, mitigated. The first wife is always mistress of the household, and the others are little more than her handmaids, who contribute to her husband’s gratification, but never share his rank or his wealth. No man of station will give his daughter as a second or third wife, unless to a chief of far higher nobility than himself; the inferior wives or concubines are therefore of an inferior class. Thus the artificial distinctions of classes vitiate the public morals, for a woman considers it dishonourable, not to prostitute herself, but to prostitute herself to a poor man of humble birth.

When we say that polygamy and concubinage are not general in Java, the reader must by no means infer a high state of manners to exist there. On the contrary, Java is the most immoral country in insular Asia. The woman who would be ashamed to become the second wife of a chief might not be ashamed to commit adultery with him; in general terms, both sexes are extremely profligate and depraved, though the poets and historians of the island boast of chastity as the distinguishing ornament of their women; because a married female shrieks when a strange man attempts to kiss her before her attendants and a large mixed company, they hold up their sex in Java as the standard of feminine purity and virtue.

In most islands of the Indian Archipelago, divorces are not easy to be obtained; but in Java the total separation of married people may be procured with the utmost freedom and facility. It is a privilege in which the women indulge themselves to a most wanton degree, and often so much as to fall little short of prostitution. A wife may turn away her husband by paying him a certain sum of money; he is not, indeed, absolutely bound to accept this, but usually does so, in conformity with the established opinion of society, that it is disreputable to live with a woman on such terms. Women often change their partners three or four times before they are thirty years of age; some have been seen boasting of a twelfth husband. In Java the means of subsistence abound, and are easy to be procured as well by females as by men; one sex is, therefore, in a great measure, independent of the other; women find no difficulty in living without husbands. They are not, consequently, forced to remain in a state of bondage through fear of being drifted destitute upon the world; but, unfortunately for the theories of our new female reformers, the sex in Java, though thus enfranchised, is proverbially dissolute and libertine.

This, nevertheless, in reality is no argument for those who attempt to show that the female sex, enjoying perfect liberty, makes use of its freedom to indulge in vicious pleasures. The women of Java are dissolute, not because they are free of control, but because the whole society of the island is profligate. Among the wealthier classes, especially, the utmost immorality prevails with respect to the intercourse of the sexes. In the great native towns the population is debauched to the last degree. Intrigues among the married women continually occur; and females of high rank have intercourse with paramours, to the knowledge, and almost before the faces, of their husbands. The men are tame and servile, often not daring to revenge their honour or assert the conjugal right, and they are by no means inspired with that fiery spirit of jealousy which among many Asiatics renders a wife sacred from all but her husband’s eye. Females of respectable rank are often the subject of conversation. An inquiry after a man’s family is held by no means insulting, but rather as a conventional act of courtesy.

Flagrant instances of the loose character of Javan manners have come to the notice of travellers. Before the island was absolutely conquered by the Dutch, one of its great princes, being desirous of purchasing the favour of the people, gave many public feasts and entertainments, at which the wives and daughters of the chiefs attended. He seduced one of his guests, a married woman, and was in the habit of passing the night with her, while her husband was engaged with his duty on the public guard. One morning, by chance, the chief returned home earlier than usual, and detected them together. He had, however, discovered the rank of the paramour, and discreetly coughed, that the prince might have an opportunity to escape. He then went into the chamber, and severely flogged his guilty wife. She fled, and complained to the king of the treatment she had received. He being in the critical position of making good his claim to a crown, dared not exercise the usual prerogative of a throne; but called for the man he had injured, made him many rich gifts, and offered him, as compensation, the handsomest woman in his own household. The husband accepted the peace-offerings, and was content to take back his adulterous wife. The relation of a subject to his prince must, at least when developed in this manner, be most unnatural.

Women in Java are usually married very young, though not before the age of puberty, which is speedily reached. The reason assigned by writers for this haste is, that their chastity is no longer safe after they have reached womanhood. Men wait for two or three years after that period, during which they may indulge in unbounded profligacy. At eighteen or twenty a girl is looked upon as verging towards the wane of life, and becomes a suspected character. No age, however, excludes a woman from the chance of a match; but scarcely any are unmarried after 22. Widows at 50 often procure husbands; for men at that period of life usually choose wives equal in years to themselves, and sometimes older.

The preliminary arrangements are made by the parents on both sides; for no intercourse could previously take place between the young people themselves without being, and often justly, the occasion of scandal. They are looked upon, as the natives themselves express it, as mere puppets in the performance. There are three kinds of connection. The first is when the rank of the parties is equal, or when the man is superior to the woman. The second is when the bride is above her husband, who is taken into the house, and adopted into the family, by his father-in-law. The third is a species of concubinage, without any rites whatever, and confirmed by the simple fact of recognised cohabitation. In such cases, as no formality is required to conclude, so none is necessary to dissolve the contract, which is, therefore, no more than a species of prostitution, for the changes of companions are extremely frequent.

In the other two, the ceremonies are similar. The young people are, in all cases, betrothed for a longer or a shorter period before their union—from one month to several years. The father of the youth, having made for his son what he considers a suitable choice, proceeds to the parents of the girl, and proposes for an alliance. If they accept the suit, a betrothal is ratified by some trifling present to the bride. Visits are made, that the intended nuptials may be publicly known. At the third stage in the progress of the transaction the price is arranged, and varies according to the rank and circumstances of the families. Sometimes it is plainly called the purchase-money; sometimes the act of sale is covered by a more delicate term—the deposit. It is usually considered, however, as a settlement or provision for the bride.

The only Mohammedan feature in the whole ceremony is the exchange of vows in a mosque. This is followed by many ritual observances, more of etiquette than religion, and great parade is affected. At length the married people eat rice from one vessel, to typify their common fortune; but in some places the bride washes her husband’s feet, as an acknowledgment of her subjection to him, or else he treads upon a raw egg, and she wipes his foot.