- land-law
- property
The peungklēh — the Atjehnese uitzet (trousseau) — is the adatrechtelijk institution by which, in Atjeh, a portion of the family estate is allocated (toegescheiden) to a marrying daughter, sometimes with great ceremony, as her trousseau. The institution is cited by B. ter Haar BzN in Beginselen en Stelsel van het Adatrecht (first ed. 1939; 4th ed. 1950) as a species of toescheiding — the allocation of property from the family estate to a child — and as an Atjehnese instance of the wider Indonesian category of the uitzet (trousseau).
The toescheiding and the uitzet
Ter Haar introduces the peungklēh in his account of the toescheiding — the allocation of property from the family estate (boedel) to a child, an adatrechtelijk institution by which the parent, during his lifetime, assigns a portion of the estate to a child, subject to the rule that all children must receive a reasonable share (redelijk deel) and that the disinheritance of a child is adatrechtelijk forbidden. The toescheiding has, Ter Haar notes, a double function: it operates within the rules of the abintestaat-erfrecht (intestate inheritance law), and it also allows a correction of the structural, traditional, or religious rules of intestate inheritance that are felt to be no longer satisfactory.
Within this framework, the uitzet — the trousseau given to marrying daughters — is, Ter Haar writes, a species of toescheiding: “Ten slotte kan de zogenaamde uitzet, aan huwende dochters meegegeven (soms met grote plechtigheid als het peungklēh van Atjeh), eveneens als een (soort) toescheiding worden bezien” — finally, the so-called trousseau, given to marrying daughters (sometimes with great ceremony as the peungklēh of Atjeh), can likewise be seen as a (kind of) toescheiding.
The ceremony of the peungklēh
The peungklēh of Atjeh is distinguished, in Ter Haar’s account, by the “grote plechtigheid” (great ceremony) with which it is given. The ceremonial character of the Atjehnese trousseau is noted as a distinctive feature: the peungklēh is not merely a practical allocation of goods but a formal, ceremonial act — a rites de passage — by which the marrying daughter receives her portion of the family estate with the publicity and the formality that mark the significance of the allocation. The ceremony of the peungklēh is thus the Atjehnese instance of the wider Indonesian pattern by which the toescheiding — the allocation of property to a child — is marked by formal, public acts that establish the allocation in the legal awareness of the community.
The uitzet and the bride-price
The uitzet — the trousseau — is, in Ter Haar’s systematic account, distinguished from the bruidschat (bride-price). The uitzet is the goods that the woman brings to the marriage and that, in strongly patriarchal conditions, the husband acquires the right to, but that elsewhere remain the woman’s and that sometimes, though rarely, become common property. “Die uitzet,” Ter Haar writes, “vormen economisch veelal een aequivalent van den bruidschat; adatrechtelijk is die uitzet echter van een gans ander karakter dan de bruidschat. De uitzet nadert de toescheiding aan een meisje van een deel van het gezinsvermogen, waarop zij mederechthebbende was” — that trousseau forms, economically, mostly an equivalent of the bride-price; adatrechtelijk, however, that trousseau is of a wholly different character than the bride-price. The trousseau approaches the allocation to a girl of a portion of the family wealth, in which she was a co-owner.
The peungklēh of Atjeh is thus, in Ter Haar’s account, both an uitzet (trousseau) and a toescheiding (allocation): it is the goods given to the marrying daughter as her trousseau, and it is the allocation to her of a portion of the family estate in which she was a co-owner. The double character of the peungklēh — as trousseau and as allocation — places the Atjehnese institution within the wider Indonesian framework of the relationship between marriage payments and inheritance.
Significance
For AcehWiki, the peungklēh is significant as the Atjehnese trousseau — the ceremonial allocation of a portion of the family estate to a marrying daughter — and as a key example in Ter Haar’s systematic account of the Indonesian toescheiding. The institution illustrates the interplay of marriage and inheritance in the Atjehnese adatrecht: the peungklēh is at once a marriage payment (the trousseau given to the marrying daughter) and an inheritance allocation (the assignment of a portion of the family estate to a child), and its ceremonial character marks the significance of the allocation in the legal awareness of the Atjehnese community. The institution complements the corpus’s existing entries on the Atjehnese adatrecht and on the Atjehnese marriage, and it furnishes the doctrinal-legal characterisation of the Atjehnese uitzet within the colonial legal science of the late Netherlands Indies.
Sources
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
Account from Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (D. W. N. de Boer, 1931) — peungkleh and the atra peunoelang
D. W. N. de Boer, writing as a former chairman of Atjehnese moesapat and landschapsgerecht courts, described peungkleh — the setting-up of a married couple in an independent household, corresponding to the Batak mandjaë — as the occasion of a distinct form of property which “the chairman of a moesapat or landschapsgerecht not infrequently encounters”: the atra peunoelang, also called harta peunoelang, which he equated with the Batak indahan arian.
Occasion and composition
The moment for peungkleh arrived with the birth of the couple’s first child: it was then that they established themselves independently, then that the young pair received their own dwelling, and then that the father — or another wali (guardian) — made over the atra peunoelang to his married daughter or ward. It usually consisted of a rice field and a head of plough cattle, and sometimes other things besides. It counted as adat that the value of the goods given with the couple by the bride’s father should be twice as great as the djinaméë (Batak sinamot, the bride-price) paid by the bridegroom’s father at the conclusion of the marriage.
Purpose
The purpose, De Boer explained, was that if the husband should die first there would remain enough for the wife to procure herself the maintenance required by her rank and station — Mohammedan inheritance law allotting the widow only a small share in her husband’s estate. Whatever she managed to save from the yield of the harta peunoelang she might regard as her own property. On the earlier death of the wife, the husband also inherited from this harta.
Not deducted from the estate
The atra peunoelang was not brought into deduction from the estate of the wife’s father — neither on the division of the estate during his lifetime, called atra boeloeng, nor on the division of the estate after death.
Estate division during life
De Boer added that division of the estate during the lifetime of the prospective testator occurred very frequently in Atjeh. It took place, among other occasions, when a man was about to depart for Mekka: in view of the possibility that he might die during the hadj, a pilgrim preferred to settle his affairs in advance, fearing that through sudden death or other circumstances he might have no opportunity to draw up a proper wasiët (testament), and unwilling to risk that a disposition drawn up on the journey or in the Holy Land should fail to be transmitted or executed as he wished. Assignment in boeloeng also took place in the case of great age, or of such illness that the testator no longer dared reckon on managing his goods himself again. After a safe homecoming from Mekka, or sufficient recovery, such a disposition made during life was often undone again.
Jointly acquired marital property
Alongside the atra peunoelang stood the harta seuhareukat (Atjehnese atra thihareukat), property acquired through the joint labour of husband and wife during the marriage, bearing the same name in Atjeh as in Minangkabau. Ground made fruitful by man and wife in new clearance during the marriage was regarded as belonging to both together, though the husband had the management and its produce served their common maintenance. On divorce it was divided two-thirds to the husband and one-third to the wife in the onderafdeeling Sigli, and half and half in the onderafdeeling Lho’ Seumawe and in Groot-Atjeh.
See Also
- Beginselen en Stelsel van het Adatrecht (Ter Haar, 4th ed. 1950)
- B. ter Haar BzN
- adat
- Atjeh adatrecht (Ter Haar account)
- Djinamée (Atjehnese marriage gift)
- Wang pemasoeqan (Atjeh)
- Sanbod-aanname (idjaab kaboel) in Atjeh
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjehers (1893-94)
- Acheh
- 1939
- 1950
- Two great Mohammedan feasts
- Ramadhan (fasting month)
- Peuchichab
- Uleëbalang
- Atra peunoelang
- Atra boeloeng
- Harta seuhareukat
- Wasiet
- Indahan arian
- Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (De Boer)
Source
Beginselen en Stelsel van het Adatrecht, door Mr. B. ter Haar Bzn. Vierde ongewijzigde druk. Groningen, Djakarta: J. B. Wolters, 1950. Pp. 171, 205.
Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (“The Right to the Soil in Atjeh”), by D. W. N. de Boer, dated Scheveningen, November 1931, pp. 59-80. Offprint DLP-141, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, ‘s-Gravenhage; Bibliotheek KITLV accession 0060 4460 60 081470 428.