The ha’ balee — literally “the right of the widow or widower,” from the Arabic ḥaqq (“right”) and the Achehnese balee (which means both widow and widower) — is, in the marriage law of Acheh, the right of a surviving spouse to recover one half of the jinamee (dowry) on the death of the other party during the currency of the janji jinamee (the period of secured marriage). C. Snouck Hurgronje treats it in The Achehnese as one of the distinctive institutions of Achehnese family law, intimately connected with the matrilocal residence rules that give Achehnese marriage its peculiar character.
The Right
When a wife dies during the janji jinamee — that is, during the period (one or more years after the marriage) in which the husband is settled in the wife’s house and the jinamee is still owing — the husband in Acheh has the right to only one of two things. He either gets back half of the dowry, which sum is known as ha’ balee; or he waives this right and chooses rather to marry a sister or other near relative of the deceased. In the latter event, the jinamee is mentioned at the marriage but never paid. Such marriages are known as pulang balee. If the dowry has been only paid in half, the widower pays the remaining half and afterwards receives it back as ha’ balee.
A wife who becomes a widow during the janji jinamee has just as little claim to her legitimate portion, but receives in its place a sum of money equal to half of her dowry, while in certain cases the family of her husband offers her a suitor for her hand, preferably of the same family. It is only where the husband has died without leaving relatives of a suitable age or rank that the widow receives the ordinary portion allotted to her by Mohammedan law.
Social Context
The institution of the ha’ balee is intelligible only in connection with the larger system of which it forms a part. The janji jinamee is the period during which the husband resides matrilocally in the house of his wife, and during which the jinamee — the dowry due to the wife — remains as a charge on the husband. The ha’ balee reflects the practical consequence of this arrangement: since the wife’s family has the benefit of the husband’s labour during the jinji jinamee, the half-dowry is returned to the widower as a recognition of the unfulfilled term. Conversely, the widow who loses her husband during this period takes not the legal portion of his estate but half her dowry, the remainder of the inheritance being distributed among his heirs.
The father of a deceased wife sometimes privately warns his son-in-law not to expend too much money in the funeral kanduris (for instance, that held on the seventh day after the death), as any hopes he may cherish of a share in the subsequent distribution of property will be disappointed, and he will get no more than the ha’ balee. Yet often, even in such cases, the husband gives as costly a feast as he can. The reuangkleh (the formal “putting forth” of the wife from her parents’ charge) at the end of the janji jinamee ends this mutual dependence, and from that point the woman is committed to the sole charge of her husband.
Position of Women
The ha’ balee is one of a complex of institutions that, in Snouck Hurgronje’s view, testify to the position of the woman in Achehnese society — “a fairly high one for a Mohammedan country.” This is what one would expect to find in a country where the throne was occupied for more than half a century (1641–1699) by four successive female rulers, and where, even at the time of writing, it was the rule rather than the exception to find the wives of uleebalangs and other chiefs exercising a very considerable influence on all their actions.
See Also
Source
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.