Mataram is the historic Javanese kingdom which, centred on the southern coastlands of central Java, succeeded the Sultanate of Demak and rose to dominate much of the island in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In The Achehnese Vol. I, Snouck Hurgronje cites Mataram chiefly as the Javanese state whose rulers — in particular Sultan Ageng (Sultan Agung, r. 1613–1645) — were traditionally credited with having ordained the ta’liq marriage formula, a customary declaration attached by the husband to the marriage contract.
The Ta’liq and its Javanese Origin
The ta’liq (literally “suspension”) is a conditional pronouncement of divorce by the husband, recited after the marriage contract, by which the wife acquires the right to demand a divorce if certain specified conditions — typically the husband’s prolonged absence, failure to maintain, or desertion — are fulfilled. This institution, Snouck Hurgronje observes, was in olden times in Java ordained by the rulers of the country. “In olden times in Java, not only in the kingdom of Mataram, but also in such places as Chirbon and Banten, the ta’liq was ordained by the rulers of the country.”
The Tradition of Sultan Ageng
The Javanese tradition that this adat, which extends so far beyond the limits of Java, was an invention of their great sultan Sultan Ageng is, the author cautions, “of course to say the least of it open to doubt.” Still, the ta’liq was everywhere known as “the promise ordained of the Prince” (janji meunyata raja or janji dalam) and is still so called even outside the Native States. The authority of Mataram — and of its greatest ruler — thus survived in the very terminology of marriage law throughout the Netherlands-Indian archipelago.
Comparison with Acheh
The author’s invocation of Mataram serves to throw into relief the absence of any comparable royal ordinance in Acheh. The Achehnese adat recognises no ta’liq imposed by the sultan; and the husband’s obligations toward his wife are regulated by custom rather than by a formal declaration of the kind familiar to the Javanese. The comparison with Mataram thus helps to mark the limit of Javanese legal influence on Achehnese institutions, and to define the latter’s independent development.
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.