The Preanger — more commonly the Priangan, and known to the Dutch as the Preanger Regencies — is the mountainous province of west Java, inhabited chiefly by the Sundanese, and forming one of the oldest and most important of the highland residencies of Netherlands-India. In The Achehnese Vol. I, Snouck Hurgronje invokes the Preanger in connection with the regional variation of the marriage adat regarding the wife’s share of the dowry in case of divorce.
The Dowry and the Painali
In a footnote to his account of the Achehnese marriage contract, the author notes a divergence of custom in the Sundanese country. “In most parts of the province of Preanger,” he writes, “it is considered to be painali, or forbidden by the adat, for the woman to receive any portion of the dowry even in case of a divorce.” The remark is made in contrast to the Javanese practice, observed in the same context, of treating the dowry as a debt which remains unpaid until separation or the death of one of the parties, and which is then divided.
The Sundanese and the Javanese
The Preanger thus figures in the comparative apparatus of The Achehnese as the chief Sundanese country — the upland of west Java — whose adat is to be distinguished, on the one hand, from that of the proper Javanese of central and eastern Java (e.g. Mataram, Chirbon, Banten), and on the other from that of the Achehnese. The Sundanese share with the Achehnese certain superstitions — the kunti or kuntianak, for instance, is the Sundanese equivalent of the Achehnese burong — and the comparison of the Preanger with Acheh thus runs through the entire work, wherever the author is concerned to set the institutions of Acheh within the wider frame of the Sundanese and Javanese cultures.
A Wider Comparative Frame
The adat of the Preanger regarding the dowry is invoked by Snouck Hurgronje to mark the diversity of marriage-customs in the archipelago, even among Mohammedan peoples of a single island. The Achehnese custom, by which the dowry is paid at the conclusion of the contract and the wife retains it in case of divorce, stands in contrast both to the Javanese treatment of the dowry as a deferred debt and to the Sundanese painali of the Preanger. The Preanger thus supplies one of the comparative points by which the peculiar character of Achehnese marriage-law is brought into relief.
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.