Easy Divorce in Borneo

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 68, 21 March 1931, Page 19

Easy Divorce in Borneo

In Borneo, where the head hunters flourished a few yeaj-s .ago, the procedure when divorce is 'desired is simple, although not quite as simple as in Java, where the husband, when he tires of a wife hands her the equivalent of 5s in our money and tells her he wants no more of her (states a correspondent). So far as shu is concerned —and her children also —tli.it ends the matter, and she must leave, taking the children with her. In Borneo tho Chinese regulate their own divorces. As for the natives, practically all Mohammedans, when the husband wishes for a divorce he goes, not to a Law Court, but to the priest or holy man, and sets out his case. If the wife consents that ends the matter, and they are divorced at once. If sho protests tho priest, then goes into the merits 'of tho case and makes a decision accordingly. Tor tho Europeans in Borneo —only about 450 all told —there is no Divorce .Court .whatever,, and. if a, divorce is sought they must carry, their petition ,to .tho'.homeland. The Druaes have a 1 simply-code d£ divorce also^r-but-a- man divorcing his wife must xe■turn half her dowry in hard cash before she leaves his home.