Postscript

Inche Ahmad Ibrahim, State Advocate-General, Singapore, read a copy of the page proofs; I am deeply grateful to him for various suggestions and elucidations. He also kindly provided me with additional data on developments in Singapore up to September 1965. The most significant of these are:

The divorce rate has been further reduced in 1963 and 1964. (See p. 143.)

https://www.niso.org/standards/z39-96/ns/oasis-exchange/table"> Marriages Divorces Revocations 1963 1690 430 59 1964 1698 324 30

In the case referred to at pp. 12, 16, 174, the man was eventually allowed to marry the girl again, and the marriage was duly registered. See Note 'Enticement of Minor and the Validity of her Marriage Under Muslim Law' by Mrs M. Siraj, Malaya Law Review, vol. 5, no. 2, December 1963, pp. 392-7.

The reciprocal arrangements between Singapore and the States of the Malay Peninsula referred to at pp. 32 f., 182, are working more satisfactorily. It is no longer so easy, for determined Singaporeans who can afford to travel to some Malay State, to marry or get a divorce in the Peninsula.

In the case mentioned on pp. 93-4, the husband came to the Shariah Court in August 1963 to say that he was now eager to register a divorce, because he wanted to contract another marriage. The wife was asked to come to the Court for an interview with the President, who also requested the husband to be present. She came with her stepfather, and said that she would agree to the divorce on two conditions:

Her husband must give her the birth certificate of their two children.

He must also return to her the dresses which she had left in the conjugal home.

He agreed to comply with the first condition, but refused the second, on the grounds that he had disposed of the dresses. The wife refused to sign the register for a mutual agreement divorce unless the dresses were returned, and left the Court building. The husband remained in Court, and told the President that he was determined to repudiate his wife. The President, in view of the fact that the wife had obstinately refused to pay the $50 redemption money ordered by the Court in the course of an earlier hearing, agreed to register the repudiation. The registration took place that same day, on 23 August 1963.

Pp. 152 f. A Muslim convicted of making a false declaration in an application form for marriage is now dealt with much more severely. In 1964 the State Advocate-General personally argued an appeal against a sentence of one day's imprisonment and a fine of $150 imposed in the District Court on a man who had pleaded guilty to making a false declaration. The High Court allowed the appeal. The case, Public Prosecutor v. Zaini, is reported in the Malayan Law Journal, vol. xxx, 1964, pp. 221 f. The sentence was increased to six months' imprisonment.

Che Ahmad informs me that since P.P. v. Zaini, prison sentences have been imposed for false declarations by Muslims who sought to contract and register a polygynous marriage without the consent of the Chief Kathi; moreover, the registration of the second marriage has in all such cases been cancelled by the Registrar.

Mrs M. Siraj, Muslim Woman Social Worker, who had been transferred to the Department of Social Welfare in 1962, returned to the Shariah Court in September 1965. (See p. 22 n.)