by slowly straightening the knees, a gymnastic exercise which has to be repeated thrice, and which requires the assistance of friends. [625] The seating having been accomplished, friends put in the right hands of bride and bridegroom respectively handfuls of rice taken from the nasi setakona; with this the two feed each other simultaneously, each of them reaching out the hand containing the rice to the other's mouth. (This part of the ceremony is often made the occasion for a race.) The bridegroom is then carried off by his friends to the outer chamber, where he has to pay his respects (minta' ma`af, lit. "ask pardon") to the company, after which he is carried back to his old post, the bride in the meantime having moved off a little in the mosquito curtain. The sweetmeats are then brought and handed round, the setakona is broken up, and the bundles of rice wrapped in plantain leaves which it contains distributed to the company as largess or berkat. Each of the company gets one of the telor chachak, the telor joran being reserved for the Imam and any person of high rank who may attend, e.g. a Raja. [626] This completes the wedding ceremony, but the bridegroom is nominally expected to remain under the roof (and eye) of his mother-in-law for about two years (reduced to forty-four days in the case of "royalty"), after which he may be allowed to remove to a house of his own. No Kathi [627] was present until quite recently at marriages in Selangor, nor has it in the past been the practice, so far as I could find out, for him to attend. Sir S. Raffles gives as part of the formula used in Java:--"If you travel at sea for a year, or ashore for six months, without sending either money or message to your wife, she will complain to the judge and obtain one talak (the preliminary stage of divorce)," and this condition should, strictly speaking, be included in the Malay formula. It is now growing obsolete, but was in former days repeated first by the priest, and then by the bridegroom after him. The marriage portion (isi kahwin, Arabic mahar) is here generally called b'lanja kahwin or mas kahwin. [628] No wedding-ring should, strictly, be given. For three days lustrations are continued by the newly-married pair, but before they are completed, and as soon as possible after the wedding, friends and acquaintances once more put on their finery, and proceed to the house to pay their respects, to bathe, and to receive largess. On the third day after the hari langsong there is a very curious ceremony called mandi tolak bala, or mandi ayer salamat (bathing for good luck).