Making Inquiry (Merisik).
Making inquiry or merisik is one of the procedure in Malay wedding process to make sure that the girl is still single or not. Usually a middle-aged woman will be the representative (perantaraan) from the man side to do this job. The representative will discuss with the girl’s family or the girl’s parent to make sure that they are willing to give away their daughter if there are someone ask for their daughters hand.
During this ceremony, the Malays use symbolic language that is undirected. For example, the man’s representative will ask symbolically like “ Sungguh cantik bunga di taman, adakah ia sudah dipetik orang, jika tidak, kami ingain memetiknya” or “ Saya ada sangkar yang kosong dan di sana pula ada seekor burung yang cantik, olehkah burung itu di masukkan ke dalam sangkar saya”.(Djamour,1965).
After a week, the girl side will give the answer after discussion with their relatives. If they agree, they will say “ Bunga di taman sudah kembang mekar, elok sekali jika ada yang sudi memetiknya”. But if they don’t agree, the answer will be in symbolic language too. Such as “ Bunga di taman masih belum cukup kembangnya, tidak lagi sesuai untuk disunting orang” or “Burung kesayangan kami masih kecil, tidak lagi sesuai untuk berpindah sangkar”. So the man side will understand it and do not proceed for the next procedure that is engagement.
Usually, in this procedure, the man side will examine attentively about the girl’s life and everything such as:
Parents of the man side also follow the Malay’s proverb that is “ kalau hendak meminang, pinanglah ibubapanya dahulu”. The proverb means that the behavior of the parents and the girl’s siblings must also be examine before making any inquiries.
Proposal (`Meminang’)
The Proposal ceremony is done after the inquiry made earlier by a representative of groom’s family. If both the groom and bride are satisfied with their future partners background, status and this union, both parties could proceed with the preparations for the engagement ceremony. During this proposal ceremony, agreements between both families have to be made concerning details on the engagement day. As an example they have to make a decision on the date and time of the official engagement day, amount of dowry, and wedding gifts for the engagement. Besides that, the bride’s family will also make an inquiry on the total number of representatives coming and if the groom’s family will be bringing part of the wedding expenses.
After everything has been agreed upon, the representative from the groom will go back to the groom’s family and report back to them on all the agreements made with the bride’s family. The future groom will have to prepare all the demands made by the bride’s family.
Engagement / Betrothal ('Bertunang')
The engagement ceremony is one of the Malay traditions in marriage. The ceremony is usually held right after the proposal on a date agreed by both parties. The ceremony begins when representatives from the groom’s family visits the bride’s house. They usually come together with gifts and the most important gift is the betel set (Tepak Sireh) complete with the betel leafs, sliced areca nut and gambier and the nut cutter. Other engagement gifts are engagement betel (`sireh meminang’), engagement ring, `bunga rampai’, and clothes for the bride and other ornaments. The number of wedding gifts must be in odd numbers and the number of gifts depends on the groom’s capability.
The head of the groom’s representative sits near the representative of the bride to brief to them on their purpose of visitation. After everything else has been settled and agreed, further discussion is done concerning the period of engagement, date of solemnization, number of wedding gifts and wedding expenses. The total amount of wedding expenses is determined by the bride’s family according to her family status and education. Both parties have to agree upon all conditions set. An agreement also must be made in case if the engagement has to be annulled.
Finally after all discussions have been made and agreed upon both parties, a close female relative of the groom, his mother or sister will go and meet the future bride and proceed to put the engagement ring on her finger. This symbolizes that the couple is officially engaged.
