抄録
This is the second paper of our joint work on the substitutability of parental roles among the Malay peasants in Kelantan and Melaka, focussing on so called "adoption". The salient points we raise are as follows : (1) The need for adoption is felt on the part of adopters owing to childlessness or deficiency in number of children, or in order to find comfort in having small children during the post-parental period. (2) The relationship with real parents may be severed temporarily but not completely. The adoptee usually has double identity with the family-circles of both pro-parents and real parents. (3) The agent of adoption is not a categorized group but an individual or a couple. Adoption is regarded as a dyadic contract. (4) Kinship-fostering tends to be lineal pro-parenthood and adoption of relatives to be collateral. (5) We find more adoptions in Melaka than in Kelantan. In Kelantan. In Kelantan people mostly adopt children of their siblings, while children of the unrelated are frequently adopted in Melaka. These differences may be related to the standard of living and the degree of urbanization of each area. Through these observations we conclude that the concept of the nuclear family is not valid for the Malay family.
