"THANKING A WIFE." 161 



of native society. One of these is the word for polygamy — 

 fdmporafdsana, from the root rdfy, an adversary. So invari- 

 ably has the taking of more wives than one shown itself to 

 be a fruitful cause of enmity and strife in a household, that 

 this word, which means "the making an adversary," is the 

 term always applied to it ; and the root- word rdfy is just 

 that by which, in the Malagasy Scriptures, Peninnah, Hannah's 

 co-wife, is described (i Sam. i. 6). The different wives are 

 always trying to get an advantage over each other, and to 

 wheedle their husband out of his property ; constant quarrels 

 and jealousy are the result, and polygamy becomes inevitably 

 the causing of strife, " the making an adversary." 



The other word, that for divorce, is an example of that 

 tendency in human nature to gloss over an evil by calling it 

 by a fine name. When a Malagasy wishes to divorce his wife 

 he has no need to apply to a law tribunal, like the Court of 

 Probate, or indeed to a court of any kind. He simply takes 

 a piece of money, sends it to his wife before certain wit- 

 nesses with the words, " Misaotra anao aho, TompoJcovdvy " (" I 

 thank you, madam "), and the thing is done ! The wife has 

 no appeal, and yet this unjust and often cruel act he calls 

 by the fine-sounding name fisaoram-bddy, which is literally 

 "thanking a wife," thanking her, in short, for the past, and 

 dismissing her as if he were doing her a kindness instead of 

 an injustice. 



Among words which are like a covert satire upon the 

 effusive wordy loyalty so common in Madagascar is the 

 term mdnantsdfa Andriana, which really means " to inquire, 

 implying ignorance " (pretended), an expression which is 

 applied to those long inquiries about the sovereign and her 

 family, and the chief officers of state, which are used upon 

 every possible occasion by military officers of the Hova 

 Government, and by those having business to do with these 

 officials. These complimentary inquiries are amusing at 

 first, but become somewhat tedious when repeated over and 

 over again in the course of a journey upon meeting with 

 every petty official. They run somewhat in this way : 

 " Since you our friends are arrived, we ask of you, How is 

 Queen Eanavalona, Sovereign of the land ? How is Eaini- 



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