162 HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
sometimes severely punished. The power of parents over the 
liberty of their child, is universally acknowledged; and 
parents are permitted by the judges to sell disobedient and 
stubborn children into slavery—instances of which have 
occurred. 
Whatever jealousies may render the wives of one hus¬ 
band miserable, or whatever envying and strife may exist 
between the children of the wife and those of the concubines, 
it is pleasing to contemplate the Malagasy home as one that 
is imbittered by few quarrels between parents and children. 
The former maintain the authority of their relation, so far 
as it is exercised, without sufficiently, or, in many cases, 
at all curbing the early development of youthful pas¬ 
sions : the children, however, are taught from their infancy 
to cherish respect for their parents, and the aged, as one 
of the first obligations in society. 
The amusements of the children are few, and resemble 
on a smaller scale those of the adults. Bull-fighting is 
one of those held in highest estimation among the latter; 
and the children spend many of their hours in cruelly 
setting beetles to fight, and in watching them while em¬ 
ployed in destroying each other. The period devoted to 
the pastimes of childhood is but short, and the boys and 
girls are accustomed, at a very early age, frequently before 
the sixth or seventh year is completed, to engage in the 
occupations of their parents respectively. 
At the ages above referred to, viz. six or seven years, the 
girls may be seen fetching water for domestic uses, and 
the boys assisting their fathers in agricultural pursuits, 
carrying rice-plants, manioc, sugarcanes, and other pro¬ 
ductions for the field, or bearing towards their villages 
bundles of dried grass, &c. used as fuel at home. In 
Imerina many about that age were, while the schools were 
