HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
167 
the village, they halt at what is called the parent-house, or 
residence of the officer of the government; a hasina, or 
piece of money, is given to the attending officer for 
the sovereign, the receiving of which is considered a legal 
official ratification of the engagement, as the marriage 
cannot afterwards be annulled, except by a legal act of 
divorce in the presence of witnesses. No ring, or other 
emblem of the married state, is used on such occasions, or 
worn afterwards; nor is there any badge by which the 
married may be distinguished from the unmarried women 
in Madagascar, when their husbands are at home: but 
during the absence of their husbands, especially in the 
service of government, a necklace, of silver rings or beads 
or braided hair, is worn, to denote that they are married, 
and that consequently their persons are sacred. Thus 
the wives of the officers composing the late embassy to 
England were distinguished during the absence of their 
husbands. 
The early marriages of the Malagasy are attended with 
painful and disastrous effects to the female; especially 
those contracted in consequence of betrothments arranged 
by the parents, totally irrespective of the inclinations of the 
parties themselves, and often before they were able to 
understand the nature of the engagement, or feel either 
preference for or aversion to those with whom they were 
pledged to sustain one of the most binding and sacred 
relations of life. The consequence is, the unhappy wife 
soon ceases to please, the affections of the husband are 
fixed on others, and unfaithfulness or divorce is the result 
Notwithstanding this, it is stated by those who have had 
the best opportunities of studying native society, that a 
number may be found faithfully and devotedly attached to 
each other through life. Instances of this kind, however, 
