HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
195 
Among the slaves, marriage is honourable, as in other 
classes of society. Its bond is, however, loose, and exceed- 
ingly liable to disruption, being not unfrequently dissevered. 
It is regarded more as a matter of convenience than of any 
moral obligation. The parties frequently belong to differ¬ 
ent owners, and sometimes exchange owners, occasioning 
not merely a removal from one part of the town to another, 
(a circumstance of very little importance,) but from one 
town to another, or from one part of the country to a dis¬ 
tant one. This local separation dissolves, as if by neces¬ 
sity, the tie which had united the husband and wife. 
Others separate because they no longer choose to live 
together; and as no form or ceremony beyond their own 
agreement cements their union, none is deemed necessary 
to their separation. They agree to separate, or the one 
party ceases to frequent the other, and by a tacit under¬ 
standing the connexion is broken. There are, however, 
honourable exceptions. A mutual attachment is in some 
cases the basis of the conjugal union, the pledge of conjugal 
fidelity and of permanent connexion, and the parties remain 
man and wife till death, which dissolves all human ties, 
bursts this, the closest and best of all earthly bonds. 
A freeman is not permitted by law to marry a slave, but 
a freeman may redeem the slave he wishes to marry; and 
when thus made free, she cannot be sold into slavery again. 
In the event of a divorce, the woman goes forth free.* 
The lot of the slave-mother is not an enviable one. Her 
service is little, if at all, diminished by the circumstance of 
her having a family. The infants must crawl about on the 
ground, or are carried at her back while performing her 
daily routine of labour; yet such is the force of custom, 
* This merciful provision corresponds with the Mosaic regulation on the 
subject, already noticed. 
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