On one occasion a woman appealed to the queen to be separated from her husband, to whom she had taken a great dislike. She said that she hated him and could not live with him, and did not wish to see his face again as long as he lived. Her Majesty ordered her to be brought before her, and inquired fully into her case. She asked if the husband was a bad man, or if he used her badly. The woman said ‘No.’ But when asked why she wished to be separated from him she could give no reason, except that she had taken such a great dislike to him that she could no longer live with him. After hearing all the woman had to say, Her Majesty replied that all she wished could be very easily accomplished, and the woman was accordingly jubilant. The queen summoned an officer, to whom she said: ‘This woman has appealed to me to be separated from her husband, whom she says that she hates, and that she does not want to see his face again. Now you take charge of her, take her to Fort Dauphin (at the extreme south of the island, five hundred miles from the capital), where she is to live for the rest of her life, and so make certain that she never sees again the husband whom she hates so much.’ The woman was speechless for a few moments, but, when she had recovered herself, and fully realized what the queen’s orders involved, she fell on her knees crying for mercy, hugged and kissed Her Majesty’s feet, promising to return at once to her husband, to be a good and faithful wife to him, and never again to say that she hated him. The queen, however, paid no attention to her appeals; so the officer came forward and laid hold of her to lead her away; thereupon she fairly became frantic, screamed with terror, clung to the royal feet, and pleaded in such agony for mercy that the queen, seeing that she had most thoroughly frightened her, extended mercy to her, revoked her order, and sent the officer home with her to her husband with instructions that he was to treat her kindly. I was six years in Madagascar before I had to perform the marriage ceremony for any of our people. We found the vast majority of the church members and adherents married, and those of the latter who were not could not be persuaded to follow the Christian mode of marriage. They said our agreement was too hard, it was till death. We might take our wives till death, as they were wise and good; but as their women were foolish and bad, they could not consent to take them until death. Their view of marriage was that of their own proverb which says that marriage is like marketing--if the parties don’t agree they simply separate.