among the Malagasies of both sexes and all ranks. They push licence very far in their manners, but quite unconsciously."[1]
Throughout black Africa, indeed, marriage does not exist, at least in the sense we attach to the word. It is not a civil institution, much less a sacrament; it is a bargain, delivering the woman to the mercy of the buyer. Here and there, however, we see dawnings of legal marriage—that is to say, a contract sanctioned by civil authority. Among the Bongos of the upper Nile, for example, a man who wishes to procure a certain woman generally applies to the chief or to some dignitary, who enforces his demand.[2]
With the Malagasies, where the social organisation is much more complex and quasi feudal, there is already a veritable civil marriage. The future pair, accompanied by their parents, go before the judge or the chief of the village, declare their intentions, pay the Hasina, or matrimonial tax, and the union is concluded. As is the case in many countries, Malagasian polygamy already tends towards monogamy. At Madagascar, as in China, rich men have one chief wife, who has a house to herself and other privileges; but by the side of the titular wife there are lesser wives.[3] I shall have to return to this hierarchical polygamy, which forms a sort of evolutionary connecting link between primitive polygamy, subjecting all the wives equally before their owner, and monogamic marriage. But for the present I must pursue my summary inquiry through the lands of primitive polygamy.
In the whole of Polynesia polygamy was general and unlimited. There, again, the number of wives was strictly in proportion to rank and riches.[4] There were, however, examples of voluntary monogamy[5] among the chiefs, and a much larger number of monogamists, in spite of themselves, in the lower classes.[6] In several Polynesian islands polygamy was already evolving towards monogamy; thus,
