Madagascar ජාතික බිරිද ශ්‍රී ලාංකික සැමියාට කළ අහස පොළව නොහුලන අපරාධය 

Madagascar ජාතික බිරිද ශ්‍රී ලාංකික සැමියාට කළ අහස පොළව නොහුලන අපරාධය
#madagascar wife #madagasçar baby #sri Lanka father
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MADAGASCAR AND FAMILY LIFE
FR. RENE BUTLER, M.S.
LA SALETTE NEWS WORLDWIDE
MADAGASCAR AND FAMILY LIFE
I invite you to take a look at family life in one of our foreign missions, namely the Malagasy Republic (Madagascar). I have been fortunate in having had the opportunity to speak at length on this matter with five La Salette Missionaries from Madagascar, on different occasions. Along with three Americans - Fr. Jack Nuelle, Bro. Mark Gallant and Bp. Donald Pelletier - I would like to acknowledge also Fr. Tristan de Salmiech of France and Fr. Marian Sajdak of Poland. To all of these La Salettes I am most grateful, and I am very happy to share their reflections and insights.
Priest baptizes a Malagasy infant
In Western society, marriage is generally the starting point of a distinct new family, which is self-sufficient, with a legitimate claim to goods and property of its own. A family is most commonly defined as consisting of parents and their children.
FAMILY, AND MARRIAGE - MADAGASCAR STYLE
It is quite another matter in African society. There, marriage does not give rise to a new, distinct entity, but serves chiefly to continue the life of the broader family. It provides for a flow of life, that the life received from the ancestors will be passed on from generation to generation.
A “family,” therefore, in Madagascar is much larger than in Europe and America. This is brought home more forcibly when we learn that the Malagasy language has no word for “aunt” or “uncle” or “cousin."
Cousins are all “brothers” and “sisters,” aunts and uncles are “mothers” and “fathers.” Children belong to the whole family, or clan, not more
to the parents than to anyone else. Everyone is related, in the very real sense that all the members in this extended family are truly in intimate relationship with one another. A child is precious to all, and grows up with a constant and profound sense of being accepted. In a total population of 8.5 million, there is not a single orphanage!
Malagasy “families” are stable, and this for various reasons. First, the whole family works the same rice field, and tends therefore to stay near the rice field. Secondly, outside the towns and cities there is no easy transportation or communication and 75 % of the population lives in the bush. Thirdly, children are very docile to their elders (not just to their parents) and are content to live the way others have lived before them. In more recent times some of this has begun to change, but what is said here is still true of the great majority.
Bp. Donald Pelletier, M.S., with school children
THE TRADITIONAL APPROACH TO MARRIAGE
First, a teenager's parents and elders will decide it's time they had one less mouth to feed, and build a small hut for their son (around age 18) or their daughter (around age 16), and then arrange with another family for a potential spouse to share the hut.Given this broad family context, let us now take a look at marriage in Malagasy society. The traditional approach to marriage is progressive.
Second, if the young man and woman are getting along, they may indicate a desire to enter into a more formal relationship. At this point the two “families” will get together to make arrangements for a betrothal ceremony. An arbitrator will help them reach an agreement on a dowry to be paid by the boy's family, to compensate the girl's family for the fact that she will no longer be there to help with the work in the rice field. The betrothal takes place, and all the grownups bless the boy and girl by blowing water on them.
Third, once the dowry has been completely paid and once a child has been born, guaranteeing that the wife-to-be is fertile, the families will come together for the formal native marriage ceremony. This is considered sacred, and in principle the marriage is considered permanent; or, as the Malagasy proverb goes, “Only death can separate a chicken from its feathers.”
In fact, however, many marriages break up. Here, too, the consent of both families is required, and divorce brings no disgrace. It is actually more like an annulment, acknowledging that this was not a question of “a chicken and its feathers” in the first place. Younger children will go to the mother's family, older children to the father's. The wife will also take one third of what she and her husband have earned in common.