Female Realm in the Nineteenth Century in Imerina Madagascar”

Home , Ambohimanga, Andriamanelo, Andriamasinavalona, Andrianampoinimerina, Andrianjafy, Andrianjaka

UNIVERSITE D’ANTANANARIVO

FACULTE DES LETTRES ET SCIENCES HUMAINES

DEPARTEMENT D’ETUDES ANGLOPHONES

MENTION EPDLE

CIVILISATION

GENDERING MONARCHY: FEMALE REALM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

IN IMERINA MADAGASCAR

Pour l’obtention du Diplôme de Master II

Date de soutenance : 11 Avril 2019

FARANIRINA Zoée Brina

Directeur de recherches : Professeur Claude FÉRAL

2017-2018 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to the people who helped to bring this dissertation to fruition. I owe much to my supervisor, Professor Claude Féral, for the useful comments and remarks she provided to my work from the first draft to the latest version and my co-supervisor Mr Ramandimbilahatra Mox for his encouragement and guidance in the adoption of the historical approach of my research. I would like to thank as well Professor

Casey Woodling for the helpful comments and suggestions he offered. I am so grateful to my parents who, despite the distances between us, kept careful watch over me and looked forward for seeing the completion of this work and my brothers who took the time to ask my progress. Finally, this dissertation would not have been possible without my friends, for their comments and encouragement.

ABSTRACT

Giving an insight into female monarchy in Imerina “central highlands of

Madagascar”, this dissertation shows how the succession of four women on the throne throughout the nineteenth century altered the political scene in Imerina; how gender was interrelated with the exercise of monarchical power. Case studies of the queens are provided alongside perspectives on female monarchy, evolving around the link between gender, marriage and succession in their queenly experiences. Considering female realm in Imerina through historical causation and gender lenses, this study firstly puts highlight on how the evolution of the succession system from the “fanjakana arindra” to a distaff lineage allowed

Merina women to bear rulership. It puts as well an emphasis on the complexity of the caste system, namely the involvement of the Andriana queens in hypogamic “marriages” with

Hova men, which was considered as a sacrilege at the time. The theoretical framework tackles the existence of the Queen’s two bodies in Imerina: the queens’ body natural affected their body politic. In other words, their “female sex” accounted for some accommodations in the Court’s politic and in their private lives as well. This theory emphasizes as well how the queens were referred to or self-represented as of “male sex” for reassuring the subjects on their ability to reign, notably in warlike position. Overall, this work shows how the Hova leaders created a certain “fiction” in order to legitimate female realm in Imerina which on the one hand led to their own rise and on the other hand to the exercise of a symbolic function for the queens.

Key words: Madagascar, Gender, Female monarchy, caste system, Imerina, marriage, queens, nineteenth century.

RESUME

Cette étude a pour but de découvrir comment l’accession de quatre femmes au trône le long du dix-neuvième siècle a affecté la scène politique en Imerina. Plus précisément, notre but est de montrer l’interrelation entre le genre et l’exercice du pouvoir monarchique.

Les reines sont utilisées comme études de cas et sont confrontées aux théories sur les règnes féminins qui gravitent autour du lien entre le genre, le mariage et la succession. Considérer la monarchie au féminin en Imerina met en exergue la manière dont l’évolution du système de succession - du « fanjakana arindra » à la dynastie matrilinéaire - a permis à une femme de régner. Cette étude met également en évidence la complexité du système de castes, notamment la controverse sur le mariage hypogamique des reines Andriana avec des chefs

Hova ou « hommes libres ». En outre, les recherches ont montré que la théorie des « deux corps de la Reine » s’est avérée applicable à la monarchie Merina dans le sens où leur corps naturel affectait leur corps politique. En d’autres mots, leur féminité a été le facteur de compromis au sein de la Cour ainsi que dans leur vie privée. Cette théorie met aussi en exergue comment les reines ont été représentées ou se représentaient elles-mêmes comme

étant de « sexe masculin » pour rassurer les sujets sur leur capacité à régner, plus particulièrement dans le domaine militaire. En tout, cette étude montre comment les chefs

Hova ont créé une certaine fiction afin de légitimer la monarchie au féminin et a ainsi mené vers leur propre ascension d’un côté et de l’autre côté vers une fonction symbolique des reines.

Mots-clés: Madagascar, genre, monarchie au féminin, système de caste, Imerina, mariage, reines, dix-neuvième siècle.

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FINTINA

Nisy akony teo amin’ny sehatra politika teto Imerina ny fahatongavan’ny mpanjakavavy efatra nifanesy teo amin’ny fitondrana nandritra ny taonjato faha- siviambinifolo. Ny traikefa sy fiainan’ireo mpanjakavavy ireo nandritra ny naha teo amin’ny fitondrana azy no hadihadiana atao mifanandrina amin’ny teoria samihafa izay narafitry ny manampahaizana momba ny fanjakana vehivavy. Ity fikarohana ity dia mampisongadina ny fivoaran’ny lalàna momba ny fifandimbiasan’ny mpanjaka teto Imerina ka nanome lalana ahafahan’ny vehivavy mandimby ny satroboninahitra. Manaraka izany, manamafy ihany koa izy ity ny amin’ny antanantohatra eo amin’ny fiarahamonina izay nahatonga resabe teo amin’ny fifanambadian’ny mpanjakavavy Andriana sy ny lehibe Hova izay nolazaina ho fandikana ny lalàna nandrindra ny fiarahamonina Merina tamin’izany fotoana. Teo amin’ny sehatra teorika dia hita fa afaka ampiharina amin’ny fanjakana teto Imerina ny teorian’ny

“the Queen’s two bodies” na koa “ny vatana roa an’ny mpanjakavavy” : ny vatana natoraly maha vehivavy azy ireo dia nisy fiantraikany teo amin’ny vatana politika maha-mpanjaka ka nitarika fanovana teo anivon’ny fitantanana ny fanjakana izay tsy afa-misaraka amin’ny fiainan’izy ireo manokana. Ity teoria ity ihany koa dia mampiseho fa natao hoe

“lehilahy” ireo mpanjakavavy mba ho fanomezan-toky ny vahoaka ny amin’ny fahaizan’izy ireo mitondra fanjakana indrindra raha misy ady manambana. Ity asa ity araka izany dia mampiseho ny fomba nataon’ireo lehibe Hova ka nahatonga azy ireo teny antampon’ny fahefana ary nahatonga ireo mpanjakavavy hitana andraikitra sarisariny teo amin’ny fanjakana.

Teny manan-danja: Madagasikara, fanjakana vehivavy, rafitra antanantohatra, Imerina, fanambadiana, mpanjakavavy, taonjato faha-siviambinifolo.

LIST OF PHOTOS

Photo 1: Rasoherina ...... 62

Photo 2: Ranavalona II...... 68

Photo 3: Ranavalona III ...... 74

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Genealogy of the Merina queens Ranavalona I, Rasoherina, Ranavalona II and

Ranavalona III ...... 48

Figure 2: Genealogy of Queen Ranavalona III ...... 78

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix A: A letter from General Joseph Gallieni to Queen Ranavalona III on February

27th 1897 ...... 108

Appendix B: The famous and supposedly unique photo of Ranavalona I ...... 109

Appendix C: Queen Rasoherina...... 110

Appendix D: Queen Ranavalona II ...... 111

Appendix E: Queen Ranavalona III ...... 112

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GLOSSARY OF MALAGASY TERMS

Ambaniandro: literally “those under the sun”; another term for Merina

Andriana: Sovereign; the most superior caste in the society

Andevo: Slave; the lowest caste in the society

Fandroana: Royal Bath

Fanjakana: Government; Kingdom

Fanjakana arindra: Two-stage succession

Fanjakan-dehilahy: Literally kingdom of men; male supremacy

Fisehoana: The new monarch’s first appearance

Hasina: Essence of purity and virtue which aspires respect

Hova: The second caste in the social hierarchy; the whole Merina ethnic group

Kabary: Public speech

Manjaka: Reigning

Mpitaiza Andriana: the Queen’s lovers

Mpitana: guardians of royal fetishes

Sampimasina: Sacred fetishes

Sampy: Fetish

Taha: A sum offered to a woman in case of repudiation or polygamy

Tangena: Test by poison

Tsy maty manota: Immunity to death penalty

Vadibe: senior wife

Vazimba: The most remote inhabitants of Merina historiography

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... i ABSTRACT ...... ii RESUME ...... iii FINTINA...... iv LIST OF PHOTOS ...... v LIST OF FIGURES ...... vi LIST OF APPENDICES ...... vii GLOSSARY OF MALAGASY TERMS ...... viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... ix GENERAL INTRODUCTION ...... 1 CHAPTER I: BACKGROUND CONTEXT, THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS 1. Terms and Concepts ...... 5 2. Literature Review ...... 6 3. Theoretical Framework ...... 11 4. Basic Concerns on Female Realm ...... 14 CHAPTER II: METHODS 1. Historical Causation ...... 19 2. Gender-based approach ...... 20 3. Qualitative method and grounded theory ...... 22 4. Research tools ...... 23 5. Limitations of the research ...... 26 CHAPTER III: CLASSIFICATION AND INTERPRETATION OF THE FINDINGS 1. The Evolution of the Merina Monarchy ...... 28 2. The Phases of Merina Women’s Status...... 35 3. The Implications of the Succession System ...... 41 4. Case Studies Analysis...... 51 CHAPTER IV: DISCUSSION 1. Constraint to Wifehood ...... 82 2. A Complex Marriage ...... 84 3. The Implications of a Symbolic Function ...... 86 4. Military Performances ...... 88 5. The Theory on the Queen’s Two Bodies in Imerina Madagascar ...... 91 GENERAL CONCLUSION ...... 93 TIMELINE ...... 97 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 98 WEBOGRAPHY ...... 100 APPENDIX ...... 108

INTRODUCTION

“The transformation of a historical era can always be determined by the condition of progress of women toward liberty…The degree of female emancipation is the natural measure of general emancipation” (Marx and Engels 259). This statement by Marx and

Engels in The Holy Family summarizes how gender is interrelated with civilization. Some scholars contend that the political role attributed to women in a country can be used as an evaluation of its advancement in civilization, which makes them “crucial civilizing agents”.

In the nineteenth century, the political status of women was particularly examined for defining if a country ranges among the “civilized” or “savage” ones. Most European countries kept women out of the political sphere whereas a number of non-European societies made available a political role for women. Madagascar is among those countries which made room for women in politics. Our focus for this dissertation is on the central part of

Madagascar, Imerina, where four women acceded to the throne throughout the nineteenth century.

The fact that women participated in the political sphere in Malagasy pre-colonial era may seem as an identification of a relatively egalitarian relation between the sexes. It is worth noting that when the Merina Queens Ranavalona I, Rasoherina, Ranavalona II and

Ranavalona III ascended the throne in Imerina Madagascar, the fact that they were women was not really remarkable in itself. However, a set of conditions were laid, which limited their aristocratic power that was so far considered unlimited under previous male monarchs.

That implies that although there were no genuine opposition to their reigns, the long presence of female sovereigns on the throne did not prove a full acceptance of women in such a high political position. In front of the development of queenship studies and the opening of new

1 research perspectives, it is necessary to submit the Merina queens to studies of female realm following the most convenient methodology. It is worth noting that even though the queens ruled for a whole century in Imerina Madagascar, accounts on royalty in Madagascar were written with little consideration on how the presence of female sovereigns at the head of the monarchy altered the political scene. I thus have the contention that there remain details of the queens’ reigns worth exploring. This is the reason why this dissertation is entitled

“Gendering monarchy: female realm in the nineteenth century in Imerina Madagascar”. It serves as a contribution to fulfilling the scholarly gap between male and female monarchs in

Imerina.

Queenship studies became a trend in historical studies in recent years. A common strategy to study royal figures is to make an analysis of their reigns as case studies.

Queenship studies deal with reigning queens, queen consorts, female regents, dowager queens and other royal women exercising political power. For this study, I chose to focus on reigning queens. In queenship studies, any government headed by a woman is viewed as

“female realm” or “female monarchy” and is incorporated in the field of women’s studies and history in order to contribute to scholarly and literary account regarding women’s position and the political situation of the period in question.

As for the research process, considering that I could not find Malagasy theoretical work about female monarchy, I refer to foreign theories and concepts. Most of these theories stem from scholars dealing with British female monarchs particularly Mary Tudor and

Elizabeth I. As they were the first reigning queens in England in the sixteenth century, their reigns were the subject of debates between scholars, leading to the development of the theory of the Queen’s two bodies which became a vital element in the study of female monarchy.

The theory on the Queen’s two bodies is essential to show how a queen regnant is expected to have both feminine and masculine qualities, and should be able to switch from the one to the

2 other whenever it is necessary. Therefore, the aim of this study is to apply this theory on the

Merina queens and analyse the interference of gender within their function as the Heads of the Imerina kingdom.

Since this dissertation explores the hidden dimensions of the Merina queens’ reigns, it digs into particular points of their reigns, primarily the ones that highlight the relationship between power and gender like marriage and succession. This work aims at providing an answer to the research question: “how did the queens’ gender affect their queenly experience?” This question encompasses the following sub-questions: What conditions were established to legitimate female realm? What does the marriage of the queens entail? Which set of circumstances gave the queens an access to the throne?

According to Razafimbelo Marcelline, “Malagasy society has long attributed to women, not only their submission to men and their role as producers, but also other roles, including that of parents, wives, and servants”. She contends that these are roles that do not usually allow women to assert themselves and thus take their true place (Razafimbelo 1).

Consequently, it is out of curiosity to wonder if handling the role of a monarch permitted the

Merina queens to actually assert themselves. However, such question may be rhetoric since most scholars and historians contend that the queens had an exclusive symbolic function. In this sense, the hypothesis for this study is that the queens’ gender affected the Court’s politics and shaped as well the queens’ experiences. In other words, in order to exercise power, being women obliged the queens to deal with personal and political problems arising from gender.

The objective of this dissertation is to provide a discussion on the implications of female realm in the nineteenth century in Imerina Madagascar. Taking into account the prominent role of the caste system in this period, I aim to offer a compelling argument about female monarchy by exploring how the Hova chiefs legitimated the rule of Andriana women.

Joan Wallach Scott writes that the use of gender in history “theorizes about the nature of

3 phenomena or realities, seeking an understanding of how and why these take the form they do” (1056). It can be deduced that an examination of history with gender lenses enables to develop new perspectives on historical causation.

Since this dissertation follows the IMRAD format, the first chapter follows the present introductory chapter. It covers the definition of the terms and concepts, the literature review and the theoretical framework. Some basic concerns on female realm are as well comprised in the first chapter as an introduction to the study of female monarchy. It consists of a brief account of preconceived problematics of queenship such as wifehood, sovereignty and military conquest. The methods form the second chapter, which explains the steps undertook throughout the research by presenting the approach adopted for the researches, describing the conceptualization of the subject, explaining the research process, showing the research tools and setting the limitations of the researches. In chapter three will be the presentation, classification and interpretation of the findings presented as follows: the evolution of the Merina monarchy, the phases of Merina women’s status, the implications of the succession system and most essentially the case studies analysis showing the four Merina queens. The last chapter will be the discussion drawing together the results of the interpretation and comparisons of the findings drafted as follows: constraint to wifehood, a complex marriage, the implications of a symbolic function, military performances, and the theory on the Queen’s two bodies in Imerina Madagascar.

CHAPTER I:

BACKGROUND CONTEXT, THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL

FRAMEWORKS

1. TERMS AND CONCEPTS

Before engaging into the heart of this dissertation, I have to provide a concise definition of the terms and concepts central to the topic. A basic definition given to “gender” is the social difference between the sexes, reflected through the respective roles that society assigns them. These roles vary according to the cultural norms and values of a given society.

In the context of this study, enabling a woman to be at the head of the monarchy is considered a reversal of gender roles, requiring specific accommodations from the queen herself and her surroundings within the Court. Those accommodations can be personal or political.

There are several terms referring to a queen who reigns on her own: female king, sole queen, female monarch and queen regnant. In Without the Persona of the Prince, Theresa

Earenfight explains that in the language of women and rulership, a “queen” never goes by herself since she is always accompanied by an adjective. She goes on pointing out that these modifiers clearly put an emphasis on the anomaly of female realm and “obscures the reality” of the reign by a woman (1).

In reference to the anomaly of the reign of a woman, female monarchy implies the position of a woman at the head of the throne in which she is expected to demonstrate her feminine qualities while at the same time standing as a man whenever it is necessary. This manly side of her monarchical function explains the complexity of her reign. On that point, it

5 is logical to wonder whether the term Queendom can be used when talking about female monarchy. The answer is negative since it would detach the manly role of a monarch from the title even though Kingdom does not in any way express the position of a queen at the head of the throne.

In order to be more specific, a female monarch is referred to as queen regnant since she reigns in her own right, possesses and exercises sovereign power. However, in many cases, the exertion of this sovereign power can be threatened by her sex. We often refer to the femininity of a queen - the attributes that convey her female sex id est her natural body - in order to put various theories upon her reign and put a highlight on her womanhood. Thus, concepts of womanhood such as motherhood and wifehood are considered problematics to a reigning queen as will be explained in the section on basic concerns on female realm.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

The present literature review is organized thematically; each section deals with a particular idea. Scholarly works dealing with reigning queens come first which most theories on female monarchy were grabbed from. Historical researches having Imerina as its subject come next, followed by a range of works on each of the Merina queens. The last theme regards Malagasy literary works related to gender.

In the study of reigning queens, the fundamental basis is to evaluate their access to rulership and their exercise of power. As mentioned in the introduction, studies on reigning queens grew out of a never-ending interest in notorious British female figures such as the

Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Tudor; the Tudor Queens dominate the field and continue to be written today. As a consequence, unsurprisingly, most theories on female monarchy resulted

6 from the analysis of their reigns. As far as I am concerned, Carole Levin and Charles Beem are the ones whose works were the most influential. Carole Levin’s work The Heart and

Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power highly inspired me since it provides theoretical accounts on the linking-points between gender and power with regard to female monarchy. This work on the Queen Elizabeth provided a methodology for research on queenship. In the third and fourth chapter, “The official courtships of the Queen” and

“Wanton and Whore”, Levin pinpoints the importance of marriage in the rule of a queen regnant. She offers an explanation to the interest the subjects had on the Queen Elizabeth’s sexual behaviour by arguing that it “was a means for the people to express their concern over a female monarch”. It is then a prerequisite to put an emphasis on marriage in the study of a queen’s reign.

To keep the balance in front of the over-representation of the Queen Elizabeth I in scholarly and literary work, Charles Beem’s work The Lioness Roared: the Problems of

Female Rule in English History gives an analysis of the problems that a range of female rulers faced in England, from the twelfth-century Empress Matilda1 to the Queen Victoria in the nineteenth century. Through an analysis of individual reigns, he gives an insight into the changes over those periods. Beem made as well an objection to female monarchs being called

“queens” as it connotes a consort or a royal woman who ruled through kingship. He prefers the term “female kings” to call a female monarch ruling in her own right.

Every scholar who undertook historical researches about Imerina know that it is a prerequisite to present in the literature review Callet’s monumental work Tantara ny

Andriana, the basis of the history of Imerina Madagascar. As the most consulted and most detailed work with an ethnographic and historical importance regarding Imerina, Pier Larson describes Tantara ny Andriana as “a compendium of historical traditions which underpins

1 The Empress Matilda was the daughter of King Henry I, born in early twelfth century.

7 most print renditions of Malagasy history” (295). It comprises a collection of myths, discourses and genealogies telling the history of Imerina from the Vazimba2 era to the reign of Queen Rasoherina.

However, Jean Valette in Pour une Etude du Règne d’Andrianampoinimerina provides a set of critiques on the pertinence of the work, notably the fact that Callet collected his information from Hova men - Tsimahafotsy and Tsimiamboholahy - the ones who took the most advantages from the political system throughout the nineteenth century. Tantara ny

Andriana has been a ground-work for twentieth-century researchers such as Alain Délivré whose work entitled Histoire des Rois d’Imerina provides further clarifications in the context of succession system and royal legitimacy.

While accounts on male monarchs in Imerina Madagascar are quite satisfying, the characteristics and particularities of queenly reigns have rarely received any treatment beyond the context of a specific reign or a specific theme in history. For instance, in classic works such as Tantara ny Andriana, Histoire du Royaume Hova and Institutions Politiques et

Sociales de Madagascar, King Andrianampoinimerina dominates a greater section than the queens gathered. Among the Merina queens, Ranavalona I is the one who received the greatest attention. In grounds of her anti-colonialism reputation and her anti-Christian acts were mostly the publications of works from Europeans whereas a few work of appraisal were written by nationalist historians and scholars.

2 In Malagasy historiography, Vazimba refers to an era prior to the sixteenth century, when only oral traditions existed. It refers as well to the distant actors of Malagasy historiography in Imerina in a remote era, before the emergence of Merina monarchy, to be differed from the concept of Vazimba by Rajaobelina Wilfried as remote dwarf inhabitants. Domenichini speculates that this last concept comes from colonial thinking to literally dwarf “conquered” people (10).

Alison Kamhi, in her article Perceptions of Ranavalona I: A Malagasy Historical

Figure as Thematic Symbol of Malagasy Attitudes toward History attempts to provide an explanation to the queen’s contemporary reputation and to reconcile her two opposite images.

She declares that throughout her researches, people acknowledged Ranavalona I as a “strong ruler” even though they disagreed with her politics. Guy Campbell in The Adoption of

Autarky in Imperial Madagascar adopts an economic-oriented approach for comparing

Ranavalona I with her male predecessor Radama I. He declares that Radama I has long been portrayed - mostly by British Missionary agents - as the one who was supposed to “elevate”

Imerina to a higher level of civilization whereas Ranavalona I brought the country to isolation by driving the country into an autarkic economic state. In a gender approach article entitled

Queen Victoria and The Bloody Mary of Madagascar, Arianne Chernock attracts the attention to the manner how British novelists, travellers and missionaries moulded an irreproachable queenly image for the Queen Victoria by putting a highlight on Ranavalona’s controversial portrait.

Regarding Queen Ranavalona II, she is mainly incorporated in researches on the evolution of Christianity in Madagascar and the circumstances surrounding her conversion to

Christianity. She is defined as the “first Christian Sovereign of Madagascar”. In Les Jésuites

à Madagascar au XIXe siècle, Adrien Boudou portrays her as a “tool” manipulated by the

Prime Minister Rainilaiarivony. Besides, due to the destruction of ancestral royal talismans later in her reign, she earned a figure of “Saint”. Etienne Foucadier in La Vie Héroïque de

Victoire Rasoamanarivo praises her of “redressing the morality of her people” and Madam

Mason in Ranavalona II Vue par les Missionnaires Protestants de son Époque describes her as a “sincere Christian” with a spotless life. Queen Rasoherina and Queen Ranavalona III have not received as much literary attention. That is caused by the masculine-centred historiography of monarchy in Madagascar.

In Malagasy gender historiography, Jacqueline Ravelomanana’s work Histoire de l’Éducation des Jeunes Filles Malgaches du XVIe Siècle au XXe Siècle is used as a reference.

In a compelling analysis of women’s status throughout the nineteenth century in Imerina

Madagascar, the author provides a broad historical account on the education of Merina girls.

Divided into three chapters, the book initially discusses the mythical representation of Merina girls in Vazimba era, then demonstrates the impact of Western and Christian ideologies on female status in Imerina, and finally argues about the vision on women resulting from colonial actions. Overall, this work primarily insists on the cultural reforms engendered by missionary actions that essentially led to a hybrid status of women in Imerina. More specifically, Ravelomanana asserts that the missions progressively degraded the status of

Merina women.

“Despite the fact that women ruled for more than a century, why claiming for their equality?” (Rabenoro 8). This is the point that Rabenoro Mireille refutes in her work Le

Mythe des Femmes au Pouvoir, Arme de l’Antiféminisme à Madagascar. It is one of the rare scholarly works which addresses gender issues in Madagascar by referring to the historical context of female realm. Regardless its briefness, the article provides a well-drafted summary of the “myth” of female realm in Madagascar. The author primarily criticizes the use of the queens to deny the pertinence of the fight against gender inequality in Madagascar, more specifically the problems of female accession to power. Furthermore, she points out that the queens handled a symbolic function.

3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The theoretical framework of this study revolves around the theory of the Queen’s two bodies: the body natural and the body politic. The body natural is the fragile mortal flesh subject to aging and infirmities whereas the body poltic consists of the eternal metaphysic institution of power. The theory on the two bodies is vital in the study of monarchy and has been a subject of discussion for scholars; it shifted and developed from “the King’s two bodies” to “the Queen’s two bodies” on account of the gender of the monarch. Paul

Hammond in Culture, Politics and Society in Britain affirms that the idea of the King’s two bodies developed under the reign of the Tudors as sovereignty was centred upon the person of the monarch (13). Ernst Kantorowicz was the first to develop this theory and the first to apply it to King Charles I and Charles II, whose natural bodies were the subject of scandals3.

Under James I was the development of the concept of divinity upon the monarch, which reinforced the concept of the body politic as a persistent element on which his authority relies. James I created as well the language of patriarchy in the context of monarchy by presenting himself as the husband of the realm.

In the mid-seventeenth century, the private body and the political body entered in a rivalry. The body of the sovereign was by then suggested to be in correlation with the body of the subjects: “When the body of the king is held sacred, the body of the subject exists in a relation of natural subjection to royal power” (Hammond 38). The theory of the King’s two bodies was then implanted as an undeniable principle that the ones who dare denying or underestimating royal power would be castrated or decapitated. Hammond pinpoints that “the king’s position as the head of the body politic was demonstrated through decapitation of the

3 First, the execution of Charles I in 1649 was symbolic because his dismemberment showed that his body natural was separable from his body politic. Secondly, the sexual exploits of Charles II was used as a reference how the two bodies should be dissociate.

11 traitor, while castration is a reinforcement of the king’s right in hereditary succession and his patriarchal authority” (38). Two interpretations of the concept of the body politic are given by

Edmund Plowden in his famous work Plowden Report4. According to him, in one perspective, the body politic was transferred from the body natural of the former monarch to the new one on the occasion of each succession. In another perspective, the body politic is contained by the natural body in which the monarch is the head and the subjects were its members.

What is fundamental to our research is the examination of the concept once the gender of the monarch changed. When a woman acceded to the throne, the theory shifted to “the

Queen’s two bodies” leading to the non-individualization of the sovereign’s body with political power. The physical virginity of Elizabeth I took an iconographical signification; it

“was read as a sign of her special distinction, setting her apart as someone of an almost supernatural power in a liminal state between the human and the divine” (Hammond 14). In other words, the body natural and the body politic were by then inseparable. Maitland, who made a critique about the theory of the King’s two bodies, asserts that this theory was created as a fictionalization of the sovereign’s representation, mainly the concept that the sovereign has two bodies, two capacities but one person. According to him, the concept of the Queen’s two bodies is much more problematic due to the fact that the queen is considered as a

“fictional replacement of the king’s body”: she acts as a fictional man and wields a man’s power. He underpins that this theory is used in order to conceal the reality that the queen is

“anything more than a counterfeit” (Hammond 23). In a similar context, Towns states in The

Status of Women as a Standard of ‘Civilization’ that “a woman may have been an imperfect man, but she was not fully distinguishable from a man” (689).

4 Edmund Plowden is worth mentioned in the theoretical framework because he wrote about the nature of the King’s two bodies in 1588.

At the very start of her work - Virtue and Virtuality - Janel Mueller explains the theory that a monarch whether male or female has two bodies: the body natural and the body politic. The body natural is marked for gender and for eventual mortality whilst the body politic is the institution of monarchy (Mueller 2). To prove that the body natural is more preeminent in female monarchy, she develops the concept of the queen’s “virtual gender” which implies that “the queen regnant has the full potentiality to perform feminine roles as a wife and a mother but also that it is valid for her, as sovereign, to leave these feminine roles unactualized, concentrating instead on the office, qualities, and roles of a monarch” (Mueller

3). To put it differently, when a woman reigns, she has to deal with the duality of her womanhood and her queenship. Therefore, her body politic lies in her queenship whereas her body natural is represented by her femininity.

In Heart and Stomach of a King, Carole Levin offers the most efficient definition of the Queen’s two bodies theory: “She may be both woman and man in one, both King and

Queen together, a male body politic in concept while a female body natural in practice”(121).

Throughout the study, our aim is to discover whether the theory on the Queen’s two bodies existed in Imerina Madagascar or not. Formulated as follows, the theoretical problem is relevant to the intersection of the body politic and the body natural: how did the Merina queens’ body natural affect their body politic?

4. BASIC CONCERNS ON FEMALE RULE

John Knox’s onslaught on female realm

John Knox’s classic work entitled The First Blast of the Trumpet against the

Monstrous Regiment of Women is an essential work that people should be introduced to in studies of female monarchy. John Knox was a foremost Protestant leader in Scotland. He wrote the book The First Blast of the Trumpet while in exile in Geneva in mid-sixteenth century. He castigates female realm and asserts that the exercise of authority by a woman is in contrast with both natural law and religion. His arguments are primarily based on the

Bible, which according to him, recommends that God have made women subservient to men.

Thus, women should not handle the supreme power of a monarch and rule nations for “nature

[...] doth paint them forth to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble and foolish; and experience has declared them to be inconstant, variable, cruel, lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment”

(Knox).

His work - written in the sixteenth century - was originally destined to his contemporary Mary Tudor5, a Roman Catholic queen and first woman to become a queen regnant in England. Even though Knox insists that his arguments are on the basis of the queen’s religion, most scholars contend that Knox actually “intended to target any woman who inherited a title of monarchy and not just Mary Tudor”. They assert that Knox’s arguments against the queen were based on her sex.

5 Mary Tudor was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. She ascended the throne after the death of her brother Edward VI in 1553 and was succeeded by her sister Elizabeth I in 1558.

Jezebel: a reference in “evil queens”

Identified in the Old Testament, Jezebel incarnates the “evil woman” who, from having absolute power developed an excessive appetite in following her whims and thus committed unforgivable deeds6. In her thesis in 2012, Emma Jane Thomas depicts that

“Jezebel is perhaps the most-cited biblical example of a bad woman” (5). She is often mentioned in queenship studies in context of her act, for the purpose of justifying and insisting on the problem of female rule. Her label of “evil queen” is applied to queens who overstepped constructed gender limitations (Thomas 5). Furthermore, The Jezebel theory is associated to the assumption on women being “monstrous creatures” (Brenner 164). This idea on female monstrosity basically originates from the Genesis of humanity, the story of Eve and Adam. Scholars variously note that this understanding of feminine monstrosity focused on the interrelatedness of the sexes; that women are monstrous since they were created by

God as deformed men. Such circumstances are considered as proofs to female inadequacy mentally and above all physically.

Wifehood, marriage and sovereignty

Considering traditional assumptions on male supremacy, wifehood is often represented as a primary objection to female rule. A queen regnant is expected to encounter difficulties in her couple relationship, more specifically in keeping a balance between her monarchical function and her wifely status since the most essential matter in marriage is who will be the head of the household. Most scholars attest that a queen regnant is likely to fail controlling her husband to intervene in her royal power, which entails the assertion on wifehood disallowing the exercise of sovereign power. This theory chiefly derives from the

6 In the Book of Kings I and II of the Bible, Jezebel was accused of persecuting many Hebrew prophets.

15 experience of Elizabeth I, who decided to not marry despite the pressure she has got during her reign from her Councillors. Since then, her decision served as a powerful argument against female ruler marrying. In The Heart and Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the

Politics of Sex and Power, Carol Levin maintains that Elizabeth’s unmarried status helped her to sidestep “the role of wife and the risk of being perceived as the inferior partner in marriage relationship” (65).

As for Mary Tudor, her marriage with the Prince Phillips of Spain apparently endangered the sovereignty of the nation on the basis that she married a foreign man. In the concept of female monarchy, being married to a foreign man implies that she offered the nation to her husband. Similarly, Paul Hammond states that the “baffling nature of their task” caused the abundance of literary attention around the experience of Queen Victoria and her

King consort Albert in marriage relationship (37). In other words, their marriage was considered as a disruption of Victorian gender norms. On the one hand, the queen was accused of submitting a man to her womanly authority. Albert’s position, on the other hand was more complex: not only was he viewed as a “queen” consort, but he was as well accused of losing his masculinity. Hence, scholars argue that in the wedding ceremony, obedience should be omitted from the vows of a queen regnant to her husband (Hammond 40).

Sovereignty is a vexed topic when integrated in queenship studies. Its complexity resides in the fact that it can be gendered, and manipulated in the context of marriage. It is suggested that patriarchal framework makes female sovereignty possible through marriage and marital relation to men. Ironically, it can conversely threaten female sovereignty in view of expected female gender roles in marriage. As aforementioned, when handling the power, a woman should balance her authority as a ruler and her submissiveness to her husband since having a “consort” would destabilize her in affirming her authority. This husband-wife relationship then threatens the queen’s sovereignty as it places certain limits on her authority

16 due to her femininity and her vulnerability to her husband’s will. So, to this extent, when a queen regnant is compelled to wifehood and motherhood, her sovereignty is threatened

(Mueller 5).

Military conquest

Being a war leader is a function that monarchs either male or female are expected to fulfil. Amongst the basic opinions against female realm is the theory that “men can provide physical and intellectual leadership to a greater extent than can women” (Corcos 1958). This preconceived theory is associated to the expectations on a queen regnant to be merciful and compassionate. Altogether, these points shape the complexity of female rule since the queen would have to stand as a man in warlike situation anytime. To note, from their early ages, princes automatically learn “the art of war and the art of government” whereas princesses are primarily instructed the art of households (Corcos 1604). Assumptions on the superiority of male strength thus lie behind the preference in male realm over female reign. In Queens,

Oeindrilla Dube acknowledges that it is theoretically natural that a male monarch handles the function of a military leader (5).

Based on this theory of female strength inferiority, female rulers are considered to have natural weaknesses that make them unfit to rule. Besides, they are perceived to be

“more prone to keep their kingdoms in a peaceful atmosphere”. That said, this theory was challenged by two New York University scholars, Dube and Harish who demonstrated that

“people have a preconceived idea of states engaged less in conflict because they are led by women”. By analysing a data of European queenly reigns, they found that there was an increase in wars when a queen was in power compared to a king. From this result, it can be inferred that prevailing theories on a queen’s inability to fulfil military function were

17 unproved and unreliable. In this context, most historians assert that military expeditions in the

Imerina kingdom decreased since Queen Ranavalona I has acceded to the throne and became even scarcer with the successive queenly reigns. The question is whether this decline in military expedition is correlated to the presence of a queen at the top of the throne or not.

Thus, in order to challenge this theory, discussing the military experience of the queens is necessary.

The above section provided a brief account of basic arguments to oppose female realm. It explained that the sovereignty of a queen regnant is put into question when she is married for she is expected to be under the superiority of her husband in the couple. Besides, it was shown that assumptions on female inability to ensure military function are not always reliable.

CHAPTER II:

METHODS

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the research strategy. This chapter is divided into five sections. In the first section, historical causation is explained on why it is necessary for the present work. The second section is about the adoption of a gender approach showing why it is the most convenient for the topic. The third section describes how grounded theory was applied in data gathering and data analysis techniques. The fourth section deals with the research tools and covers the reasons for selecting data sources.

Finally, the fifth section lists the limitations of the researches.

1. Historical causation

In his book What Is History? E. H. Carr states that the study of history is the study of causes (113). One of the tasks of a researcher adopting a historical methodology is thus to investigate sources and interpret the findings in order to determine causation; his prime aim is to proffer answers to the three questions “what” “how” and “why”. James Brien argues that without causal relationships, historians are left with a collection of unrelated facts (73). In this dissertation, my objective by making use of causation is to discover who and what caused the circumstances around the queens’ reigns by identifying long and short-term causes.

Aligned with the objectives of our researches, a counterfactual analysis is used in discovering new perspectives. It consists of proposing “what if scenarios” in existing facts and considering diverse alternatives. Since our study mainly studies the queens,

19 counterfactuals would be useful in testing personal choices they made in a particular period of history and thus gives way to alternate outcomes

Since this dissertation deals with monarchy - a large historical theme - it is necessary to lay out a clear chronological reasoning. Even though the temporal scope of the study is situated in the nineteenth century, it is useful to provide a clear pattern of the change over time and to root back to the emergence of monarchy in Imerina Madagascar in the sixteenth century. In the periodization of events, I chose to put an emphasis on turning points as well as giving a greater importance to particular political figures participating in the evolution of

Merina monarchy such as Andrianampoinimerina and Radama I.

2. Gender-based approach

The problematic of this research revolves around the way how the gender of the following Merina queens affected their reigns: Ranavalona I, Rasoherina, Ranavalona II and

Ranavalona III. Gender lenses are central to this research to analyse the hidden and unexploited aspects of their experiences. When it comes to gendered-approach researches in history, Joan Wallach Scott’s classic paper Gender: a Useful Category of Historical Analysis often serves as a reference. Throughout her paper, Scott provides answers to the following inquiry “how does gender give meaning to the organization and perception of historical knowledge?” (1055). She speculates that the use of gender in history “theorizes about the nature of phenomena or realities, seeking an understanding of ‘how’ and ‘why’ these take the form they do” (Scott 1056). It implies that the use of gender in studying history develops new perspectives and gives a new angle to our perception of history. Moreover, all things considered, studying history through the lenses of gender would make women appear more present in history. As mentioned previously, since Merina female monarchs received mere

20 attention from historians, this research aims at arising further curiosity on their reigns and digging through the particularity of their reigns from which new theories would be grasped.

In respect of the terms to use in a gender-based study, instead of using “women”,

Scott suggests the use of “gender” because it “seems to fit within the scientific terminology of social sciences and thus dissociates itself from the politics of feminism7” (1056). Even though the subject chiefly deals with women, she considers “gender” as a synonym for

“women” to the degree that “gender” appears more neutral and guarantees the work’s legitimacy in an academic context. In this sense, as this work does not come out of personal feminist motives, I decided to use the term “gender and monarchy” in the title. Likewise, according to her, “gender” as a substitute for “women” is used as well to speculate that information about women is necessarily information about men, that “one implies the study of the other” (Scott 1056). Studying the structure of female realm then implicitly shows the characteristics of male rule.

A major common theoretical and methodological operation in gender and politics involves the gendering of existing central concepts, which implies taking an existing concept and introducing gender as a complex concept into the concept analysis (Scott 1057).

Accordingly, I thought it appropriate to conceptualize the concept of female monarchy and reformulate “gender and monarchy” into the term “gendering monarchy”. In Mary Tudor as

Sole Queen: Gendering Tudor Monarchy, Judith M. Richards emphasizes the accommodations applied to Mary and Elizabeth’s reigns which put into light the gender implications of their rule. Thus, in the context of our dissertation, “gendering monarchy” means applying new characteristics to the study of female monarchy in Imerina Madagascar and analysing them as women, wives and regning queens.

7 The dictionary definition of feminism speaks mostly to advocating equality for women.

3. Qualitative method and grounded theory

Cameron Thies states that a qualitative historical analysis ensures the development or the testing of a theory (352). A qualitative method is the most suitable for the present work since the concepts I am dealing with - gender and monarchy - are not going to be labelled with numbers. Besides, studying queenship in Imerina Madagascar deserves a qualitative historical analysis since historical documents and interpretations from historians and scholars are going to provide answers to the testing of the Queen’s two bodies theory.

The qualitative methodology adopted for the present research is the grounded theory.

In grounded theory, it is ideal that the process of data collection and data analysis are merged.

I have to specify that I adopted the “full version” of the method, which required that I move back and forth between the two processes until theoretical saturation has been achieved (71).

In other words, I kept moving back and forth gathering and analysing data until no more relevant data could be grasped. Throughout those processes, the first task was to deal with the categories. I identified the points which share the same concept and then grouped them into categories. Those categories consist of the description and interpretation of the main themes around female monarchy in Imerina Madagascar presented in sequence in the results chapter: the evolution of Merina Monarchy until the queens’ accession, the succession system and the phases of Merina women’s status from the Vazimba era to the nineteenth century.

In Virtue and Virtuality, Janel Mueller reports that “another constituent of female monarchy is the link between gender, marriage and succession” (4). I thus decided to focus on these points while collecting the data on the case studies, namely the Merina queens.

Then, I dealt with the coding. Coding means the adding of sub-units to each category, involving analytical data. It ensures the emergence of theoretical formulations, as well as the arrangement of the categories in a meaningful and hierarchical way, identifying the core and

22 peripheral ones (73). To note, the data gathered regarding the queens primarily focus on how the categories of experience - marriage, succession and legacy - are being debated and negotiated in a gendered perspective within a specific historical context.

A comparative analysis is inseparable from grounded theory in the coding process. In this dissertation, the comparison is applied to specific data on the Merina queens. As comparisons will be drawn from them, our goal is to explore differences and similarities across their experiences. It is worth noting that the use of comparative method in historiography is not usually recommended on account that it is often difficult to find comparable cases (Froeyman 22). In response, Thies explains that a comparative analysis is appropriate provided that the cases are “similar and separate enough to permit treating them as comparable instances of the same general phenomenon” (353). In the context of this study,

I think that the cases - the queens - are similar since they are exclusively female and separate because their reigns differ slightly according to their respective experiences. To note, I felt that studying four cases would offer as much arguments as possible even though taking them would possibly prevent a thorough analysis of each individual case.

4. Research tools

For this study, data collection was done through multiple sources: primary and secondary. Unexpectedly, examining secondary sources before primary sources was efficient.

It permitted me to have a certain ideas on queenship studies, to decide on the appropriate methodology to adopt and to limit the framework of my researches. The first consulted secondary sources mainly cover scholarly and academic papers from which theories on female monarchy could be grasped for building my arguments. I firstly used The Heart and

Stomach of a King by Carole Levin and Charles Beem’s The Lioness Roared since they

23 inspired researchers for further studies on female realm. The primacy of these works resides in the fact that they allowed me to locate some problematic points on queenly reigns. I then searched for as many secondary sources as possible for the subject around the time period in question, shortened that list to the ones in accordance with my field of research and the identified themes and finally supplemented these works with a representative sample of scholarly work on the subject. The secondary sources thus chiefly consist of scholarly works on Merina monarchy and the Merina queens themselves.

The following are the three essential works regarding Imerina Madagascar among the secondary sources. Firstly, Les Souverains de Madagascar: L’Histoire Royale et ses

Résurgences Contemporaines is a work collected by Françoise Raison-Jourde which analyses the political, cultural and social evolution in Madagascar since the seventeenth century. Due to its focus on ideologies of monarchy, it is crucial in the analysis of the shift from male monarchy to female monarchy in Imerina. Secondly, Bible et Pouvoir à Madagascar au XIXe siècle: Invention d’une Identité Chrétienne et Construction de l’État is another work written by Françoise Raison-Jourde providing an analytic description of the evolution of Christianity, primarily in Imerina. I consider this work important because of the infallible link the history of Imerina – especially political, social and cultural – has with Christianity. Thirdly, Pierre

Boiteau’s work Contribution à l’Histoire de la Nation Malgache offers a particular approach to the distant emergence of the Merina society. He puts an emphasis on the importance of the caste system within the kingdom.

With regard to the primary sources, I chose to exclusively focus on works dealing with the evolution of monarchy in Imerina Madagascar. Since it is unsafe to rely on a single historian’s account of the events, I relied heavily on four works as primary sources: Tantara

24 ny Andriana, Rainilaiarivony, un Homme d’Etat, Histoire du Royaume Hova, and Histoire des Rois d’Imerina. Firstly, when studying about the Imerina kingdom, it seems necessary to recall that it is a prerogative to present Callet’s Tantara ny Andriana in the list of primary sources as it provides first-hand description of events in Imerina. In spite of the prominence of the section on Andrianampoinimerina, its lack of account on the queens, and its unreliability as explained in the literature review, I decided to add it as a primary source for it contains far more original assessments than any other work about Imerina.

Secondly, Rainilaiarivony, un Homme d’Etat is a biographical work on

Rainilaiarivony written by Georges-Sully Chapus and Gustave Mondain. The fact that it is based on documented materials containing the private witness of an important character in the history of Madagascar makes its infallible significance. Rainilaiarivony’s thoughts and writings are essential for this study since he was among the privileged ones having a life interrelated with the queens’. In addition, Rainilaiarivony played a key role in the history of the Merina monarchy that Jacques Rabemananjara in an article in Revue des Jeunes referred to him as the soul of the Malagasy nineteenth century8 (11).

Thirdly, Histoire du Royaume Hova by Malzac contributed to the historiography of

Madagascar, by providing accounts about Imerina Madagascar in terms of genealogies, telling and traditions even though it does not equate the worth of Callet’s Tantara ny

Andriana. Fourth is Delivré’s work L’Histoire des Rois d’Imerina, Interprétation d’une

Tradition Orale. I decided to use it among the primary sources for it is a revaluation of the

Tantara ny Andriana. Even if it should be considered as a secondary source, I give it the worth of a primary source since it confronts Callet’s collected data with manuscripts from the nineteenth century.

8 Rabemananjara, Jacques. “Silhouette Nationale : RAINILAIARIVONY, l’homme des trois derniers règnes. Psychologie historique”. Revue des Jeunes de Madagascar. Organe mensuel d’intellectualisme. (1935): 11.

5. Limitations of the research

Although the research has reached its aims, there were some unavoidable limitations worth mentioned. The most important limitation of the present work was to avoid from being biased in the interpretation of the findings regarding the queens. I had to keep in mind that writers make a representation of each queen in different ways that they convey different pictures; I had to avoid from being affected by how the author intended the images to be read.

This is the main reason why I refrained myself from consulting biographical works on the queens. For example, Ranavalo, dernière reine de Madagascar by Le Nadir Balland is based on archival material and contemporary documentation. However, Barrier includes fictive conversations, romances history and ascribes emotions in a way that historians should avoid doing, which is problematic.

From my researches, I discovered that Emma Jane Thomas’s opinion on the gap between accounts on male and female monarchs is accurate. She says that “when the images being disseminated are those of a queen, we turn to transmission, itself a political act” (20).

The concept of “transmission” here is the act of not keeping track of the whole reign of the queen and keeping some aspects aside, unknown to the public. Therefore, one of the limitations of this study is that we ignore how the queens’ contemporaries actually felt about their gender and how they applied gendered ideas to their reign and power. Thus, the sections devoted to the queens will be unbalanced. The section on Queen Ranavalona I covers most points because in my contention, she is undoubtedly the most well-known monarch and accordingly had the most prominence in literary and scholarly work. For the three remaining queens - Rasoherina, Ranavalona II and Ranavalona III - their reigns are provided in shorter sections for the simple reason that the required topics of investigation on their reigns are lacking source material.

The limitations of my researches are primarily caused by the extent of the chosen period and the amount of written works which could not all be accessed to. Another problem

I met in data collection was the unavailability of archival works at the National Archives based in Antananarivo for inventory motives for a period of more than a year. However, I could compensate this misfortune thanks to open-access sources on the Internet such as

Galllica, Google Books, Persee and Archives.org where I could consult works unavailable at local libraries.

CHAPTER III:

CLASSIFICATION AND INTERPRETATION OF THE FINDINGS

1. THE EVOLUTION OF THE MERINA MONARCHY

Before dealing with the case studies of the queens, having an overview of the

evolution of the Merina monarchy from the Vazimba society to the reign of King Radama I

is necessary. This section mainly shows how the analysis of the caste system is inseparable

from the study of the Imerina kingdom as it subsequently led to the Hova-Andriana

alliance.

Recalling Ralambo’s definition of Imerina Madagascar as “the land under the sun” in

Tantara ny Andriana9, Chantal Blanc-Pamard claims in Les Savoirs du Territoire en Imerina that Imerina has long been geographically, historically and politically situated on the center of the attention (1). The ethnonym Merina, according to Jacques Dez in Essai sur le Concept de Vazimba, originates from a shift from the Vazimba era into another state of evolution. He declares that the Vazimba were given the ethnonym Merina once they reached a new level of technological knowledge, notably the mastering of metallurgy, agriculture and farming by the late sixteenth century in Madagascar; in other words a “socio-economic” mutation (11). Jean

Pierre Domenichini offers another hypothesis according to which the Vazimba were

Austronesians who settled in Eastern Africa and who then migrated to Madagascar (9). This corroborates Baron’s claim that “Wazimba” may have been a collective name for several east

African tribes, the original inhabitants of Madagascar (224).

9 Ralambo was the first to refer to his territory as Imerina.

According to Grandidier in Histoire Physique et Naturelle de Madagascar, the twelve sovereigns before the reunification of Imerina in the late eighteenth century can be briefly listed as follows: Rafandrana, Rangita and her daughter Rafohy, Andriamanelo, Ralambo,

Andrianjaka, Andriantsitakatrandriana, Andriantsimitoviaminandriandehibe,

Andriamasinavalona and three of his sons10, Andriantsimitoviaminandriandrazaka and

Andriambelomasina (145). Valette specifies that the Merina monarchy was established by the accession of Andriamanelo; he was the first sovereign of Imerina (1965, 27). To be more specific, Imerina passed from a clan-type polyarchy to monarchy from his accession

(Ralaimihoatra 34).

According to Callet, the delimitation of Imerina was ignited by

Andriatsitakatrandriana (443). He adopted drainage schemes and hydraulic rice cultivation11 factoring the emergence of the Imerina kingdom in becoming the most prominent power in

Madagascar in the late eighteenth century under Andrianampoinimerina. The latter departed

Imerina into six provinces: Avaradrano, Vakinisisaony, Marovatana, Ambodirano,

Vonizongo and Vakinankaratra. It is necessary to note that until Andrianampoinimerina’s accession, Imerina’s power barely distinguished from many of its eastern and southern neighbours and was not expected to rule most of Madagascar in the nineteenth century (Berg

191). Moreover, Imerina was in a constant fear of attack from its neighbours the Sihanaka, the Sakalava and the Bezanozano (Esoavelomandroso 41).

10 Andrianjakamandimby, Andriantomponimerina and Andrianavalobemihisatra reigned simultaneously.

11 The population invested in rice cultivation due to a constant fear of famine from the fifteenth century (Esoavelomandroso 41). Later in late eighteenth century, the monarchy’s gradual assumption of political control is best seen through the changes in property rights entailed by the increasing availability of newly irrigated land (Berg 1981, 306).

The evolution of the Merina monarchy is tightly linked to the emergence of the castes back from the Vazimba era. Malzac reports that the Vazimba formed a multitude of petty kingdoms and more or less numerous families whose eldest or most influential person self- proclaimed king (19): that is the clan-type polyarchy. Manassé Esoavelomandroso refers to this era as Maroandriana, literally meaning several sovereigns (41). The princesses Rafohy and Rangita were among those Vazimba who, like many other petty monarchs in Imerina, had exercised a limited authority over a few subjects.

In Contribution à l’Histoire de la Nation Malgache, Pierre Boiteau expands on the disintegration of the Vazimba society. He suggests that a change in the chief’s title accompanied this disintegration phase; he was given the title of Andriana12, a name with mystical and sacred implications (49). Grandidier suggests that the Andriana belonged to a pure Malaysian race of immigrants, who could impose an authority on the Vazimba inhabitants thanks to a superior stage of evolution. According to Jean Valette in De L’Origine

Malgache, Malaysian immigrants arrived in Imerina around the sixteenth century and integrated the society by marrying their chief to a local female representative of the society

(27). Those Andriana conquered the neighbouring Vazimba societies whose leaders were afterwards called Hova or “free men” because they were released while their people were enslaved. Moreover, it should be noted that the Hova are the descendants of the Vazimba chiefs who were the first occupiers of the central plateau. Later, this group relied on their distant Vazimba lineage to legitimize their subsequent empowerment (Raison-Jourde et alii.

34).

12 Andriana is a diminutive term for “Andrian–kita-maso” which means invisible ancestor; this title has a mythical connotation.

As aforementioned, the caste system is inseparable from the present study since it epitomizes the basis of the Merina dynasty. According to Andrianjafitrimo Lantosoa, “the caste of a person is inherent to his proper nature and is inherited biologically” (54). That implies that castes do not only have biological and social significance but have historical importance as well. For the Andriana group, the establishment of a social hierarchy guaranteed their success in becoming the predominant group. Under Andriamanelo, the official constitution of three fundamental groups marked the beginning of a new era in

Imerina Madagascar : Andriana, Hova and Andevo13 (Boiteau 51).

In Fokonolona et Collectivités Rurales En Imerina, Condominas asserts that the caste spirit was established in order to “concentrate the power in the hands of a sole group” (55).

The Andriana even went so far as to resort to incest14 for keeping the lineage pure from their caste. According to Boiteau, it roots back from King Ralambo who - for reinforcing his design - married his own cousin and instituted the following sub-castes for whom endogamy15 has become imperative: the Andriantompokoindrindra, the Andriamboninolona, the Andriandranando and the Zanadralambo (57). However, the two first sub-castes were allowed exogamy16 and to marry Hova women as well: the Zazamarolahy and the

Andriamasinavalona (Callet 326). Paul Ottino states that endogamy is the demonstration of a desire to exclude strangers from one’s group (337).

13 It is just a general stratification because there are six principal castes: Andriana, Hova, Hova-vao for emancipated slaves, Zaza-hova for enslaved former Hova, Tsiarondahy or royal slaves, and andevo for actual slaves.

14 Back then, incest was not considered taboo unless the children of two sisters are involved. The Merina dynasty prioritized the “lova tsy mifindra”, the marriage between consaguinous groups.

15 Endogamy is the custom of marrying in one’s own group or caste.

16 Following are the seven sub-castes by order of importance: Zanakandriana or Havan’andriana, Zazamarolahy, Andriamasinavalona, Andriantompokoindrindra, Andrianamboninolona, Andriandranando and Zanadralambo.

Even though the Andriana caste handled the supreme power in the society, they could not detach from the Hova chiefs who have already performed an imperative role in the equilibrium of their aristocracy. Boiteau argues that the Hova chiefs could at any time

“separate from the Andriana sovereign if they did not approve his policy”, either through destitution or substitution17 (55). By conquering further lands from petty kingdoms in

Imerina, Andriamasinavalona was the one who attempted to attenuate the influence of the

Hova leaders on the Andriana Sovereign. He divided the kingdom in order to distribute it to his sons, which provoked a civil war until Andrianampoinimerina’s accession18. The latter is viewed as a praise-worthy character in Merina historiography that Maurice Bloch considers him as being as wise as Charlemagne and affirms that he still “holds the place of a culture hero in Merina history” (35).

Actually, the Hova were the ones to put an end to the civil war provoked by

Andriamasinavalona. They proposed Ramboasalama – aka Andrianampoinimerina - the reunification of Imerina19 (Boiteau 66). Ramboasalama was technically designated by his great father Andriambelomasina to reign after his uncle Andrianjafy, whom the Hova judged unable to rule. Since they propelled the new king to the throne, the Hova leaders were rewarded with the status of “tsy maty manota”, the immunity to capital punishment except for high treason (Julien 58). Above all, they occasionally referred to this event for asserting themselves in the royal Court.

17 The Hova’s first actual political meddling was when they substituted Razakatsitakatrandriana for Andriamasinavalona.

18 Andrianampoinimerina literally means “the god that Imerina desires”.

19 They made this proposition in exchange for an exemption. Ascending the throne in Ambohimanga in 1787, Andrianampoinimerina achieved the reunification of Imerina in 1794 to 1795 with the conquest of Antananarivo.

As Gustave states in Institutions Politiques et Sociales de Madagascar, the Hova

“exercised on the royalty a tyrannical tutelage” (433). The influence the Hova chiefs had on

Andrianampoinimerina affected his choice when designating his son Ilaidama as his successor. Valette states that Hagamainty, one of the Tsimiamboholahy chiefs and private

Counsellor of the king intended to influence his decision by expressing his preference over

Ilaidama (1972, 122). The peculiarity of the Imerina kingdom thus lies in the power-sharing between the Andriana sovereign and the Hova chiefs. Andrianampoinimerina’s words in his will - when addressing to the latters - reflected this image of power-sharing: “the

‘fanjakana’20 is not Radama’s, it is yours, the twelve21 Counsellors” (Raison-Jourde 48). The

Hova-Andriana alliance can be reflected in decision-making within the kingdom, notably through the Kabary, a public discussion during which the Sovereign and his Counsellors decide on important matters in the presence of an exclusively male audience (Callet 288).

According to Raison-Jourde, Jean Valette made some remarks on the democratic aspect of the Kabary, that the king represented only the executive organ but the decision belonged to the audience (1983, 50) whereas Boiteau asserts that the Kabary is just the illusion of a democratic government (67).

Following the centralization of Merina power in the eighteenth century, royal symbolism became the basis of the Sovereign’s legitimacy. This legitimacy lies first in its sacred character, symbolized by the ceremony of the king’s coronation and the Royal Bath or

Fandroana22 during which he “absorbs the ‘hasina’23 of the former Kings” (Ellis 420).

Secondly, this sacred character gives him a mediating role between the ancestors and the

20 “Fanjakana” means kingdom

21 The number twelve has a symbolic signification. It means fulfilment.

22 The Fandroana consists of an annual renewal ceremony when subjects of Imerina proclaimed their allegiance to the ruler.

23 “Hasina” here refers to an essence of purity.

33 living. Notwithstanding their invisible presence, the ancestors held a fundamental place in the society; they supposedly ensured the proper functioning of the kingdom provided that the monarch collaborates with them. The ancestors are personified through the sacred royal fetishes or “sampimasina”, which embodies the royal legitimacy, namely during the

Fisehoana24. These royal fetishes explain the existence of “guardians” or mpitana who are put forefront alongside the sovereign and his Counsellors and guarantee the completion of the coronation ceremonial. Overall, these means of monarchical symbolism demonstrate the strategy of the ruling power to impose authority over the subjects (Raison-Jourde 91).

Under Radama I, royal power legitimacy was strengthened by the creation of an army

(Raison-Jourde et alii. 342). Radama’s reign marked a turning-point in the history of

Madagascar, with the penetration of European influences that led to a Franco-British rivalry and the conquest of a great part of the island by the Merina government. In Bible et Pouvoir,

Raison-Jourde offers striking points on Radama’s ambitions and his reigning strategies. She observes that the establishment of Royal services25 and schools was a method for the king to

“assert himself within the family” (119). Such pejorative assumption originates from the fact that Royal services metaphorically reflect the influence the sovereign held over his subjects, whom in other terms were considered as his “slaves” (Raison-Jourde et alii. 45). This idea probably emanates from the gratuitousness of the services as well as from the sanctity of the

Sovereign’s will.

24 Fisehoana literally means “appearance”. The sampy is taken wherever the sovereign is headed to. There are twelve sampimasina or sacred royal fetishes.

25 Royal services are the elements of an institution created by Andrianampoinimerina for “inviting” his subjects to take part in the life of the kingdom. Among the tasks or fanompoana most frequently imposed are the construction of houses and royal residences, the construction of dykes and the transport of necessary materials, military expeditions, missions as royal messengers, messengers and bailiffs, and finally all tasks of general utility or pertaining to the particular service of the Sovereign.

According to Gustave in Institutions Politiques et Sociales de Madagascar, Royal services reflect the theory that the sovereign was using an undisputed and incontestable right in summoning his subjects for any task since he was considered in the Malagasy concept as a

Raiamandreny or parents and discretionary owner, not only of the country but also of the inhabitants (191). In addition, it also provides the linking point between the schools and the king’s conquering spirit. It suggests that since the schools served for the assimilation of conquest spirit in the minds of Merina youngsters, “the school justifies the Sovereign’s claim to be the enlightened master of Madagascar”26. Descartes affirms that schools have served to inspire young Merina to love the sovereign and to refuse foreign dominance (115). Certainly, in Malagasy history, while these points remain in the background, the reforms accomplished under Radama with the Missionaries’ assistance are put ahead and praised as the beginning of a new era of modernity and civilization27.

2. THE PHASES OF MERINA WOMEN’S STATUS

This section chiefly illuminates the state of gender expectations in Imerina triggered by the introduction of Christianity in the nineteenth century. Its relevance with female monarchy lies in the possibility that the queens’ authority was either contested or debated in accordance with these Christian gendered expectations. That said, I think it is necessary first to have some thoughts on the development of women’s status in Imerina prior to the nineteenth century with regard to the consolidation of royal power and the practice of polygamy.

26 In some works, Radama I is called the “enlightened African”. For example in “Radama, or, the Enlightened African: With Sketches of Madagascar” by Mary Ann Hedge.

27 With his work History of Madagascar, Ellis Williams is among the first writers to magnify Madagascar’s opening to the Europeans notably the Missionaries.

In her work entitled Histoire de l’Education des Jeunes Filles Malgaches du XVIe siècle au XXe siècle, Jacqueline Ravelomanana thoroughly relies on myths, stories, proverbs and tales to show the representations of Vazimba women. She argues that they were assigned the particular role of “progenitors” and “universal mothers”, and were given the adjacent symbolism of fertility as water (Ravelomanana 35). Ravelomanana observes that a man and a woman were considered as “walking companions” (64), they were neither opponents nor rivals. It may suggest the existence of gender equality in the Vazimba era.

Andriana women as agents of alliance and peace

Ravelomanana asserts that along with the consolidation of royal power, “images of femininity were reshaped or reactivated” and “women became the main pillar of a new social and political order”. Here again, the importance of the caste system has to be taken into account. Raharijaona and Kus in Longing, Lust and Persuasion assert that women from socially hierarchized societies “know well how sex and the private become political” (1).

They argue that compared to women from lower status, Andriana women held more agency: they had the right to choose the men they desired and divorce the ones who “ceased to please” them whereas women from the lower ranks Hova and Andevo were subject to acquisition and exchange28 (Raharijaona and Kus 1).

Andriana women in Imerina gradually became the stakes of a political strategy based on matrimonial alliances. Victor Raharijaona and Susan Kus affirm that royal marriages aimed at “solidifying military conquest, creating coalition, and pacifying populations” (4).

For instance, the strength of King Andriamanelo doubled by marrying the daughter of King

28 For instance, fifty women from the Andevo caste exchanged with canons under Andrianampoinimerina.

Rabiby called Randapavola (Malzac 32). For the same purpose of securing his authority - when he has conquered a rival - Andrianampoinimerina wed the latter’s wife or one of his daughters. In case of a simple treaty of alliance, like when Andrianampoinimerina gave his sister Ralesoka in exchange to Ravaonimerina the daughter of the King of Antananarivo

Andrianamboatsimarofy (Callet 484). Andriamasinavalona did a similar act by exchanging his sister Ranavalontsimitoviaminandriana. Ravelomanana denounces those acts as devaluating for women (67).

It is necessary to note that Andrianampoinimerina was the one who mostly practiced this institution even if he already had had twelve wives distributed at the twelve sacred mountains of Imerina, referred to as the twelve wives of the government29. Besides, he was influenced by his Counsellors’ advice to take “a young woman” from each conquered people in order to guarantee their obedience (Callet 1001). Raharijaona and Kus criticize

Andrianampoinimerina’s strategy as “aggressive”. They consider that Andriana women were used as “political pawns” and “sexual conquests” (5). They report as well that the king’s wives were ill-treated as they were sentenced to death upon a hint of suspicion of unfaithfulness from the sovereign (Raharijaona and Kus 6).

Polygamy or the “fanjakan-dehilahy”

As shown above, polygamy was a common practice within Merina society in the pre- colonial era. This primitive legislation existed since Princess Rafohy, the origin of oral tradition in Imerina Madagascar. Traditionally, polygamy was considered as fanjakan-

29 Andrianampoinimerina’s twelve wives were Rabodonimerina, Rafotsirahisatra, Ratsiamiantahasoa, Ramiangaly, Rasendrasoa, Ramanantenasoa, Rambolamasoandro, Ramatoaramisa, Rasoamananoro, Ravaonimerina, Ravaomanjaka and Razafitrimo. He referred to his twelve wives as the “silk threads” weaving the unity of the state.

37 dehilahy, which means “male supremacy”: no one can deny to a man the desire to get as many wives as he wants. Ignace Rakoto in Le Marriage Merina asserts that polygamy is the

“manifestation of female sex oppression by the male sex” (31). He declares that a woman is

“alienated” to a man, diving into the households, child rearing and agricultural labour

(Rakoto 32). Andrianampoinimerina reinforced this concept as an alienable right to men. He declared: “it is a prerogative for men to practice polygamy and no one can prevent them from doing so since it is I, Sovereign and Master, who confer on them this privilege” (Julien 320).

That shows that male subjects were fully granted the right to have multiple wives provided that they do not exceed the sovereign’s twelve wives.

Grandidier affirms that the limitation of wives to the number of twelve has been regulated from the reign of Andriamasinavalona. He says that of those twelve, “four were mothers of the four kings who succeeded their father, four gave birth to children who formed the caste of the nobles called Andriamasinavalona and the other four were childless” (61).

Ignace Rakoto asserts that the senior wife, vadibe or vadim-panjakana was originally given a major importance in Imerina since she was the one “able to transfer the right to govern” (32).

He argues that this gives an importance to the vadibe in the succession system. Raharijaona and Kus even referred to Rafotsiramiangaly, Andrianampoinimerina’s senior wife as “queen” by virtue of her “right of the eldest” as she occasionally presided in Royal bath ceremonies or

Fandroana (5). Along with the introduction of Christianity in Imerina Madagascar was the implementation of a set of ideologies in female education, which led to the prohibition of polygamy under Ranavalona II.

Introduction of the ideal Victorian woman: a confirmation of female inferiority

The reign of Radama I was mainly praised due to the settlement of an influx of foreigners who were allowed to freely exercise activities in Madagascar. The London

Missionary society was particularly proactive in Imerina. Not only did they conduct an

Evangelical mission but brought as well British societal values, namely by the implantation of a set of Victorian30 ideologies. In England, the Victorian era marked the development of specific ideas about the social roles of middle class women and men: it represented the height of progress, including the stratification of gender roles. Men and women were placed in two separate spheres, two-sex model which made it possible to speak about women as a collective

(Towns 685). On account that “a woman’s fulfilment is conditioned” by her wifely status, women belonged to the private sphere and an emphasis on women as domestic beings was central to the new ideas of Victorian women. This phenomenon was ideologically named “the cult of domesticity” or “the cult of true femininity”. It held a dominant place in Victorian public discourse and succeeded in being firmly entrenched in everyday lives.

The Royal Missionary College established in Antananarivo in 1824 reflected this separate sphere ideology; a gap was clearly made between boys and girls. Education for girls actually focused on “virtue, good behaviour, wisdom and ‘instruction’” while “intellectual education remained limited and was considered useless” (Ravelomanana 131). Here,

“instruction” connotes the performance of households. Grandidier reports that on June 17th

1822, eighty-five students took exams, boys on reading, calculus and writing whereas girls were tested on their sewing skills (191).

In Sexual Control and the Remaking of Gender, Predelli Nyhagen reports that the

Missionaries’ act in exporting Western notion of female domesticity aimed at “elevating” the status of Merina women (81). On the contrary, Ravelomanana describes that the progressive adoption of European domestic ideology deteriorated women’s status in Imerina. She asserts that “the woman, who was before equal to her companion, now had to please her

30 Life in Britain during the nineteenth century was known as Victorian England because of Victoria’s long reign from 1837 to 1901.

39 surroundings and her husband” (110). She goes on underlying that Missionary families were

“characterized by a spirit issued from less feminist societies” (Ravelomanana 110). It is thus out of curiosity that I wonder whether Merina society was feminist or not. Admittedly, the

Missionaries have employed strategies to model a new woman corresponding to their ideal.

However, it must be suggested that they have “radicalized” and “reinforced” the existing low status of women and their role in the society. Since women were not fully placed on the same social position as men before the missionaries’ arrival, instead of assuming that the missions led to the deterioration of female image, I suggest the term “radicalization”. For instance, traditional games prove that from their childhood, girls’ education imperatively consisted of their future role of wives, mothers and housewives (Camboué 667). Their function primarily revolves around the households (Callet 324).

Marius-Ary Leblond in L’Âme Malgache: La Famille, Les Fêtes et Les Mœurs states that in traditional marriage ceremonial, the parents of both sides make sure that the bride is

“capable of being a good housewife and a source of beautiful children as well” (397).

Andrianjafitrimo explains that in the nineteenth century, the value given to women was defined in accordance with their relation to men. She emphasizes female objectification as daughters, wives and sisters (Andrianjafitrimo 59): a woman did not acquire a place in society until “she became a mother” (60). This fact is demonstrated by the concept of the fahatelontanana, or part of the woman in the community since the community was considered as three separate burdens of firewood, of which one belongs to the woman in case of marriage dissolution. Andrianampoinimerina insisted that men are entitled to a more preponderant part due to their engagement in the army whereas women deserved the minimum as their function was to “remain peacefully at home” (Julien 319). Seen in this light, women have already occupied the private sphere until it became more prominent under the Missionaries’ influence.

Female sexuality in Imerina has not been altered in any way until the Missionaries imposed principles, restrictions and prohibitions about sexuality. Victorian ideology stipulated that a woman’s respectability was defined in terms of dependency, delicacy and fragility; independence was unnatural as it signified sexual deviancy. The Missionaries thus encouraged women to demonstrate sexual purity and sexual disinterest prior to marriage

(Ravelomanana 161). In Madagascar, les Malgaches, Gravier says that before the

Missionaries’ arrival, girls could have sexual intercourse with whomsoever they like, as freely as it was wrong to anyone, which would justify the inexistence of Malagasy equivalents to the words “virginity” and “chastity” (17). Baron states that this facet of sexual freedom made Malagasy people “sink in the depths of vice and uncleanness” (214).

3. THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE SUCCESSION SYSTEM

This part gives an insight into the evolution of the succession system in Imerina

Madagascar from the fanjakana arindra to Andrianampoinimerina’s matrilineary system emphasizing the role of women in royal succession. It primarily gives an explanation to the origin of female monarchy, on how the succession system allowed a woman to ascend the throne. Before that, it is useful to give a brief introduction to the correlation between gender and royal succession in the studies of female monarchy.

Given the evidence of preference for male realm, the absence of a male heir is viewed as a succession crisis. Oeindrilla Dube states that women generally ascend the throne in the absence of male heirs (13). She observes that men are basically the preferred sex for rulership. Obviously, most inheritance laws, even in their diversity, put male heirs in a

41 favourable position because male leadership supposedly creates some stability in the regime

(Corcos 1606). For instance, the Lex Salica in France explicitly excludes female realm, which fed the contemporary notion that women were incapable, not just of governing but of transmitting as well the right to govern (Corcos 1603).

However, Dube claims that a number of succession laws contain principles considered as instruments for enabling female monarchy (14), which was the case in British monarchy.

When the monarch dies, on condition that he has neither brothers nor legitimate children, the crown is transferred to his sister. Besides, it is stipulated that if the male line of a particular heir fails, then the eldest daughter of the most recent male sovereign may succeed to the throne (Corcos 1604). It corroborates the suggestion on female accession via natal and marital relation to men. Significantly, that shows that a woman is valued in the succession system primarily by her motherly or sisterly status.

Succession in the Merina dynasty: the fanjakana arindra

To Rafohy and Rangita were ascribed the creation of the “fanjakana arindra” when they designated the two brothers Andriamanelo and Andriamananitany as next heirs to the throne. Such a simple devolution of succession marked the official beginning of the Merina dynasty (Valette 1965, 26). The fanjakana arindra implies a two-stage succession, the eldest before the youngest. Implicitly, this concept signifies that the “first successor reigns without transferring the crown down to another person of his choice since it must directly pass to the second appointed successor” (Delivré 260). According to Gustave Julien, it was a manifestation of a political will aiming at holding the power in one hand (106).

This rule did imminently cast doubt on future royal designations. Malzac asserts that a woman named Ratsitohina, niece of Andriamanelo and also Ralambo’s wife could have succeeded to the throne by succeeding to the latter, following the fanjakana arindra, but it was her son Andrianjaka who reigned instead (33). This mode of succession arose problems as well with the accession of Ramboasalama aka Andrianampoinimerina when his predecessor and uncle Andrianjafy attempted to violate the concept by passing the crown to his own descendant. That refers to the occasion when the Hova chiefs pushed Ramboasalama to ascend the throne. They justified themselves as follow:

“We have only sworn [...] to follow the will of Andriambelomasina prescribing that

the power should pass to Ramboasalama. We have made a commitment to comply

with this wish; tell us how we are guilty because our resolution is only to prevent the

violation of this political will” (Julien 149).

A dynastic change under Andrianampoinimerina

Jean Valette in Contribution à l’Etude de la Succession d’Andrianampoinimerina intends to analyse the succession crisis occurring at the end of the king’s reign. On the grounds of his multiple wives, Andrianampoinimerina had some difficulties in designating the one to succeed him among his offspring. Even though he had an obvious preference over his younger son Ilaidama, he had to take into consideration the notion of primogeniture31 in the succession system (Valette 1972, 125). As a consequence, in order to make Ilaidama reign, he had to get rid of his eldest son Ramavolahy32. That said, by designating Radama I as

31 Primogeniture is the preference in inheritance to the eldest son.

32 It is necessary to note that Ramavolahy, son of Ramanantenasoa, rebelled against his father due to this preference as he has the full right to succeed to the throne. He was sentenced to death afterwards.

43 his successor, he shifted as well to the rex designatus or the designation of the next sovereign by his predecessor (Rouhette 5).

It was explicitly mentioned in Tantara ny Andriana that his Counsellor Hagamainty asked Andrianampoinimerina to choose among his male children (Callet 1028). Ranavalona’s accession after Radama I then has been the subject of debates on the succession system in

Imerina. According to Annie Rouhette in À propos de la succession au trône de l’Imerina, a modification of the succession principles emerged under King Andrianampoinimerina, marking a dynastic change (6). Moreover, he diverted the concept of the “fanjakana arindra” by marrying his son Ilaidama to his adoptive sister Imavo aka Ranavalona I (Callet 1121). As long as no genuine conditions were applied to the rule of succession, various testimonies exist. Some hypotheses hold that “Andrianampoinimerina would have known in advance the premature death of his son Radama I”33. Others suggest that the father and the son would not have biological filiation, which makes Radama an intermediary sovereign (Delivré 237).

As previously described, women only served prior to the nineteenth century at legitimizing royal power and ensuring its continuity. Still, Andrianampoinimerina’s decision to place Imavo in the next line to the throne had a double implication. Andrianjafitrimo asserts that under Andrianampoinimerina, women as sisters were far from being neglected

(38). By encouraging his sister Ralesoka to adopt Radama and Imavo in the intent to legitimise the succession, not only did he put a highlight on Ralesoka’s motherly status, but on her status of sister as well. Andrianampoinimerina used her status as sister - albeit adoptive - to justify the succession reforms accordingly to the establishment of a dynastic genealogy through women. To note, adoption was a common practice back then and was viewed as a form of alliance.

33 On July 27th 1828, Radama slit his throat during an excess of “delirium tremens” – provoked by an excess of liquor - and died instantly.

Chapus and Mondain argue that Andrianampoinimerina did not impose the very order of succession in order to “give the next designators a certain freedom of choice” (79). Above all, no conditions were laid with regard to gender. This initiative would be a discreet way to skirt a misuse of the principle of primogeniture. Some authors question the authenticity of the king’s succession system and denounce it as a way to justify an usurpation of power by

Ranavalona I. Some historians like Malzac hold a quite neutral stand to whom

Andrianampoinimerina’s strategy to designate Ranavalona I as heir to the throne was

“abnormal” whilst others such as Jean Valette hold a more assertive opinion and insist that the king’s succession laws were “forged afterwards to justify a policy” (1965, 52). Apart from Jean Valette, Grandidier denounces it to be a “tale” created by William Ellis to justify

Imavo’s accession (215).

Favouring female lineage

Matrilineal filiation principles predominate in the studies of dynastic succession in

Imerina (Ravelomanana 35). Rouhette states that the classical theory justifying

Andrianamponimerina’s succession system was the idea that he wanted do determine his succession by women and for women (Delivré 239). He imposed that the future sovereigns had to descend from his grandmother Rasoherina, more specifically from his sisters Ralesoka,

Rabodonandriantompo and Ratavanandriana (6). In L’Histoire des Rois d’Imerina, Alain

Delivré points out that this matrilineary system was favoured by the importance given to the

“hasina”, which can only be transmitted through a feminine line (229). In other words, the hasina is stripped off its power if transmitted through male line (Raison-Jourde et alii 255).

Due to the exogamous system and ideas of sexual taboo in Merina society, marriage between the children of two sisters was regarded as incest whereas the children of two brothers were allowed to marry each other. “It is as if female influence rendered ‘nearness’ of kin too near, while crossing of sex adjusts the balance” Crawley explains in the second volume of The Mystic Rose (232). Matrilateral parallel cousins were forbidden to marry each other because they were “zaza tsy omby kibo” or children born from the same womb (Barry,

91). Moreover, Barry pinpoints that this emphasis on agnatic marriages implies “the valorization of women as the principal vectors in the transmission of identity values” (73).

Dr Toulouse in Bibliothèque Biologique et Sociologique de la Femme asserts that in countries such as the Chibchas of South America, Dahomey, the Damaras of Southern Africa and Madagascar, maternal rights were at the origin of the institution (103), which explains the matriarchal aspect of Vazimba society. He insists that political power was transmitted by the woman and that “she can exercise it on occasions”. On this account, Rafamantanantsoa

Georges claims that sarcastic comments from historians considering the Imerina Kingdom as that of “women” emanated from this exclusive preference over female lineage inheritance to the throne, let alone the reign of four female monarchs in the nineteenth century (705).

Andrianampoinimerina insisted on his preference over female lineage or “junior branch” by recommending future designators to dig up his dynastic genealogy: “when we cannot find a chrysalis on the trees, we look for them in the grass” (Malzac 496). By

“chrysalis”, the king made a reference to his grandmother Rasoherina, whose name literally means so. Malzac argues that this declaration implies that “if one did not find a sovereign in the large ‘home’ that he had indicated - that is to say in the descendants of

Rabodonandriantompo and Ratavanandriana - one would always find in the other

46 ramifications of Rasoherina’s offspring” (496). Julien asserts that Ranavalona I made a secret political testimony on this point in 1835 in the presence of political figures of the time (451).

The following figure shows the genealogy of Queen Ranavalona I, Rasoherina, Ranavalona II and Ranavalona III (Figure 1).

Genealogy of the Merina queens Ranavalona I, Rasoherina, Ranavalona II and

Ranavalona III

RASOHERINA

MOTHER OF

RANAVALONANDRIAMBELOMASINA RANAVALONANJANAHARY

MOTHER OF MOTHER OF

ANDRIANAMPOINIMERINA RAMBOAKOVELO RAZAFINANDRIAMANITRA FATHER OF MOTHER OF MOTHER OF

RAHETY RADAMA I RABODONANDRIANTOMPO MOTHER OF MOTHER OF

RANAVALONA I RAFARAMANJAKA RAMASINDRAZANA RAZAFINANDRIAMANITRA

MOTHER OF MOTHER OF MOTHER OF MOTHER OF

RADAMA II RASOHERINA RANAVALONA II RAKETAKA

MOTHER OF

(Figure 1) (Source: author) RANAVALONA III

Rabodonandriantompo had three daughters. The eldest, Imavo, reigned under the name of Ranavalona I, and transmitted the crown to her son Radama II. The second,

Rafaramanjaka, gave birth to Rabodozanakandriana, who reigned under the name of

Rasoherina. The youngest, Ramasindrazana or Rafarasoa had three sons, Ramboasalama,

Ramahatrarivo, Ramonja and a daughter Ramoma, who ruled under the name of Ranavalona

II.

As for Ranavalona III, it was complicated to establish her descent. At first it was reported that her grandmother was Ramboakovelo, the sister of Ratavanandriana and

Rabodonandriatompo. However, according to the genealogical chart above, Ramboakovelo would have been the mother and not a sister of Rabodonandriantompo and Ratavanandriana.

Razafinandriamanitra, sister of Ramboakovelo, would be the great-grandmother of

Razafindrahety aka Ranavalona III. This latter opinion seems the most probable according to

Malzac (496). Razafindrahety would descend from Rahety, a princess descending from

Razafinandriamanitra.

Therefore, were ineligible to inherit the throne the princes and princesses coming from a male line, which was the case for Rabodonandriatompo. As for Ratavanandriana, her daughter Rangita had been formally excluded from the throne by Andrianampoinimerina due to her unfaithfulness to Radama I. Another reason for being excluded from the throne was twin birth. This was the case for Rahety, a princess whom Andrianampoinimerina cherished and intended to put on the throne. Twins were viewed as bad omen for the throne, that the kingdom would be split in two, which would be against the principle of the fanjakana arindra. It was said that there should not be two pretenders to the throne since metaphorically, that would be putting two bulls in the same park (Grandidier 123).

Docility and submission as factors to female realm preference

It can be suggested that Andrianampoinimerina appointing Imavo aka Ranavalona I in the line of the next heirs to the throne may imply the king’s preference for female realm.

According to Malzac, Andrianampoinimerina affirmed the necessity to favour women to men. The king revealed that “being naturally more docile than a man to the advice of experienced Hova leaders, a woman would provide her people more happiness” (Malzac

228). If incorporated in the context of female monarchy, this Queen-Council imagery is based on two assumptions: “women rulers are more easily influenced than male rulers” (Dube 23) and “women are virtuous their thanks to their obedience to male authority” (Ward 37).

Grandidier confirms as well that a queen is “naturally” more docile than a king (215).

Therefore, it can be suggested that Andrianampoinimerina may have designated Imavo based on one idea: female obedient nature.

CASE STUDIES ANALYSIS:

RANAVALONA I

As aforesaid, Imavo was among the wives of Radama I. According to Grandidier,

Imavo was his senior wife or vadibe because her father saved Andrianampoinimerina from a conspiracy (251). The first point to know about Ranavalona I is then the fact that she was not endowed with an Andriana status, but gained it through adoptive filiation with king

Andrianampoinimerina as a reward for her father. She took the name Ranavalomanjaka shortened Ranavalona while ascending the throne following her husband’s death. The epithet

Manjaka means “Great Chief” and is added to the name of the queen to put an emphasis on the fact that she reigns by herself (Descartes 133). According to James Sibree, elderly officers called the queen as Ikalatokana, which according to him is a familiar term in ordinary talk and literally means “our only lass” (151). This was appropriate to the circumstances as she was the sole woman in the Court, surrounded by a male oligarchy.

Imavo’s accession to the throne stands out by the fact that it did not receive a common welcoming. Historians make assertions that for bringing Imavo to the throne, her partisans executed Radama’s servants including Radama’s uterine nephew the Prince Ratefy34, the main pretender to the throne (Raison-Jourde 126). Thus, by her accession to the throne, her legitimacy was put into question. The reign of Ranavalona I was particularly reputed for the period of persecution it represents in the history of Madagascar. In 1835, the queen gave the

34 Prince Ratefy returned from England where he had attended the annual meeting of the London Missionary Society in May 1821 with four Malagasy young men, sent for their education and who arrived in Madagascar in January 1822. He was among the potential heirs to the throne after Radama I.

Missionaries an ultimatum: either to totally integrate the Merina society and to live under the rules of the monarchy, or to definitely leave the country. Refusal from the Missionaries triggered the period of persecution and marked the beginning of Ranavalona’s reputation as a despotic, tyrannical and xenophobic Queen.

On account of her acts, she is associated to emblematic figures such as Mary I of

England and Catherine II of Russia35 who were despised for the cruelties perpetrated under their reign. She is thus labelled Bloody Mary of Madagascar, Female Caligula, Ranavalona the Cruel or the Jezebel of Antananarivo. Following the expulsion of a handful of Europeans from the country, Gwyn Campbell attributes the adoption of “autarkic policies” to

Ranavalona I. She adopted a system of economic isolation in contrast to her predecessor

Radama I who discovered the superiority of the Europeans’ techniques and attempted to acquire them (395).

Another point which makes Ranavalona I stand out among the queens of Imerina is her motherhood, which affected - though indirectly - her reign. With this in mind, it is essential to give a brief description of her son’s actions notably his participation in the conspiracy of 1857. The prince Rakoton-dRadama often had direct meetings with Merina subjects with the aim of knowing their needs. Finaz36 considers him as “the most accomplished man that can be found on the wild land, as the representative of civilization and religious ideas” (43). Obviously, Rakoton-dRadama’s status as the queen’s son did not ensure

35 The reign of Catherine II is viewed as a period of despotic terrorism. She excluded all foreigners from her dominions from 1831 to 1857.

36 Father Finaz was an apostolic prefect exclusively sent for “the Madagascar mission” in 1850, disguised as a civilian clerk along with two other priests Jouen and Webber.

52 his adherence to the government’s legacy. Growing up in the company of European residents such as Jean Laborde37 accounted for his opposition to the queen.

Jean Laborde was in a shipwreck in Fort Dauphin in 1931, where he was welcomed by a resident and sent to Antananarivo under the care of the queen interested in his crafty and architectural skills38. As a true French Nationalist, Laborde encouraged the prince Rakoton- dRadama in his aspirations to become the “deliverer of the people” and to seal an agreement with France in exchange for a French expedition. He sent letters to the Emperor Napoleon

III39 on the grounds of his desire to put an end to his mother’s acts. Accordingly, the conspiracy of 1857 was an occasion for the prince and his confidents to lead a revolution.

Rakoton-dRadama also confided to the English Missionary William Ellis40 on his plan, who was accused by the French of thwarting the coup d’etat. As a consequence, the failure of the conspiracy generated repercussions, affecting the direct actors and the subjects as well41.

However, against all odds, dictated by a custom of not shedding the blood of any foreigner, the queen spared their lives to the foreign conspirators by forcing them to leave the country.

As for Ranavalona’s private life, the Hova leaders dissuaded her not to engage in an official marriage but to take lovers instead (Finaz 23). The following narrative by Leon Mc

Leod in Madagascar and Its People consists of a little known anecdote showing that Queen

Ranavalona I had received a marriage proposition from a Persian king at the beginning of her

37 Jean Laborde is considered by his fellow countrymen as the French who has most contributed to establish the supremacy of France in Madagascar. Moreover, he was rumoured to be the queen’s lover.

38 “He created cannon foundries, made powder, established factories of soap, indigo, glass, and sweets, and introduced into the island a host of industries hitherto unknown” (Cazeneuve 179).

39 He reigned from 1852 to 1870.

40 It is necessary to note that Ellis never met Queen Ranavalona I in person.

41 The conspiracy of June 1857 was an unutterable failure. It led not only to the banishment of Jean Laborde, Lambert and all the Europeans residents in Imerina but also to the condemnation of several Malagasy to the test of poisons or tangena, to irons, to exile and torture (Finaz 5).

53 reign which represented an occasion for the Councillors to reinforce the idea that the queen could not marry anyone.

Syud Seed, Bin Sultan, Bin Ahmed, Imaum of Muscat, had married the granddaughter of the King of Persia; but in consequence of a quarrel between his Highness and the King of

Persia about the English, he had lost his wife, who was detained in Persia. Under these circumstances, he despatched an Ambassador in his Highness’s frigate Piedmontese, mounting 36 guns, to endeavour to form an alliance with Ranavalomanjaka. The Ambassador was directed to proceed to the coast of Antananarivo, and there offered his master’s hand in marriage to the queen of Madagascar. The queen replied that she had been made happy by hearing from one who had long been in friendship with her father, and she hoped always to hear of his welfare, and wished he could pay a visit to Antananarivo (81).

A queen with multiple lovers

The case of Ranavalona I was then an exception in view of the complexity of her experience in ‘courtship’. According to Callet, the following men were the queen’s lovers referred to as Mpitaiza Andriana: Andriamihaja42, Ravoninahitra, Rainijohary,

Andrianilambola, Rainiharo, Rainivohitriniony, Ratiarailehibe and Ratiaraikely (1150). In

Les Souverains de Madagascar, Raison-Jourde seems indirect by stating that a group of men took advantage of Ranavalona’s position and became her confidants and lovers (344) whereas

Finaz accuses the Hova chiefs of manipulating her. He argues that following the coronation, they prevented an Andriana to be the queen’s official husband, especially Radama’s brothers

42 Andriamihaja was the first Mpitaiza Andriana. He died in 1831 on charges of betraying the queen.

54 leading to the birth of the parallel dynasty of Andafiavaratra43 after Andriamihaja’s death in

1831.

Not only did Ranavalona take lovers but she was as well suggested that if children were born of the unions, “all the children she will give birth to will have Radama as the official father” (Finaz 23); in other words they would belong to the Andriana caste44. Gravier makes a sarcastic remark on this point: “Radama I was dead for fifteen months when he came up with a very Malagasy idea: to visit, to amuse if possible, his inconsolable and faithful widow” (482). The Hova’s proposition is intriguing because although indirectly, the notion of the queen’s femininity associated to her Andriana caste served to the Hova men to ensure a superior descendant propelled at the top of the seven hierarchy of the Andriana caste. It should be noted that in a hypogamic union45, the children followed the condition of the mother. In other words, “paternity was of no concern” (Gunson 139).

Ny Leon Mc Leod says that the Hova chiefs were inspired by the laws on marriage to convince Queen Ranavalona I not to take an official husband. He explains it as follows:

For instance, a man may divorce his wife and take another as often as he chooses. The

woman may live with another man, though she may not marry again; but all the

children born to her after she has been separated from her husband are looked upon as

belonging to him; the second husband does not have the slightest claim to them, and the

mother is compelled to deliver them up to her first husband immediately upon his

claiming them. When a man dies too, any children his widow may afterwards have, are

43 Comprised of Hova chiefs - led by Raharo - the Andafiavaratra gradually demonstrated their ascending power by intervening in the army as well as keeping a relation with the European residents. These ministers come from the two main families of the Hova caste, the Tsimahafotsy and the Tsimiamboholahy. Rainilaiarivony confirmed the rise of this parallel dynasty by building a palace next to the queen’s.

44 On this point, Grandidier suggests that Andriamihaja, the first minister of Ranavalona I is Rakoto’s father.

45 Hypogamy is the act of marrying a person belonging to an inferior group.

looked upon as his; and it is in consequence of this law that Prince Rakoto, son of

Queen Ranavalona, though he was born long after King Radama’s death, is looked

upon as the son of the monarch (138).

Apart from her official lovers, Chapus and Mondain affirm that other Hova men such as

Rainilaiarivony climbed the ladder from being close to Ranavalona I. They say that “the queen had had a genuine passion for Rainilaiarivony and showed it to the young man” (16).

Apparently, Rainilaiarivony acknowledged that he took profit from the circumstances even though he was quite overwhelmed by the queen’s “sexual proposition” since she was so much older than him. However, he didn’t clearly state whether he submitted to the queen’s advances or not.

Spiritual legitimacy as a justification of the body politic

In the Merina monarchy, the sovereign held the spiritual power46 while the subjects incorporate the deep sense of “the divinity that doth hedge a king” (Sibree 152). As mentioned in the section on the evolution of Merina monarchy, the monarch’s power existed on the grounds of this divine authority. The legitimacy of the kings preceding Ranavalona I was mostly spiritual and secular; perceived in a patrimonial sense but first as the landowner of the kingdom. Theoretically all the country belongs to him, since he is master of the lives and property of his subjects, but in practice he exercises his right only on the lands belonging to him. Spiritual legitimacy consisted of one major role, that of an intercessor to serve as a link between the living and the ancestors. As the queens successively held the throne, this model of legitimacy got adapted to the circumstances. Under Ranavalona I, along with its

46 Spiritual power is incorporated in the body politic.

56 spiritual aspect, her legitimacy was mainly based on her being appointed by

Andrianampoinimerina.

In the context of the present study, it is inevitable to put some words on the period of persecution that Ranavalona endorses. It should be noted that the persecution under her reign was in fact a desperate manner to have a hold on her body politic. William Ellis believes that the Merina’s “own religious creeds teach them to regard the spirits of the earliest ancestors of their rulers as among the chief objects of religious homage, and hence also a sort of sacredness is supposed to belong to the reigning monarch as descending from their gods”

(203). The queen’s sacredness then descended from the ancestors’ virtue, which suggests that if her people started detaching from their ancestral faith, the queen would lose her power and authority, which the Missionaries were fully aware of. One of the main objectives of the

Evangelical mission was to make the population absorb the idea that God is the one handling supreme power not the monarch. As a result, it is not surprising that abandoning the

Malagasy religion and adopting the Christian faith was considered as a crime sentenced of the rudest penalty: faith became a factor in determining one’s obedience to the Crown.

As Maurice Bloch states in From Blessing to Violence:

Christianity involved a repudiation of the ancestral customs of the country, established by previous monarchs who were her ancestors. The queen’s legitimacy depended entirely on her relation to her predecessors, who had given the kingdom to her…To deny her mystical power was to repudiate not only her but also the ancestors, the quintessence of good and blessings…Christianity was therefore treason (18).

Ranavalona I: Mother and Sovereign

According to Chapus and Mondain, the persecution tended to soften from 1852 to

1857 (18). This “pause” was interrupted by the conspiracy of 1857 that aimed at dethroning the queen. For the simple reason that the French residents Lambert47 and Laborde were among the conspirators, this event would have hidden a masked attempt by France to accede to the Royal Palace and seize the power. The queen received anonymous letters denouncing

Lambert of suggesting the French Emperor a seizure of Madagascar. Adrien Boudou asserts that Rakoto aka Radama II himself warned his mother of an invasion (9). The prince - leading the conspiracy - estimated a French Protectorate would be advantageous, in a way that it would deliver the subjects from his mother. During his mother’s reign, he had taken on the task of correcting the abuses of the maternal regime by freeing prisoners and supervising the administration of the tangena or “test by poison” with the help of his faithful servants

Menamaso48 if necessary (La France à Madagascar 92).

The prince’s alliance with France was initially set by the signature of the Lambert

Charter on June 25th 185549, attesting his agreement to “the building of an important company” (Boiteau 133) which had the permission to open canals, roads and all other establishments of public utility; in a word, “to do whatever it deems fit for the good of the country” (Grandidier 271). From Rakoto’s correspondences, Boudou proves that the prince asked for a French intervention to dethrone his mother (87): “I want you to tell me the year and the month when the expeditionary force will come to Madagascar”. Raombana -

47 Binding friendship, Lambert and Rakoto sealed their friendship by the oath of blood. The oath of blood consists at drinking each other’s blood, in which a piece of ginger is dipped ; then each drinks a mixture from the same bowl, praying that it may turn into poison for him who fails to keep the oath.

48 This title is the diminutive term for “menatra maso” which literally means “those who avoid glances”. They belong to the Hova caste coming from the South of Imerina.

49 The Chart was ratified on November 9th 1861.

Ranavalona’s Counsellor and private Secretary - similarly shared the Prince’s opinion that “a war would be for the greater good of the poor population of Madagascar, for, being conquered, the queen would be compelled to abandon some of her odious laws, or else she would be dethroned” (Boudou, 34). Faced with this threat of a potential attack from France,

Ranavalona I preferred to face up since in an immediate assertion of courage, she told her son

Rakoto: “let them come” (Boudou, 19).

The conspiracy of 1857 highlighted the relationship between the queen and the prince.

On the one hand is “the tyrannical and superstitious” mother and on the other hand the

“modern” and “saviour” son. One direct effect of the subsequent failure of the conspiracy was the expulsion of Jean Laborde, Lambert and their accomplices. Accordingly, when Finaz referred to Ranavalona I as a good mother, he made an indirect reference to her indulgence toward her son: “Despite the crimes she committed, I am convinced that she is neither as guilty nor as mean as I say…She is a good mother, and has other qualities which would astonish those who only heard about her crimes” (Boudou 57). Boudou asserts that the queen pretended to know anything about the conspiracy for the sake of her son and to avoid imparting “any surmise of his guilt to her” (Boudou 94).

It suggests that although the Prince Rakoto intended to commit an act of betrayal against his mother, she did not give him any hint that could be interpreted as a disinheriting act. It is conceivable that the queen could not risk having her son’s rights of inheritance stripped from him. Consequently, another facet is added to the queen’s portrait - who was usually portrayed as a “callous and capricious woman” and who “abandoned herself to all the violence, to all the perfidy of her nature” (Pfeiffer 47) - that of an indulgent mother. It is worth noting that the name Ranavalona is nowadays boiled down to an insult, a derogatory term used for demanding women or strict mothers (Kamhi 2), probably from the ignorance of such historical fact.

A hard-to-acknowledge monarch

When Ranavalona I ascended the throne, she made a point to reassure her subjects on her ability to govern: “Never say: she is a weak and ignorant woman; she is incapable of governing us” (Malzac 237). Malzac is among the few historians to refer to the reactions when a woman became a monarch in Imerina. According to him, at the death of Radama I,

France thought it possible to send an insignificant expedition to Madagascar on July 9th 1829 in order to take back a part of the east coast where Radama pulled out in 1823 a stone of possession France put there. Instead of sending a thousand and hundred men, they sent a small army of six hundred men. This shows that the French underestimated Ranavalona and thought “to get more easily from a woman who became queen of the Hova” (Malzac 240).

However, it turned out that the Merina government fought back and set up a defence system.

In Madagascar, Past and Present, the writer50 claims that an objection acknowledging a woman as the sovereign occurred in the provinces among the chiefs, who preferred to die as an assertion that the country needed to be led under male supremacy (48). The following anecdote is taken from his narratives:

One sturdy old chieftain, being suspected of a refractory spirit, was challenged by a royal detachment to yield up his arms and acknowledge the sovereignty of the queen. ‘What!’ he exclaimed, ‘would you have me submit to a woman? Should I do so, tell me how I am to render an account of the matter to my wives?’…presenting his bosom with a firm front of the soldiers, his life paid the penalty of his principles and his bravery” (48).

This anecdote is in contrast with Grandidier’s account: “Every queen in Madagascar is considered a man: when I was told about the King of Menabe and his sister Tsinaotsa, I

50 Madagascar Its Past and Present is written by an unknown author, just referred to as a Resident.

60 was told: Ny Mpanjaka aminy anadahy, ‘the King and his brother’, because a princess fit to succeed the king is not, as we Europeans in Europe believe, of female sex” (254).

Even though it is not confirmed, the above report shows that Ranavalona I encountered by her accession problems of legitimacy arising from her gender. It was shown as well that the accession of a woman required the creation of the Mpitaiza Andriana as a manner for the Hova to participate in the affairs of the kingdom and have some hold on the queen’s power. The above analysis reveals also two depictions of Ranavalona I, that of an indulgent mother and that of a cruel queen.

(Photo 1: Rasoherina)

RASOHERINA

Occasionally serving no more than in anecdotes about Radama II, no serious scholarly work is dedicated to examining Rasoherina’s period as queen regnant. As the senior wife of

Radama II, Rasoherina had already played a role in the monarchy in her pre-queenship life.

She was the first to be officially given the title of queen, more specifically of “queen consort”; she took part in the affairs of the State albeit in an indirect manner. For example, according to Françoise Raison-Jourde, Rabodo aka Rasoherina involved herself in the competition between Catholics and Protestants by using Christian songs as a political weapon51 in order to balance the influence both sides held on the government. By then, her actions were encouraged by the king who before long wished that his wife participated in politics. In her conjugal life, she was in rivalry with Rasoamieja, a slave to whom her husband showed a particular preference.

Following the murder of King Radama II52 on May 12th 1863, Rabodo was offered the crown. Prior to her coronation, Rainilaiarivony was commissioned to read documents to her containing articles on the conditions for her accession to the throne, which in consequence made her a constitutional queen. The queen agreed to the conditions and submitted herself to everything she was asked to do out of fear of being treated like her late husband Radama. Historians argue that the symbolism of the queen’s power was established by Rasoherina’s reign. Likewise, on April 4th 1864, the Missionary Robert Toy alluded to her symbolic figure in one of his correspondences with England. He denounced the Prime

51 The queen, worried about the strength of the pro-Protestant (and English) movement in the city, found a counterbalance in the musical talent of the Catholic mission, to whom she entrusted her singers (Jourde 252).

52 King Radama II died strangled in the Royal Palace.

Minister Rainivohitriniony of exercising tyranny in Rasoherina’s name (Chapus and Mondain

397).

Moreover, she agreed to marry Rainivohitriniony, who subsequently received the title of Prime Minister. It was accomplished discreetly without being formalized with a ceremony.

However, their marriage was interrupted by Rainivohitriniony’s destitution following his tyrannical actions in the Court53. Influenced by the oligarchy’s advice, Rasoherina appointed

Rainilaiarivony to take his brother’s place. This substitution automatically led to the queen’s involvement in a second marriage with Rainilaiarivony. Jacques Rabemananjara suggests that her second marriage with Rainilaiarivony at this time was considered liberating for the queen, who was psychologically degraded as she was trapped in a thorny relationship with

Rainivohitriniony (18).

“She is not a woman, she is a man”

A common point shared by Radama I and Radama II is the fact that their reigns are put in comparison with the reign of Queen Ranavalona I; their reigns are both portrayed as periods of light compared to an era of darkness. Another common point to be taken into consideration is the possibility that they believed in female ability to reign like

Andrianampoinimerina even though their motives may not be the same as the latter’s. Two narratives in Les Souverains de Madagascar and Tantara ny Andriana urged me to establish this suggestion. Radama II, in February 1863, threatened by the Ramanenjana54 movement - considering his eminent destitution - reportedly declared the crown to his wife Rabodo. The

53 Apart from his demeanour, suspicions on the return of Radama II spread in the kingdom pushed the Prime Minister Rainivohitriniony to persecute suspects without prior notice to Queen Rasoherina.

54 The Ramanenjana provoked a mutiny during which several men invaded the city.

Ramanenjana, as a reminder, was a large civil commotion during which people supposedly possessed by the spirit of Ranavalona I denounced Radama II for “giving the country to foreigners”55 (Boiteau 141). The intriguing detail is the fact that Radama referred to Rabodo as a man. According to Raison-Jourde, Radama II declared: “I transferred my power to

Rabodo, telling her: you are a man, let me obey” (259).

As for Radama I, Callet reports in his narratives that the king designated in his last hours his daughter Raketaka heir to the throne. The witnesses - Tsiaribika and Tsimijay - publicly echoed his words: “even though she is a woman, she will wear the military uniform and rule the kingdom, which will become under her spectrum, even bigger and more glorious” (Ayache 206). The witnesses’ interpretation is all the more consequential and more significant in the theoretical context of this research: “Raketaka is not a woman but a man, she will ride on horseback, wear crowns, be dressed in gold, wear epaulettes, she will command and I will obey” (Callet 1121). In other words, they referred to Raketaka as a man.

The shift to a genuine constitutional monarchy

The fact that Rasoherina was proposed conditions before being sacred queen proved that neither her designation by Radama II nor her descent sufficed anymore to guarantee her accession: not only was she royal by blood but more than just in blood she inherited as well the power over her late husband’s death. The Hova chiefs gave her the crown provided that she submitted to an official agreement to “no longer pronounce a death sentence without the consent of the senior officials, not promulgate any new law without the authority of the

Counsel and to never fire the army” (Chapus and Mondain 46). Chapus and Mondain

55 It should be noted that the overthrow of Radama was not the only occasion when the Ramanenjana manifested itself.

65 denounce that such act led to “a change in the principles in the conduct of the State, a genuine political revolution” (46), namely the establishment of a constitutional monarchy and the naming of Rainivohitriniony as the Prime Minister.

However, not only did Rasoherina have to acquiesce the above conditions but she had to marry as well the Prime Minister Rainivohitriniony. It was then under her reign that the

Hova leaders laid out a clear policy for handling the power in the dynasty: by marriage. To recall, Ranavalona I had multiple lovers instead of an official husband. It was thus clearly an attempt by the Hova to impose limitations on her autocratic power. Thus, Rasoherina’s reign was the first to really show the correlation of gender with the exercise of queenly power in the context of female monarchy in Imerina.

Asymmetry in spousal division

Various scholars argue that the power-sharing dynamic between the queen and her husband is naturally a crucial element to explore in female monarchy because it marks the difference between male and female realm (29). Michelle Beer in Practices and

Performances of Queenship reports that when a man holds the throne, his wife plays the role of the “woman”, as the mistress of the household (191). Put in another way, the queen consort demonstrates physical grace, beauty and modesty (Beer 193). Her function is summed up in sociability and hospitality, except in exceptional cases when the king is absent and she participates in the affairs of the state.

When Rasoherina was the queen consort beside Radama II, she played this role through occasional appearance in the Court and in diplomatic meetings with European visitors. This concept of power-sharing dynamic is called “asymmetry in spousal division”. In

66 female realm, sharing of duties often made queenly reign run more effectively as the queen gets an advantage from her husband’s support; the latter is expected to shoulder the kingdom’s military responsibilities and most of the administrative tasks. On the contrary, when a woman holds the crown, it is more likely that her husband takes part in the affairs of the State and leads the most important institution in the monarchy. When Rainilaiarivony was married to Rasoherina in 1864, he immediately took the reins. He dealt with administrative and political affairs as well as agricultural, commercial and maritime activities. Thus, it suggests that royal duties were not divided with equity within the royal couple.

It seems plausible that Rasoherina’s widow status was advantageous for the Hova leaders. She was the first to be imposed marriage as a condition to access to the throne which implies that the rex designatus and her descent from the favoured female lineage was not valid anymore. The Hova definitely started their rise under her reign as they took hold of the affairs of the state by creating the Primature function of the king consort and leaving the queen with a symbolic status.

(Photo 2: Ranavalona II)

RANAVALONA II

The person of Queen Ranavalona II is characterized by her infallible commitment to

Christianity. She was mainly attributed various qualities: generosity, mercy, and kindness.

Before she ascended the throne, Ramoma56 received the education of a true Christian. Under the reign of her aunt Ranavalona I, she attended clandestine meetings. During the reign of

Ranavalona II, Christian civilization and education developed much in the kingdom. The first point that marked her realm is the reforms in the procession during her coronation ceremonial. She publicly reaffirmed her Christian convictions by refusing to be crowned with the help of the idol guardians for it was to God alone that she wanted to pay homage and ask for blessing. She made her first appearance with a table on her right on which a Bible was exposed. The second point was her subsequent Baptism with the Prime Minister, coupled with their marriage at Church during which they promised to live in obedience to the precepts of the Gospel (Baron 210). Such demonstration proved the State’s official recognition of

Christianity, amplified by the destruction of the royal “sampy” or fetishes in 1869. The queen confiscated fetishes all over the kingdom by declaring that they were her property.

In the context of her marriage, Ranavalona II had an unusual reaction with unprecedented outcome in the Court. Even if she displayed discretion in her private life, it was obvious that she was dictated by her Christian motives. The queen fiercely showed her refusal to be involved in a polygamic marriage. She asserted that she would marry the Prime

Minister Rainilaiarivony provided that he divorced his first wife Rasoanalina57. The queen made such a demand due to her commitment to Christian ideologies, by arguing that she could not tolerate polygamy, a demoralizing culture in opposition with the sanctity of family

56 Ramoma is her pre-queenship name.

69 home. She integrated this action in her policies and imposed the prohibition of polygamy as the 50th article of the 305 articles in 1878 promulgated on March 29th 1881. As a consequence, the Prime Minister had to become monogamous.

A queen against the “fanjakan-dehilahy”

According to Ignace Rakoto, when a man takes a second wife, the parents of the latter cannot do anything but agree to the union on the grounds of the fanjakan-dehilahy (28).

When Raison-Jourde asserts in Bible et Pouvoir that “the Imerina kingdom is presented in the missionary narratives as one of the most beautiful cases of successful conversion” (4), she refers to the victory of Christianity by the coronation of Ranavalona II in 1868. Her coronation entailed the official recognition of Christianity in Madagascar, which was reflected by her legacy. The fact that she was the first to rule according to an official ideology

- namely Christian - affected her private life, and subsequently the whole kingdom. Queen

Ranavalona II put the Prime Minister in a rather embarrassing position by negotiating her marriage. This will be the main point for our considerations here.

By declaring that she wanted to live according to the principles of the Gospel, the circumstances demanded that either Rainilaiarivony divorces his first wife Rasoanalina, or he withdraws from his post. For fear of being supplanted by another man obviously, the Prime

Minister chose to keep his power and sacrificed his marriage instead (Chapus and Mondain

307) by giving his wife Rasoanalina a sum of 20,000 francs in cash, a house, a horse and cattle (Chapus and Mondain 308). In reality, this gesture is a customary act in the practice of polygamy for marriage dissolution. At the time, when a man repudiates his wife, he offers her the taha, a kind of damages, of thought or repayment, a compensation of humiliation

(Gustave 317). However, if the woman rejects the taha, the man should dismiss her in the

70 regular forms of divorce (Gustave 320). It is not in our knowledge if the Prime Minister has done so; otherwise it would imply that he has committed a delict.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister invented a striking argument to sidestep negative judgments from the subjects. Since his first wife belonged to the Hova cast, he explains away that it was for the inferior rank to retire. Here again, the caste is used as a justification to a political decision. The Prime Minister’s divorce was an unprecedented act in Imerina to the degree that no queen before dared asserting herself in the royal couple. Furthermore,

Rainilaiarivony’s official marriage with Queen Ranavalona II was once more a confirmation for the establishment of the Andafiavaratra (Raison-Jourde et alii 359). Having been set aside during Radama II’s reign, accepting the queen’s conditions was the only way for him to preserve the ascending supremacy of his caste.

Ranavalona II: a submitted Queen

“A sovereign was regarded as having dominion over the State, while a husband was deemed to hold dominion over his wife” (Alison Weir, Historical Notes: Why did Elizabeth I never marry? www.independent.co.uk). This quote exposes the complexity of marriage when it comes to female realm. Marcelline Razafimbelo affirms that “a woman is convinced that her place is in the background, behind her guardian’s” (1). Guardian here means husband as it connotes the man’s power over his wife. Put in the context of the royal couple, it is conceivable that the queens of Imerina willingly agreed to submit to their husbands regardless of the fact that they were monarchs.

Some scholars hypothesise that this submission within the royal couple occurred under Ranavalona II. Delivré reveals that the queen was overly submitted to Rainilaiarivony at such a high point that the foreigners called the latter “the real king of Madagascar”58 (130).

Similarly, Chapus and Mondain assert that the queen was just a symbol of monarchy as her husband the Prime Minister Rainilaiarivony handled most of the affairs of the State (312).

Other authors also call into question the circumstances surrounding Ramoma’s designation and suggest that she was appointed to the throne because of her obedient character.

In “Recherche sur la conversion de Ranavalona II”, Daniel Ralibera reveals that

“among the members of the royal family, Rainilaiarivony could not have found a princess less able to evade his ascendancy and to restrict the exercise of his power” (304). He specified as well that the queen was “an instrument” in the Prime Minister’s hands. Let alone the historical context of the Hova’s influence over the sovereign, it represents a typical context in female monarchy. The logical continuation of marriage within the royal couple is the possibility that the role of the queen changes in some ways since the husband presently takes the reins in their relationship and also in the conduct of the affairs of the State.

Women empowerment through Christian motives

The code of the 305 articles ratified under Queen Ranavalona II marked the reform and the modernization of the country in the legal field. The queen proscribed an article on repudiation. She prohibited unilateral repudiation by husbands: men no longer could repudiate their wives without a valuable motive. From her reign, both women and men could complain to the authorities if there is any reason for divorce whereas in the time of

58 “He was the real King of Madagascar for thirty years, having been the husband of the three queens who reigned successively” (Cazeneuve 79).

Andrianampoinimerina “it was the husband, the head of the family, who is sovereign master and must, yes or not, repudiate his wife” (Grandidier 134). Such circumstances prove that on account of her Christianity, Ranavalona II gave marriage the characteristics of “a sacred and binding contract” (Baron 215). Above all, her act was clearly an attempt in evolving women’s status by giving them a hint of power in their couple. To sum up, it appears that Ranavalona

II made use of her Christian motives to cope with her marriage responsibility. From her personal experience, by prohibiting polygamy, she could affect the situation of women in her kingdom. She thus gives the image of a woman who has her own convictions, which is in contrast to the preconceived historical picture of a passive queen most historians made of her.

(Photo 3: Ranavalona III)

RANAVALONA III

Princess Razafindrahety was appointed as successor to the throne following the death of Ranavalona II. Although her designation was assumed to be legitimate59, the Prime

Minister’s motives in appointing her arouse some suspicions due to the current death of the princess’s husband Ratrimoharivony. To be more specific, Rainilaiarivony was accused of getting rid of the latter in the aim of putting Razafindrahety on the throne and thus becoming his wife.

Due to the eminence of French colonialism under Ranavalona III, the government had to face the latent existence of Franco-Malagasy wars, from 1883 to December 1885, the signing of the Peace Treaty between the two countries. This war was mainly the effect of the refusal from the Imerina kingdom to recognize land ownership to Europeans in Madagascar, in accordance with the treaties of 1865 and 1868. Throughout these political conflicts with

France, Rainilaiarivony made every attempt to carry out a policy of resistance, which displeased the queen. She accused him of exacerbating the circumstances and blamed him

“for being the cause of incessant complications” (Chapus and Mondain 329) instead of capitulating.

Le Myre de Vilers - an experienced leader in colonial bargaining - during his visit to

Antananarivo - commented on the queen’s resentment and despise for the Prime Minister, who he refers to as “the dictator”. He declared that the queen was in a state that she “no longer passively obeyed” to the Council. In addition, she apparently confided about her sentimental life, confessing that she “preferred to die and join her late husband who made her

59 By this, I mean her legitimacy by designation.

75 happier”. Marius Cazeneuve, who was the queen’s intimate Counsellor and doctor, has established a portrait of Queen Ranavalona as a sad, lone woman, isolated in her palace: “Oh!

If I were a mother, she said to me sometimes, I would not feel so alone in the world while I am condemned to know neither the love of a husband, nor the love of a son! Do you see no remedy for my trouble?” (233). This is another fact which would explain the queen’s indifference with regard to the one who is supposed to be her husband. This testimony joins the statement of Chapus and Mondain, according to whom the Prime Minister accused the queen of being a bad wife as she was reluctant to fulfil her wifely responsibilities.

Rainilaiarivony revealed that Ranavalona had never considered him a true husband and that she had cheated on him (Chapus and Mondain 384).

The tension between the queen and the Prime Minister was mimicked by their supporters, who led movements in order to show their dissatisfaction. Those in favour of the queen were violent, aspire to overthrow the Prime Minister and encourage the queen to agree to the French Protectorate proposition. They even went far as to propose that the queen should be replaced by Prince Ramahatra, who, “as a Catholic, must possess, by this sole fact, all the virtues necessary to a prince placed under the French protectorate, and all the loyalty which a Protestant is naturally unable of” (Lux 28). In 1895, by reason of military weakness, the Merina power could not reaffirm a resistance to the invasion of a French expedition in the city. Apropos, Ortus in Madagascar et les Moyens de la Conquérir: Étude Militaire et

Politique asserts that this military defeat occurred because the kingdom had fallen into a distaff60 (96). Subsequently, the Prime Minister was exiled to Algeria, leaving the queen to struggle alone in a short-term guardianship under the French before being exiled to La

Reunion and then dying in Algeria in 1917.

60 The original expression used by Ortus is “tomber en quenouille” which connotes that the army was neglected because the power was in women’s hands.

A premeditated widowhood

It proves difficult to establish hypotheses regarding the queens’ private lives as they remain largely undocumented. Yet, notwithstanding the political nature of the queens’ marriage, it is logical that it affected their sentimental lives. That was exactly the case for

Ranavalona III. Before she ascended the throne at her nineteenth year-old, her husband

Ratrimoharivony died. Her late husband’s close relatives testified the possibility of a murder, accusing Rainilaiarivony of poisoning him in order to “facilitate Razafindrahety’s accession”.

Chapus and Mondain explain the circumstances as follows:

Taking advantage of a slight indisposition of the prince, the Prime Minister would

have invited him to come to lodge at his house, and would have made him bring

remedies and food prepared to the Palace, which would have caused the death. Yet,

these accusations are undocumented or supported by any material evidence (254)

Two factors could be considered for such allegation. Firstly, Razafindrahety was the last eligible heir to the throne in the genealogy that Andrianampoinimerina established. The designators had to go as far as possible to the feminine lineage as the following figure shows

(Figure 2):

Genealogy of Queen Ranavalona III

RAZAFINANDRIAMANITRA

MOTHER OF

RAHETY

MOTHER OF

RAZAFINANDRIAMANITRA

MOTHER OF

RAKETAKA

MOTHER OF

RANAVALONA III

(Figure 2) (Source: author)

Secondly, given the fact that it became customary for the queen to get engaged to the

Prime Minister right after the coronation, it is logical that the Prime Minister would be the subject of such accusation. To note, another heir to the throne was Razafindrahety’s elder sister, princess Rasendranoro, though she was not favoured by the Prime Minister and above all already engaged. In a medium, her marital status was so important that she was not deemed convenient for the crown. However, in another medium, becoming a queen would imply that she divorces her husband. As a matter of fact, aside from the feminine lineage

78 succession which has favoured the accession of a woman to the throne, singlehood was such an essential element that Razafindrahety’s widowhood arose suspicions.

The fact that the Prime Minister was the main actor in the designation of the queen allowed us to put a highlight on this point. On virtue of her youth and beauty, the princess

Razafindrahety seemed to be the best choice for him to ascend the throne and to “rule” beside him. Thus, even if the allegations against Rainilaiarivony are not materially proven, they should not be excluded. The fact is that Razafindrahety had to ascend the throne and the

Prime Minister would ensure her coronation by every means.

Sentimental discord within the royal couple

It should be acknowledged that being engaged in a marriage demanded from Queen

Ranavalona a minimum of sentimental commitment to her husband. As stated previously, according to Chapus and Mondain, the Prime Minister confessed during his exile in Algeria that the queen was not a good wife. He revealed that she did not behave like one, that she was not “grateful” toward him (Chapus and Mondain 384). Likewise, he revealed that his royal wife had seen lovers in secret61. On the basis of her widowhood, Ranavalona’s position is defensible because it can be at the origin of her presumed indifferent attitude. Given the circumstances of her husband’s death, she had every right to distrust Rainilaiarivony. Not only was she forced to marry him but – as explained previously - he was also the man against whom the charges of her husband’s death were made.

61 Particularly a prince called Ramahatra with whom she supposedly spent her wealth.

On the abyss of French colonization, the relationship between the Prime Minister and the queen affected the affairs of the State. Let alone their sentimental discord, they had a disagreement about the influence France held on the country, more specifically its gradual involvement in the administration of Malagasy internal affairs. The royal couple did not manage a working relationship. On the one hand, the Prime Minister resisted the pressure from French diplomats and insisted on declaring a war despite the precariousness of the army62. On the other hand, the queen’s frequent meeting with the French diplomat Le Myre de Vilers reinforced her reluctance to wage war and pushed her to accept the French protectorate.

Still, it is worth noting that the queen’s behaviour was contradictory. On the one hand, in private, she confides to her visitors on the benefit that would be the French Protectorate while on the other hand she publicly acts as a queen ready to make war against the said

Protectorate. The Captain S. Pasfield in The True Story of The French Dispute in

Madagascar reports a discourse that the queen made on that account: “Should anyone dare to claim even a hair’s breadth, I will show myself to be a man, and go along with you to protect our fatherland” (161). At the end of January 1895, she warned the provincial governors and the Malagasy people to prepare for the war.

The portrait of a defeated queen by French

In The French and the Queen of Madagascar, Robert Aldrich says that the French put gendered perspective on the queen. After her destitution, they attempted to demean

Ranavalona III by spreading the rumour that the she had “a packet of obscene photographs”

62 That is despite Rainilaiarivony’s efforts in reorganising the army. Not only did he buy weapons, but he also recruited European instructors (Boiteau 172).

80 in her room. It is stated that they discovered those said materials when making an inventory of the objects in the queen’s room (226). Aldrich goes on asserting that such act “added a stroke of immorality” to the queen’s portrayal (249). In front of almost Christian subjects, disparaging the queen’s image on account of female sexual incongruity was a mean for the

French to reinforce the motives of her destitution. It is worth noting that indigenous sexuality had been an enormous dilemma to colonizers (Barman 239), on which they mainly based

European chauvinism, the difference between savage and civilized.

In Les Derniers Jours de la Cour Hova, Alfred Durand made some comments about the circumstances around the destitution of Ranavalona III. He points out that the queen was breaking down in tears while she left the palace and the country. He considers such reaction as the reflection of “an image of woman frailty and moral laxity”. By frailty he refers to the negative preconceived character of a woman as a breakable, weak and delicate creature.

Moreover, in her correspondences with the French, Ranavalona III showed herself subservient and defeated. In her correspondences with the French from Algeria, she signed

“Your servant, Ranavalona III” (231).

The above portrait shows that Ranavalona’s young age made her seem a vulnerable queen. Firstly, her portrayal of “ambivalent queen” implies that she did not develop a clear policy of her own. Secondly, her distrust of her husband Rainilaiarivony shows that she was not satisfied in her love life. Overall, it suggests that she did not know how to balance her queenly experience: her personal life affected her that she became irresolute in regards to the life of the kingdom.

DISCUSSION

1. CONSTRAINT TO WIFEHOOD: A SHIFT IN THE ROLE OF THE

ANDRIANA WOMAN

“The means by which a queen negotiated the relationship with her husband in the context of marriage…is crucial to our understanding of the evolution of female kingship”

(Beem 30). This statement by Beem in The Lioness Roared highlights the importance of marriage in the study of female realm. Whilst the queens of Imerina have emerged from history with differing historical representations, they are in fact similar enough when their marital experiences are compared.

From the analysis of the case studies, the main point is that the prominent role of the

Hova leaders in the successive queenly reigns in Imerina puts an emphasis on the link between succession, marriage and gender. On the subject of succession, history shows that the coronation of the queens was fully in accordance with the succession system established by Andrianampoinimerina; they all descend from the desired feminine lineage. However, taking into account other historians’ opinion, I contend that the queens’ accession partly stemmed from political manipulation from the Hova to capitalize on female realm. It is important to recall that under Radama II, the Andafiavaratra were removed from power in favour of the Menamaso. This proves that the Hova could only exert an extensive dominance in the political sphere under a queenly reign. To be more explicit, they ensured that women successively inherit the throne despite other eligible male heirs to the throne.

As Chloe Preedy states, a queen’s “physical femininity could never be ignored” by male councillors (Preedy 55). For the Merina queens, their femininity served as political instrument at the Hova’s disposal, in particular as regards marriage. Besides, I think that the use of the term “marriage” is a delicate matter in the study of female monarchy in Imerina due to the complexity of the queens’ marital experiences.

In this respect, I suggest that “marriage” implicitly signified a responsibility for the queens to protect the supremacy of the Andriana cast. It can be argued that the Hova chiefs put Ranavalona I on the throne and suggest her to take official lovers instead of marrying an

Andriana with the aim of exerting pressure and test her willingness to preserve the Andriana-

Hova alliance. It implies the reversal of the power: the queen is at the mercy of the Hova leaders. She did not have any other choice in fear of jeopardizing the supremacy of her caste.

Under Rasoherina, the Hova did not restrict their power with a simple proposition since they blatantly compelled the queen to get married with one of them. This constraint to queenly wifehood served them to achieve their rise.

Overall, these points offer a shift in the role of Andriana women in Imerina. It is useful to recall that Andriana women gradually became the stakes of a political strategy based on matrimonial alliances under the previous male reigns in order to maintain the purity of the Andriana lineage. To put it another way, they served at preserving Andriana supremacy. Thereafter, this study showed the manner how the queens’ belonging to the

Andriana caste is interrelated to their exercise of power. When an Andriana woman ascended the throne, she implicitly played a double role: as a protection shield for the Andriana against an imminent decline and as a ladder to supremacy for the Hova chiefs.

Considering the hypothesis that Rainilaiarivony made it his task to put Ranavalona II on the throne, what is taken for granted is that the circumstances turned against him. The case

83 of Ranavalona II was indeed an exception because not only was it the sole occasion when the

Andriana queen had an ounce of power on her marriage constraint but it was as well the only time when Christian influence did interfere directly in the Court. She did not refuse marriage, which confirms the previous argument on the queen’s responsibility with regard to her caste.

However, she refused to get engaged in a polygamic relationship. Ranavalona II addressed the problematic of her queenly responsibility by turning it into her advantage and her

Christian convictions by posing a dilemma to the Prime Minister.

Technically, this queen evokes an image of a woman who makes life choices by reconciling with her problems and responsibilities. Still, it is not inconceivable that she intended to reverse the situation and put pressure on the Hova leaders. If the Prime Minister refused to submit to a compromise, she could obviously threaten to marry an Andriana. In this particular case, the Hova chiefs had to prove their commitment to the Andriana-Hova relation via Rainilaiarivony even though the latter had his own convictions.

2. A COMPLEX MARRIAGE

As mentioned before, Ranavalona I was the only queen to whom the Hova leaders did not impose an official marriage (Raison-Jourde et alii 359). Given the fact that she had several lovers or the other way around, was a mistress, Ranavalona I was involved in a polygamous relationship. Scholars affirm that the existence of polygamy was the best demonstration of gender inequality in the Imerina kingdom. It can be inferred that her queenly function did not impede her from living the same situation as her female subjects who had to cope with their husbands’ polygamic acts. The difference between Ranavalona I and her male predecessors lies in the fact that having multiple lovers tarnished her image in popular opinion whereas the kings were not judged in any way. It corroborates Retha

Warnicke’s assertion on the impartiality of opinions on female and male monarchs: “while without worrying about blemishing their honour, kings could beget illegitimate children, queens regnant could not take lovers without besmirching their reputations and becoming the subject of gossip and innuendo” (32).

According to Christine Corcos, traditional gender norms that “required a wife, no matter her rank, to be subservient to her husband” constitute the risk in female realm (1617).

In this study, an emphasis on the queens’ caste was inevitable. The complexity of the queens’ marital experiences lies in fact that they were both involved in hypogamic marriages, which means that they got engaged with men who belonged to a caste inferior to theirs. This situation was obviously a sacrilege, but no subject had dared to make a reference to. Chapus and Mondain even state that considering her particular intransigence on the caste issue, we applauded the initiative of Ranavalona I of taking a Hova man as her official lover (308). It must be remembered that within Merina society, “one had to get married in one’s own group”

(Andrianjafitrimo 53). Endogamy was such a significant element that transgressing it was considered the most outrageous of acts.

Crawley in The Mystic Rose asserts that the endogamous aspect of a society means that the population is divided into unequal castes and that the superiors are taboo to the inferiors (435). To note, in Malagasy, the practice of tabooing is the act of “superstitiously refraining from the performance of certain action” (Standing 252). Transgressing the rule on endogamy was considered as an insulting act and troubled both “social and life order”:

“princes of blood with Andriana women, the Hova men with Hova women, the slaves with slaves” (Gustave 314). To a great extent, this rule was particularly strict on women, who risked their status in case of transgression. For instance, an Andriana woman attempting to marry a Hova risked to be sold and conversely the Hova man is excluded from the society

(Callet 326). However, in Le Bulletin du Comité de Madagascar of March 1895, it is

85 mentioned that by rising on the throne, “a queen stripped her sex and is considered equal to a man” (326). That means that she was an exception to the rule.

The Dr Toulouse establishes that the term taboo in Malagasy society does not express the notion of inviolability since higher castes may violate this taboo (438). Therefore, considering the absoluteness of the sovereign’s power and its unlimited supremacy, the fact that hypogamic marriages took place in the Court is indubitable: the queens’ queenly status allowed them to skirt a taboo on marriage prohibition. This absolute power can be reflected from this native proverb: “Ny manjaka toy ny lanitra, ka tsy azo refesina; toy ny masoandro, ka tsy azo tohaina” which means “The sovereign is like the sky, and cannot be measured; like the sun, and cannot be contended with” (Sibree 156). Furthermore, Dr Toulouse’s argument suggests that the queen’s Andriana caste made this “violation” more tolerable.

3. THE IMPLICATIONS OF A SYMBOLIC FUNCTION

Questioning the symbolic function of the Merina queens has always been considered intolerable in scholarly work. However, a clear outlining of the causes has not been provided.

In this work, I aim to offer a new approach in regard to this matter. Raison-Jourde’s suggestion on the queens’ symbolic function is intriguing. She asserts that in the eighteenth century, the Merina political outline reflected “the metaphor of the couple, in which the Hova occupied the feminine role, the inferior one” (344). In my opinion, though Raison-Jourde did not elaborate her idea, by the inferiority of the Hova’s role, she alluded to the function of associates they provided alongside the Andriana sovereign; they submitted to the Andriana’s supremacy in the intent to ensure their own.

In the nineteenth century, this political scheme was reversed with the rise of a female monarch besides the Hova leaders. Raison-Jourde argues that the political scheme under the queens did not mirror an equal balance in power-sharing and led to the establishment of two poles of power: on the one hand the military administration and on the other the spiritual symbolism. The author underpins that from then on, in the couple scheme, the “royal power belongs to the female pole, while the virile stance of commanding the army belongs to the

Hova chiefs” (Raison-Jourde et alii 344). In a gendered perspective, I suggest that the lack of a principal male representative in the Andriana caste within the Court, namely the lack of a male monarch, was an appeal to the Hova to impose no longer as associates but as co-leaders.

Scholars assert that a queen’s capacity to reign lies on her status. If she remains single, she will be the only one managing the State’s affairs. If she is married, she will enlist spousal support and share the duties as head of the State with her husband (Dube 8).

Moreover, they assert that the husband-wife relationship entails some changes in the Court accordingly with appropriate gender role concepts. In the case of the Merina queens, it should be acknowledged that gender did interfere in power sharing during their reigns. I have the contention that the theory on the queens’ symbolic function stems from gender since it was provoked by the concept of asymmetry in spousal division. Their female gender left them with a minor part of the monarchical function.

Historians have been debating on the power of Ranavalona I, whether it was absolute or fully symbolic. In regards with the asymmetry on spousal division, the fact that

Ranavalona I was not involved in an official “marriage” allowed her to exert some authority.

It permitted her to express her personal convictions despite the promise she made to the Hova chiefs attesting that the latter “shall reign in her name without possessing the title of royalty”

(Edland 163). Actually, what brought some confusion on the extent of her power was the similarity between her commitment and the Hova’s on the context of distrust of foreigners,

87 paganism and hostility to reforms. Thus, the question remained whether her power was absolute or not. From Queen Rasoherina, it became obvious that the queens handled a symbolic function.

Furthermore, the significance of the royal husband in the spousal division officially began under Rasoherina. Her official marriage with the incumbent Rainivohitriniony allowed this Hova chief to be awarded the title of Prime Minister. The fact that he held this position brings relevance to the fact that he dealt with the majority of the affairs in the Court.

Consequently, the non-interference of the queen in the affairs of the State left her an exclusive symbolic function while the Prime Minister acquired greater power. Although the

Councillors held a power associated to that of the Sovereign under Andrianampoinimerina and Radama I, their function became increasingly remarkable under the reigns of female monarchs (Raison-Jourde 48). This confirms as well the theory en female monarchy according to which the realm of a queen regnant would undeniably make the power of an oligarchy more preeminent as they would clearly take a important place in decision-making in the kingdom.

4. MILITARY PERFORMANCES

From the case studies, I have seen that the occasion when a war really undermined the sovereignty of the queens were under the first and last reign. Ranavalona I, facing the conspiracy of 1857 asserted courage and preferred to face an eventual French attack while

Ranavalona III preferred to avoid the war and considered the benefit of a French Protectorate for Madagascar. In the context of our study, despite being manipulated by the oligarchy, the decision took by Ranavalona I to venture into a war demonstrates Oeindrilla Dube’s theory that a queen regnant may consider the perception on her gender as the weak one. Thus,

88 militarily speaking, during her reign, she may signal strength and display greater aggression

(Dube 23).

This theory is in accordance with the case of Ranavalona I as it is mainly applied to the throne after a long line of male reign. In this perspective, therefore, I take into account that Ranavalona I was the first woman to ascend the throne in Imerina. She was the first to use Ikotobe - the first gun introduced to Madagascar under Andrianampoinimerina63 - to transfer it to Tamatave (Grandidier 282). As a result, in a gender perspective, the fact that

Ranavalona I wanted to assume her womanhood in a warlike situation cannot be excluded.

According to Grandidier, Ranavalona I would have warned her subjects to not underestimate her on the grounds of her female sex: “Do not believe, Ambaniandro, that I am a woman, so I am weak. No! Andrianampoinimerina and Radama, bequeathing their kingdom to me, also bequeathed me their courage. Woe to those who will have to experience it!”

(288). Her “display of aggression” can be explained by the fact that she wanted to demonstrate her ability to protect the kingdom from any external danger and impose her sovereignty in spite of her womanness. Her courage to wage war, in a way, can be interpreted as an example of the violence that she has shown as an aspect of her policy.

By taking into consideration the reversal of the political outline by Raison-Jourde and the Hova’s handling of military power, it gives us some reflection on the reign of Ranavalona

I and her fight against Christianity. Some Western writers - who gave Ranavalona I importance during the Victorian era - viewed her as having too much power simply because

63 As they got half-way through the forest of Analamazaotra, it was learnt that the enemy, after bombarding Tamatave, had gone away. Full of pride, the queen exclaimed: “When they felt the smell of my cannon, the Europeans fled” (Bulletin de l’Académie Malgache, 1912, p. 9).

89 she was a woman while referring to the persecution conducted under her reign64 (Evangelists or envoys 137). In the article Queen Victoria and the Bloody Mary of Madagascar,

Ranavalona I is compared to the Queen Victoria on the basis of her gender and its implications in her reign. They would have preferred that Ranavalona served to Merina women as the ideal of the stereotype of the Victorian woman, to demonstrate a “public expectation of a softer, gentler ruler” (Mc Kendry 13) instead of a Bloody Queen. They put all the blame of the persecution period on the queen and did not consider the Hova chiefs.

Rabemanjara’s argument in La Revue des Jeunes de Madagascar of November 1st

1935 is intriguing and unique. He affirms that the queen acted and reacted “under the influence and the impulse of two dynamic concepts”, of her Hova65 and Malagasy characteristics (74). He states that the Hova first reacts against all ideas and actions attempting to alienate ancestral practices, while the Malagasy does not accept Christianity - the most essential factor of the fertility of European civilization - to be implanted in her country (82). Here, the theory on power demonstration in female realm should be considered. I have the contention that her abhorence for Christianity was encouraged and manipulated by the oligarchy. As Rabemananjara insists, Ranavalona was flattered by the words of her courtiers, particularly to her womanly heart: “a childish, flexible and fragile thing that is afraid of isolation and who constantly needs to be supported” (77). The fight against Christianity represented an occasion for the Hova leaders to demonstrate their exercise of power in the military sphere.

The case of Ranavalona III, in contrast, her reluctance to wage war against France ranges from classic and common assumptions on woman’s unfitness to rule, expecting that a

64 In their defense, it is necessary to note that the history of Madagascar “has essentially been studied in function of the politics of the government and according to the personality of each monarch” (Jourde 112). In this sense, it is explicable that most western literary works interpret Ranavalona’s post-traditionalism as an era of darkness.

65 Hova here means Merina.

90 female monarch refrains from putting her kingdom in a position of war. Thus, by making an attempt to defend the Merina territory, Rainilaiarivony as well fulfilled the expectation put on a man in military context. Compared to the previous kings, it must be admitted that the queens and Rainilaiarivony were faced with more serious competitors whereas King Radama

I and Andrianampoinimerina “had to fight only against petty kings as civilized as them, in any case, less organized, less armed and less determined” (Rabemananjara 20).

5. THE THEORY ON THE QUEEN’S TWO BODIES IN IMERINA

MADAGASCAR

In Merina oral literature, women were approximately assigned male status: they were “sexually women, but symbolically men” (Jourde et alii 397). When transferring his power to Rasoherina, Radama II felt the obligation to refer to her as a man - an appeal to her masculine symbolic status - in order to legitimize her designation. In the context of female monarchy, this resembles the theory on the Queen’s two bodies: the natural body implies the queen’s womanhood and the body politic consists of the symbolic male status. Once she is assigned the function of a monarch, we instantly refer to her as a man: a “fiction” is created.

Therefore, I have the contention that a theory of female realm legitimation based on the two bodies existed in the Merina monarchy.

According to Hadley Kamminga, a woman must resort to her two bodies to ensure her status as a woman and sovereign (27). Ranavalona III, with the French- Malagasy war coming, proclaimed herself to fulfil her queenly role to defend her people, by insisting on her

“having the heart of a man”. These words are akin to that of Elizabeth I in 1588, when she

91 faced the imminence of a Spanish invasion: “I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king”. Ranavalona III proclaimed in 1895:

“I shall fulfil, o my people, the share in the defence of the land which belongs to me

as Queen. I have done so, but still I will do more, for, though I am a woman, I have

the heart of a man, and I stand up to lead you forth to prevent and oppose those who

seek to take our land” (Pasfield 165).

It reveals that her status as the Head of the Kingdom urged Ranavalona III to switch to her manly side in order to ensure a military responsibility. It should be suggested that this legitimation by the two bodies existed since the beginning of female realm in Imerina. The

Hova leaders referred to this theory in order to legitimize the coronation of Ranavalona I. In

Contribution à l’Histoire de la Nation Malgache, Boiteau reveals that the Hova considered her as “male” by passing Andrianampoinimerina’s twelve spouses down to her (108). Here again, there is an appeal to her male symbolic status to assign some legitimacy to her position.

By the nature of this study, it is necessary to wonder whether kings in Imerina incarnated as well this theory of the two bodies. In The King’s Two Genders, Cynthia Herrup argues that this concept of gender duality exists in male and female rules : “A king, male or female was expected to have both feminine and masculine qualities, so no matter the gender of the King, he would not be lacking in some areas and better in others” (495). According to

Boiteau, given the fact that Radama II did not have military experience, he was not

“completely man” compared to Radama I, as the latter was already sent to military expeditions from a young age by his father Andrianampoinimerina. It suggests that in

Imerina, a king would not be fully assigned male status until he exerts a manly stance.

However, it does not obligatorily imply that the king had feminine qualities.

CONCLUSION

Tracing back the evolution of the Merina monarchy showed the emergence of the castes in Imerina and the beginning of a long-to-go political alliance between the Hova and the Andriana caste. It provided descriptions on how Andrianampoinimerina’s vow to seal an alliance with the Hova chiefs helped them to get a prominent function in the Court and afterwards to play a major role in the queens’ reigns. However, in order to ensure the purity of their lineage, the Andriana caste strategically adopted the endogamous system which in fact was a ban for the Hova and Andevo to mingle with them and keep their supremacy at the head of the social hierarchy. The theory on endogamy gave an explanation to the problematic of female monarchy in Imerina Madagascar as the accession of a woman on the throne was an opportunity for the Hova leaders to counter this ban.

Taking a glimpse at the phases of Merina women’s status let us meditate on the role attributed to pre-nineteenth century women in the consolidation of royal power. In their conquest, conquering kings exploited women as “tools” to seal an alliance with conquered kingdoms by taking them as wives or as their property. However, it should be acknowledged that having an insight into the societal changes regarding Merina women with the implantation of Christianity did not provide much explanation on the presence of female rulers in the nineteenth century even though it let us have some thoughts on female status prior to the nineteenth century. Moreover, the mere existence of the decision of Ranavalona II to abolish polygamy provides an interesting point of Christian influence in the kingdom.

Taking a look at the implications of the succession system in Imerina Madagascar highlighted some points on the accession of the Merina queens and its relationship to the dynastic upheavals generated by Andrianampoinimerina and his role in the devolution of

93 success. It showed as well the importance of women in Merina society that traces back to

Vazimba society with its matriarchal aspect. Women were considered virtuous thanks to the

“hasina” and were favoured as the best sex for royal lineage by Andrianampoinimerina.

Even though he did not impose that women should from then on be designated to rule, his assumption on female docility gave a clue to his preference for female realm, accentuated by his designation of Imavo to succeed Radama I.

On top of that, analysing the succession system in Imerina Madagascar provided explanations to the origin of female realm in Imerina. As aforementioned, Valette stated without further explanation that the points justifying Ranavalona’s designation by

Andrianampoinimerina, namely the matrilineary succession “was forged afterwards to justify a policy”. The question is to know what that policy consisted in. I suggest that this policy consisted in the “creation of female monarchy”. To conclude, the establishment of this matrilineary succession was the first step by the Hova to legitimate female realm.

The case studies revealed that from male realm to female rule, namely from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, there was a shift in the role of Andriana women. From being used for consolidating royal power as agents of “alliance and peace”, they became a shield to the supremacy of the Andriana caste. As our research chiefly concern the queens and their marital experience, I consider it logical that the found results focus on the caste they belonged to, the Andriana. Generally, scholars contend that Andriana women could exert more power than women belonging to Hova and Andevo castes. However, while integrated in the queens’ experiences, the position of an Andriana queen regnant was rather paradoxical and problematic since she appears exerting power while being oppressed at the same time.

That is the aftermath of the correlation between her position of queen and her Andriana caste.

Her queenly responsibility to marry the Hova Prime minister confronts her belonging to the

Andriana caste and obliges her to violate the taboo of exogamy. The peculiarity of the

94 queens’ marital experiences thus resided in its complexity on account of the existence of caste system and the hypogamic nature of their “marriage”: they form the problematics of their regnancy.

To conclude, the queens’ marriages resulted in them exercising a symbolic function next to the Hova leaders. Firstly, these unions entailed that they had to share the monarchical function with their husbands who, took the most part in the spousal division. Secondly, starting from Rasoherina, the title of husband and Prime Minister given to the queen’s companion gave him an access to formal power instead of the lover status with Ranavalona I which blurred the absoluteness or the symbolic aspect of her power.

Theoretically, the Queen’s two bodies theory existed in Imerina Madagascar. Apart from Ranavalona II, the queens were referred to as men in the aim of legitimizing their power: Ranavalona I was considered as male and inherited the twelve wives of the government, Radama II referred to Rasoherina as a man prior to her coronation. Ranavalona I and Ranavalona III self-represented as men whenever they felt the need to reassure their subjects on their capacity to protect the kingdom against foreign threat. Thus, I agree with

Maitland’s hard-hitting point when he insists on the fictional aspect of the “Queen’s two bodies”: referring to a queen as sexually female and symbolically male is an excuse to the monarch’s womanness as if a monarchical function is not convenient for her sex.

The response to the theoretical problem of this dissertation revolves around the context of marital experience. To note, the queens’ private lives differed in this aspect, the reason why I cannot refer to “marriage” in a holistic way throughout the dissertation; it formed the exploitation of the queen’s body natural. The Hova’s manipulation over the queens brought relevance to the theory of the two bodies and the importance of marriage in the study of female realm. They insisted on the imperative of “marriage” though they banned

95 the queens from marrying Andriana men and getting engaged with them instead. Such act is a way to pre-empt the queens’ regal authority. They exploited the body natural in the aim of putting a limit on the body politic. They fiercely showed their willingness to take over the power to disprove the adage: “the fanjakana cannot belong to a Hova” (Raison-Jourde et alii

344). I conclude then that the queens’ reigns and queenly experience were affected by the fact that the Hova leaders imposed them marriage constraint.

Not to mention the female monarchs, this dissertation showed us that Merina women’s status in the nineteenth century was complex accordingly to the caste they belonged to. I conclude that the study of women’s situation in this period cannot be generalized and exclusively centred on the introduction of the hybrid image of Merina women from the introduction of Christianity. It should be specified that the caste system was still existent at this period and still had great influence on the status of women in the society, mostly in the context of marriage. Therefore, for further researches, it should be classified how each woman welcomed and adopted Western ideologies according to their caste.

For further researches, it would be interesting to deal with biographical work on the

Merina queens such as Ranavalona Reine Cruelle by Pierre Sogno, Ranavalona III, Reine de

Madagascar by Le Nadir Balland or Female Caligula - the sensationalized biography by

Keith Laidler. Otherwise, it is appealing as well to work on Malagasy queens in several regions in the same context of a gender approach. It would open new ways to exploit geographically unexploited areas in order to fulfil the literary gap separating Imerina from the rest of the country.

TIMELINE

July 28th 1828 Accession of Ranavalona I

August 18th 1861 Accession of Radama II

May 12th 1863 Accession of Rasoherina

April 2nd 1868 Accession of Ranavalona II

July 13th 1883 Accession of Ranavalona III

October 14th 1895 Destitution of Rainilaiarivony

February 27th 1897 Destitution of Ranavalona III

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APPENDIX A

A letter from General Joseph Gallieni to Queen Ranavalona III on February 27th 1897 to put an end to the queen’s reign, namely the Merina monarchy.

Madame,

Since the Government of the French Republic has declared Madagascar a French colony, the institution of the monarchy has become of no use in Imerina.

I had hoped that your influence on your people would have aided me to bring an end to the insurrection that afflicted the country several months ago. But such was not the case and the pacification that is spreading little by little in Imerina was only achieved thanks to the unceasing efforts off French troops.

In consequence, I invite you to resign from your functions.

Furthermore, since your presence in Madagascar could create a certain inconvenience for some further time, I desire that you leave Tananarive tomorrow morning, going to Tamatave where you will be taken to Reunion Island, and where you will receive the most generous hospitality from French authorities.

All arrangements will be made so that your voyage will take place in the best conditions and so that you will be treated with all the respect due to your situation and your sex.

Please accept, Madame, the assurance of my great consideration.

Gallieni

(Source: Robert Aldrich in The French and the Queen of Madagascar: Ranavalona

III, 1897, 215)

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APPENDIX B

The famous and supposedly unique photo of Ranavalona I

Helihanta Rajaonarison in De la Peur à l’Engouement: la Photographie à la Cour d’Antananarivo au Milieu du XIXe Siècle asserts that the queen refused to meet the Missionary because of her superstitious nature; she considered that “photography captures someone’s spirit for transposing it on paper that everyone can afterwards see and manipulate” (3). Rajaonarison explains that the famous photograph of Ranavalona I, showing a crowned woman standing under a tree in a pink dress with a handkerchief in her left hand is not Ranavalona I (left): it was a copy painted by Ramanankirahina - a Malagasy painter - from a photo of Rabodo aka Rasoherina (right) taken by Ellis on September 23th 1856.

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APPENDIX C

Queen Rasoherina

110

APPENDIX D

Queen Ranavalona II

111

APPENDIX E

Queen Ranavalona III

112