A Family Quarrel, Sudanese Style

1899

Family quarrels are always tragic for those concerned, but for outsiders they occasionally contain an element of comedy. This is certainly true of sundry families of the most primitive type. We quote a single instance from "Under the African Sun," by W. J. Ansorge, a medical officer in the British service.

Imam Abdalla Effendi, a Sudanese officer in command at Kibero, had seven wives and five children. I was sent to enforce a judicial decision in favor of one of his wives, who had lately been divorced and demanded her dowry back.

He at once told me how his undutiful wife, instead of serving him with dinner, had thrown it at his head, and how, under the great provocation, he had divorced the woman. I told him I had not come to hear an argument, but simply to enforce a sentence. As a specimen of what one has to put up with from the natives, I give a few sentences of what was said on the occasion.

I: You are to refund this woman her dowry.

He: Heaven knows I have done so already.

She: It's a lie! He has only given me eight yards of silk.

He: I call Heaven to witness. I have nothing. She: It's a lie! He has cows, goats and sheep. And so the squabble went on. I insisted. Imam trembled for his best cow, and finally I suggested five sheep as an appropriate amount, and told him that if he selected the worst in his flock the woman should have the cow. Frightened at this, Imam brought out five beautiful animals, and wiping the perspiration from his face, he entreated the woman to accept them and depart. This she was graciously pleased to do. — Youth's Companion.