As to the intrinsic merit or real modesty of these different styles, peculiar tastes and prevailing modes can only decide; for habit is strong in its sway, and imitation is a kindred principle. Therefore, there is neither vice nor virtue in walking in the footsteps of our predecessors, or each man or woman adopting the peculiar modes and customs of their own people. As fertile a brain may throb beneath a turban as a hat, as pure a form enshroud itself in a modest veil as lurks beneath the shadow of a Parisian bonnet. What are externals but whims and caprices; it is the virtue of domestic institutions and daily habitudes that stamps the character of a people.
European or American ladies may grace their boudoirs, models of beauty and excellence, and Turkish Hanums may, by the exercise of domestic virtues, equally adorn and ennoble the precincts of their Harems.
The word Harem is familiar to most persons, but how grossly misunderstood. Some have considered it as unmentionable to ears polite; while the votaries of pleasure, ever ready to indulge their longing fancies, have pictured it to themselves as the earthly realization of the Paradise of Mohammed. Indeed many European authors in describing the licentious and corrupted courts of their own monarchs, have seemed to consider this term as the most distinguishing compendium of immorality.
Strange perversion, that the very word which inspires every Oriental, whether Mohammedan or Christian, with the greatest respect, should suggest to the mind of a European only a system of concubinage and licentiousness.
What then is Harem?
One peculiarity in the construction of society in its primitive condition was that might makes right. This not only affected personal property, but even the more domestic relations. If an enemy strong enough felt the inclination, he might rob his neighbor of his wife or family, of which there are instances on Biblical record.
To avoid any occasions of such unjust appropriation, it became a policy to seclude the women from general observation.
The unbounded hospitality of those good old days when the worthy patriarchs lived with open doors, and good cheer; when the three virtues which made a man distinguished, were bravery, eloquence, and hospitality, or in the hyperbole of the times, a sharp sword, a sweet tongue, and forty tables; in such an era of benevolence it became necessary to separate the more precious and defenseless portion of the family from the vulgar gaze.
The seclusion of women, then, has ever been one of the greatest social peculiarities of the East, and does not date its origin from modern times, nor even from the foundation of the Moslem faith. In some forms, it existed in the times of the ancient Jews; for, when Rebecca lifted up her eyes and saw Isaac, who had gone out to meditate in the field at even tide, she said unto the servant, “What man is this, who walketh in the field to meet us?” and the servant said, “It is my master, therefore she took a veil and covered herself.”
“The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice.”