The word harem being by courtesy applied also to its inmates, has now become a general term to designate the female portion of the family, and is by no means synonymous with polygamy, otherwise the same expression would not be used by the Christian subjects in speaking of their domestic relations.
It would be said that a certain pasha or an Armenian banker had gone to a distant place without his harem, or family.
An Osmanli lady, on being informed of the arrival of an American minister in Constantinople, would naturally inquire whether he was accompanied by his harem, or family.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CONDITION OF WOMEN.
It is fortunate that the less enlightened members of the human family are unconscious of their comparative inferiority—and are ignorant of the bliss to which the more sublimated specimens of humanity are constantly aspiring, and even rendering themselves discontented with real life, as destiny has accorded it to them.
The actual condition of women in the East is not then so much to be lamented, as their ideal of happiness so essentially differs from that of other portions of the fair sex in Europe or America. As no other philosophy has yet crept into their minds, they dream not of “woman’s rights,” “free love” or “equality of the sexes,” and calmly content themselves with the rights of nature, and the relative position which has ever existed among their simple and patriarchal ancestors. The Osmanlis have not yet deviated from the form of family government which nature dictated to them.
The venerable father, who has guided his children through youth, and even counseled them in maturer years, is the monarch in the family circle—the Dei penates are no creations of myth—but are embodied in the one and sacred title of Pater familias.
Each son, as he succeeds to the paternal duties, is invested with the robes of veneration and respect. Thus the male branches of the household have a prior rank, which is unconsciously recognized by the women and younger members of the family. The laws even allow to the son double the share of inheritance that they do to the daughters, because of the heavy responsibilities which may devolve upon him in future by the death of the father.