Oriental Women

by Edward B. Pollard

But does not the young lady need a longer time to prepare for an event of so great moment in her life? No, because she has been anticipating for some time that such a transaction will be effected by her parents; for has she not already arrived at the age of thirteen? She has therefore not let the past months slip idly through her fingers. She has been busy sewing, embroidering, and making other things of beauty and usefulness for her expected home. But nothing has concerned her more than to see that her own person shall be attractive to her new husband when the veil is lifted on her wedding day. Odors and ornaments ample have been provided.

Early upon the appointed day the friends may be seen moving toward the home of the bride-elect. The scribe who is to draw up the marriage contract is present ready to perform his important task. With his triangular stylus he indents the covenant in soft clay. This is to be inserted in an envelope also of clay that there may be a double impression of the words of the contract. This is to be carefully baked and filed away for possible future use--it may be to be found thousands of years afterward by some explorer digging in the ruins of a long buried city. The day has dawned beautiful, for the astrologer has said that all would be propitious. The hands of the bride and groom are tied together with a thread of wool, the customary emblem of the union into which they have now entered. The marriage contract is clearly read before the assembled company, and the witnesses make their mark upon the soft tablet, the dowry and other presents are given over. Prayer is made to the proper gods for the happy pair, and curses are invited upon any who shall undertake to annul the covenant or revoke the gifts.

Next comes the banqueting, of which the Assyrians were so fond. Music and dancing, jesting and telling happy tales, with eating and drinking, make up the round of merriment. At length the time comes for the bridal party to make its way to the home of the groom's parents. All along the way are signs of rejoicing, in which all are expected to join. The groom's house is reached, and here the festivities are resumed and carried on for several days, till all are fatigued and sated with mirth and quite ready to see the young couple settle down to their new life as home makers.

Polygamy was rare for the Orient, especially at so early a period; but where polygamy was practised at all, the harem existed. In Assyria, the king might have more than one legitimate wife, to say nothing of those who were not so ranked. Sargon had three lawful wives, for each of whom he erected a separate apartment in his royal palace of Dur-Sargina. Like Oriental houses generally, the several apartments are entered from a central court. The queen's apartments were usually rich in decoration and furnishings. The harem of Sargon's palace, which may be taken as typical, was entered by gates. One of these had upon the front two huge bronze palm trees, on each side one. Since the palm tree is emblematic of both grace and fecundity, the significance of its use is apparent. There were anterooms and drawing rooms, as well as bedrooms, for the use of the queen. These were plastered, and mural decorations were abundant, the designs being sometimes conventional, sometimes depicting religious ideas in symbolism. Of course, the winged bull and the winged lion, watchful guardians of Assyrian interest, were often painted upon the walls. The gods were favorite subjects. In the women's apartments were chairs, stools, tables, and the floors of brick or stone were covered with carpets and mats. The bed, more like a modern lounge, was raised upon wooden legs, and held a mattress and appropriate coverings, and placed in a highly ornamented alcove, gave to the bedroom an attractive air.

But how does the queen amuse herself? for long indeed must the hours often have seemed as she lived out her life a comparative prisoner. G. Maspero, the noted French assyriologist, has thus described the occupation of the queens, as they try to fill the idle hours: "Dress, embroidery, needlework, and housekeeping, long conversation with their slaves, the exchange of visits, and the festivals, with dancing and singing with which they entertained each other, serve for occupation and amusement. From time to time the king passes some hours amongst them, or invites them to dine with him and amuse themselves in the hanging gardens of the palace. The wives of the princes and great nobles are sometimes admitted to pay homage to them, but very rarely, for fear they should serve as intermediaries between the recluses and the outer world."

The kings of both Assyria and Babylonia were, as a rule, kings of insatiable conquest. Hence, much of the year was spent with the army in some distant territory, or, it may be, in lion hunting, a sport which had great attractiveness to a number of the kings. It will be thus seen how little the wives of the monarch enjoyed his real companionship. There was ample time for monotony, broken now and again by jealousies, followed by bitter hatred and deadly plottings. One wife would almost inevitably share more of the attention of the king than the rest. Those who had reason to believe themselves neglected would certainly be incensed against the more favored rival. The servants of the palace would often be drawn into the disputes, which sometimes had a tragic end. The whole harem, combining against a favorite, might, through the use of poison or by some other clandestine means, end the life of her who was so unfortunate as to be loved by the king beyond the measure thought by her rivals to be her due.

One happy effort tended to relieve at least a little the dull seclusion of the ladies of the harem. This was the planting of a garden in a court adjacent to the house of the women. Often these gardens would be most elaborate and beautiful. The hanging gardens of Babylon, accounted as among the Seven Wonders of the World, were built in honor of a favorite queen. The garden of the harem consisted of trees, such as the sycamore, the poplar, or the cypress, and other plants selected to please the eye of those whose seclusion must have made this suggestion of the country most grateful.

Feasting played an important rôle in the heyday of Nineveh's grandeur, as also in the Babylon of later days. The king has just returned from a great triumph in the Westland. The whole city is agog. For days the round of drinking and carousing has proceeded, till the whole city is drunken. The queen wishes to have a part in the expressions of victory and rejoicing. She, with some trepidation, invites the king to dine with her in her apartments in the harem. At the appointed hour all is arranged. The gorgeous couch the queen has prepared for the king to recline upon while he sips his wine scented with aromatic spices, the rich drapery of the couch, the small table near by, laden with golden and silver vessels of costliness and elegance, the slaves who attend upon the lord's wishes, the poet-laureate to sing the conqueror's praises in elaborate lines of flattery--all conspire to make the occasion one of great magnificence. Thus, from king and queen to the lowliest of the great city, the spirit of revelry, the love of carousal, and the habit of intoxication, took hold of the luxuriant capital. We recognize the appropriateness of the familiar words of Nahum, the Hebrew prophet of Elkosh, who had been an eyewitness of the growing effeminacy of the great Assyrian capital, Nineveh, when he foretold the fall of the once glorious city: "Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women, the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thy enemies; the fire shall devour thy bars."

How did the ordinary housewife spend her time? M. Maspero attempts to reproduce the daily life of the Assyrian woman of about the eighth century before the Christian era in these graphic words:

"The Assyrian women spend a great deal of time upon the roofs. They remain there all the morning till driven away by the noonday heat, and they go back as soon as the sun declines in the evening. There they perform all their household duties, chatting from one terrace to the other. They knead the bread, prepare the cooking, wash the linen and hang it out to dry, or if they have slaves to relieve them from these menial labors, they install themselves upon cushions, and chat or embroider in the open air. During the hottest hours of the day they descend and take refuge indoors. The coolest room in the house is often below the level of the courtyard and receives very little light." Thus the Assyrian lady adapts herself as well as she may to her surroundings, which were usually very simple as to furnishings and such things as a modern inhabitant of the West would classify under the head of "comforts." An Assyrian housewife was usually satisfied with a few chairs and stools of various heights and sizes. There were few beds, except among the rich. The people generally slept upon mats, which could be folded and put away during the daytime. Taking care of the house was woman's work, unless the family was rich enough to own slaves to attend to the menial work of domestic life. The women had the care of the oven, which was usually built in one corner of the court, and the meats were cooked by them at the open fireplace. Care of the culinary work of an Assyrian home was no small task, for the Assyrians were good feeders,--and as for drinking, here they surpassed even their powers at eating. So the woman of the house would find it necessary to care for the wine skins and water jars that might be seen hanging about the porches to keep them cool.