Oriental Women

by Edward B. Pollard

Because of a deep reverence for the mystery of life, the Arabs give to the woman a separate tent or hut during the period of childbirth, and there she must remain for a period. There is a strong superstition concerning the results that might come from seeing or touching her or her belongings during the time of this separation.

In the naming of children, family names are not given, but individual names, to which is often added the name of the father, and sometimes that of the mother. The latter is probably the older, and many ethnologists believe it to have once been the universal custom among the Arabs; pointing to a day when polyandry prevailed, when it was customary for women to have several husbands, if they were not indeed the common property of the tribe.

The influence of the nomadic life of the ancient Arabians still has its power over the modern Arab if he be true or a dweller in tents. These desert roamers despise those Arabs who are engaged in the arts of husbandry. Dr. A. H. Keane, quoting from Junker, gives the following evidence of this prejudice: "In the eyes of his fellow tribesmen, the humblest nomad would be degraded by marriage with the daughter of the wealthiest bourgeois." But, as he adds: "Necessity knows no law, hunger pinches, and so these proud and stubborn were fain ... to renounce the free and lawless life of the solitude and at least partly turn to agriculture for several months in the year."

The Arabs are proverbially a hospitable people. Let a stranger once eat with an Arab family and he is a friend; certainly so long as the food is thought to remain a part of his body. But since the patriarchal idea survives, man is absolutely lord of his own house. Hence, in the house, the inequality of the sexes is most noticeable. The Moslem wife never sits down to a meal with her husband if any male guest be present; and should the husband be very strict and formal in his habits, she is not permitted to eat with her lord, even when there is no guest. It is her pleasure to serve. When the master of the house has finished his repast, he allows what remains to go to the rest of the family. By this the husband does not mean to be selfish at all; but customs which have prevailed for time out of mind give to woman an inferior place as a matter of course. But the guest is never turned away empty. Even in the poorest houses, the Moslems will offer the visitor a cup of black coffee, and it may be cigarettes.

Polygamy was common in ancient Arabia. In earlier days every man might marry as many wives as he could take care of, and the length of the wifehood was solely in the husband's hand. The family possessions were his property, and should he die, his widow was looked upon as a part of the estate. Unions between mothers and step-sons were not infrequent. Mohammed numbered this, however, among the "shameful marriages."

Sir William Muir, in his Annals of the Early Caliphate, says: "Polygamy and secret concubinage are still the privilege, or the curse of Islam, the worm at its root, the secret of its fall. By these the unity of the household is fatally broken, and the purity and virtue weakened of the family tie; the vigor of the dominant classes is sapped; the body politic becomes weak and languid excepting for intrigue; and the throne itself liable to fall a prey to doubtful or contested successors." "Hardly less injurious," says he, "is the power of divorce, which can be exercised without the assignment of any reason whatever, at the mere word and will of the husband. It not only hangs over each individual household like the sword of Damocles, but affects the tone of society at large; for even if not put in force, it cannot fail as a potential influence, existing everywhere, to weaken the marriage bond, and detract from the dignity and self-respect of the sex at large."

Mohammed's complete misunderstanding of the true relation of the sexes has had much to do with the degraded position of woman in Moslem lands, and the complete failure of Islamic social life. It is woman that makes or unmakes society. She is the keystone of the arch, not the mudsill.

Mohammed's state of mind regarding woman is universal among his followers, whether in Algeria, Tunis, or Morocco, in the land of the Lotus, in the Ottoman Empire, or in the lesser Mohammedan dominions. The customs springing from this state are, of course, modified among the different peoples, as, for instance, among the Moors through the admixture of Spanish and Moorish blood, which resulted in a somewhat better appreciation of woman. Yet she is not a companion, but only a gilded toy, a decorative object, to be fitfully enjoyed or waywardly put aside. Among the higher class she is still kept in strict seclusion, and her time is passed in luxurious idleness, save for the hours she employs at her embroidery or tapestry. The garden, with its heavily perfumed blossoms, pleases her; the ceaseless plash of the fountain falls musically on her ear; all her physical needs are ministered to. But everything conduces to the dreaminess of her nature, to slothful habits; her activities are fettered by the law of Mohammed. After all, her garden is but an exquisite prison.

By placing women upon so far lower a plane of social and religious life than man, Mohammedanism has not only degraded the female sex, but has disrupted, if not destroyed, those healthy family relations which lie at the very foundation of all social progress and national greatness.