This description refers only to the working classes and tradespeople. Among the better educated classes music, conversation, theatricals, and in fact almost everything that belongs to European society is included, although, as may be supposed, deficiencies as to dress, etiquette, and other details are to be remarked in the provinces; but a marked desire for improvement, especially among the Greeks, is everywhere noticeable. Each community, however, keeps within its own circle, a drawback that renders the society limited and prevents the sociable feeling that should prevail among them.
CHAPTER XV.
TURKISH WEDDINGS.
Early Marriage—Betrothal—Divorce—Love Matches—The Trousseau—Wedding Ceremonies—Marital Discipline in Macedonia—Monday: Arrangement of Trousseau in Bridegroom’s House—Tuesday: Bathing the Bride—Wednesday: Visit of the Bridegroom’s Party to Bride’s House—Great Festivities—The Kena—Thursday: The Girding of the Bride—The Bridegroom goes to the Mosque—Final Amenities of Friendship—Interested Marriages.
The Turks generally marry early, from seventeen for the men, and from eleven for the girls—who all marry, so that an old maid, like many other European institutions, is absolutely unknown in Turkey. This custom of early marriages is encouraged by parents as a check upon their sons contracting wild habits. It may in this respect have the desired effect, but must be very injurious in every other. How can a youth of seventeen or twenty, whose studies, if he by chance has pursued any, are not finished, whose career in life is yet to begin, assume the weight of a family without morally and physically suffering for it? Ambition, the mainspring of a young man’s exertions, damped by the early contraction of sedentary habits, soon degenerates into listless indifference. The intellectual faculties, crossed in the pursuit of knowledge by a current of ideas and responsibilities totally foreign to them, are checked before they have had their due course; while, physically speaking, harem life, bad at all the stages of the life of a Turk among the higher orders, must be incalculably worse when entered upon so early.
The Nekyah, or betrothal, comprises the fiançailles as well as the matrimonial contract. The preliminaries of the engagement are undertaken by the parents of the contracting parties. The mother or some near relative of the young man, in company with a few of her friends and the Koulavouz, starts on a tour of inspection, visiting families known to possess marriageable daughters. The object of the visit being made known, they are admitted, and the eldest girl presents herself, offers coffee, kisses hands all round, waits to take the empty cups, and then disappears, her inspectors having to content themselves with the short view they have thus had of her. Should this prove satisfactory, they at once enter into negotiations, make inquiries as to the age and dowry of the girl, answer counter-inquiries on the condition of the youth, and say that, if it be agreeable to both parties and it is Kismet that the marriage should take place, they will come again and make the final arrangements. On the mother’s return home, she gives a faithful description of the maiden’s appearance to her son, and should this meet with his approval, the intermediaries are commissioned to settle all preliminaries.
The dowry is, of course, among Muslims given by the bridegroom; the only dowry Turkish brides are bound to bring consists in a rich trousseau. Should the lady possess any property the husband cannot assume any right over it, nor over any of the rest of her belongings. The wisdom and generosity of this law cannot be too highly commended; it is an indispensable clause in the canons of polygamy. So easy is it for a Turk to divorce his wife that he has only to say to her in a moment of anger, “Cover thy face, thy nekyah is in thy hands,” and she ceases to be his wife, and must at once leave his abode, carrying with her, luckily for her, “bag and baggage.”
The privileges of divorce thus indulgently permitted to a man are entirely beyond the reach of a woman, whom no human power can release from her nekyah vows without her husband’s free consent. And even if she gain her husband’s consent to a divorce, she thereby loses her dowry and trousseau, which she would retain if divorced not of her own motion. This unfair restriction gives rise to many unhappy disputes, issuing in litigation which ever proves vain and fruitless against the obstinacy of the husband or, even worse, his helplessness, should he become insane; for a lunatic’s word of divorce cannot count before the law.
The following sad history of a bride I knew is a good illustration of the latter case. The heroine was a fine brunette, the daughter of Yousuf Bey, a rich and influential personage in the town of B⸺. A nekyah had been contracted between her and a young man rather queer and strange in his manners, but very wealthy—a consideration which more than counterbalanced his failings in the estimation of her avaricious father.
The Duhun, or wedding-day, fixed upon, the festivities began according to the routine of pomp and display usual among the wealthy. As the wedding-day approached the bridegroom became more and more strange; now falling into fits of deep melancholy, now into merriment.
His friends, noticing this, suggested that it was jahilik, or childishness, occasioned by the prospect of his approaching happiness, crossed by the thought that he had no father to participate in it, and no mother to second him in his duties by welcoming his bride to her future home.