Children are allowed to breakfast on anything they find in the larder or buy from the hawkers of cakes in the streets.
No person exercising the functions of governess, nursery governess, or head nurse, exists in harems. There is no reserve of language observed before young girls, who are allowed to listen to conversations in which spades are very decidedly called spades. The absence of refined subjects naturally leads the tone of these conversations, at times, to so low a level as to render its sense quite unintelligible to the European listener, though it is perfectly understanded of the Turkish maiden.
Turks sometimes have hodjas as tutors for their sons; but these are not always professional instructors of youth, and their supervision over their pupils seldom extends beyond the hours of study. The hodjas, belonging to religious orders, are grave, sanctimonious persons; having little in common with their pupils, who find it difficult to exchange ideas with them, and thus to benefit in a general way by their teaching. Poor effendis or kyatibs are sometimes engaged to fill the office of tutors, but their inferior position in the house deprives them of any serious control over their charges. The dadi, appointed to attend upon the child from its earliest infancy, plays a great part during its youthful career; her charge, seldom separated from her, will, if she be good and respectable, benefit by her care; but if she be the reverse, her influence cannot be anything but prejudicial, especially to boys, whose moral education, entirely neglected at this stage, receives a vicious impulse from this associate. The fact that the dadi’s being the property of his parents gives him certain rights over her is early understood and often abused by the boy.
I have seen an instance of the results of these boyish connections in the house of a Pasha, who, as a child, had formed a strong attachment for his dadi, and, yielding to her influence, had later been induced to marry her, although at the time she must have been more than double his age. When I made her acquaintance she was an old woman, superseded by four young companions, whose lives she made as uncomfortable as she could by way of retaliation for the pain her husband’s neglect was causing her. The fourth and youngest of these wives, naturally the favorite, nearly paid with her life for the affection she was supposed to have diverted from the Bash Kadin (first wife); for the quondam dadi, taking advantage of her rival’s unconsciousness whilst indulging in a siesta, tried to pour quicksilver into her ears. The fair slumberer fortunately awoke in time; and the attempted crime was passed over in consideration of the culprit’s past maternal services, and of the position she then held.
Next to the important functions of dadi those of lala must be mentioned. He is a male slave into whose care the children of both sexes are intrusted when out of the harem. He has to amuse them, take them out walking, and to school and back. His rank, however, does not separate him from his fellow servants, with whom he still lives in common; and when the children come to him, he takes them generally first to their father’s apartment, and then into the servants’ hall, where they are allowed to witness the most obscene practical jokes, often played upon the children themselves; and to listen to conversations of the most revolting nature, only to be matched I should think in western Europe among the most degraded inhabitants of the lowest slums. This is one of those evil customs that cannot be other than ruinous to the morality of Turkish children, who thus from an early age get initiated into subjects and learn language of which they should for years be entirely ignorant.
The girls are allowed free access into the selamlik up to the time they are considered old enough to wear the veil; which, once adopted, must exclude a female from further intercourse with the men’s side of the house. The shameful neglect girls experience during childhood leaves them alone to follow their own instincts; alternately spoiled and rudely chastened by uneducated mothers, they grow up in hopeless ignorance of every branch of study that might develop their mental or moral faculties and fit them to fulfil the duties that must in time devolve upon them.
I am glad to say that, in this respect, a change for the better is taking place at Constantinople: the education of the girls among the higher classes is much improved; elementary teaching, besides instruction in music and needlework, is given to them; and a few are even so highly favored as to have European governesses, who find their pupils wanting neither in intelligence nor in good-will to profit by their instruction. I have known Turkish girls speak foreign languages, but the number of such accomplished young ladies is limited, owing partly to the dislike which even the most enlightened Turks feel to allowing their daughters any rational independence; for the girls, they say, are destined to a life of harem restraint with which they would hardly feel better satisfied if they had once tasted of liberty; their life would only be less happy, instead of happier; ignorance in their case being bliss, it would be folly to make them wise!—If true, only another argument for the overthrow of the system.
Some time ago, when at Constantinople, I visited an old friend, a Christian by birth, but the wife of a Pasha. This lady, little known to the beau monde of Stamboul, a most ladylike, sweet woman, was married when her husband was a student in Europe and she a school-girl. She has held fast to her religion, and her enlightened husband has never denied her the rights of her European liberty; though, when in the capital, she wears the yashmak, out of convenance. Her children are Mohammedans. The daughter, now a young lady of eighteen, a most charming, accomplished girl, is justly named “The Budding Rose of the Bosphorus.” Some Turkish ladies acquainted with this family spoke of it to me as an example of perfection worthy of study and imitation. A truly poetical attachment binds the mother and daughter together, and finding no congeniality in their Mohammedan acquaintances, in the simplicity of their retired life they have become all in all to each other, and are doted upon by the father and brother. It was very pleasant to look upon the harmony that existed in this family, notwithstanding the wide differences in the customs and religions of its members. For many years I had lost sight of my friends, and at length found them caged up in one of the lovely villas on the Bosphorus; the mother now a woman of forty, the daughter a slim, bright fairy.
After the surprise caused by my visit and the friendly greetings were over, Madame B⸺, full of delight and happiness, related to me the engagement of her daughter to one of the wealthiest and most promising grandees of La Jeune Turquie, who, having just completed his studies in Paris, was expected in a few days to come and claim her as his bride. She was to dwell beneath the paternal roof, and I was taken to visit the apartments that had been prepared for the young couple. They were most exquisitely furnished, with draperies of straw-colored satin, richly embroidered by the deft fingers of the ladies. The mother, her face beaming with joy, said to me, “Am I not happy in marrying my daughter to an enlightened young Turk, who, there is every reason to expect, will prove as good and affectionate a husband to her as mine has been to me?”
The young lady had known her affianced before his departure for Paris; full of faith and hope, she nourished a deep love for him, and, in the innocent purity of her heart, felt sure he responded to it.