The Child in Human Progress

by George Henry Payne

The position of a girl varies greatly as between the different races and sects of the country. For instance, among the Arab and Kurdish tribes, and the Fellaheen (non-Christian farmers), a girl is a source of revenue to the father who, when she is of marriageable age, trades or sells her to her prospective husband, obtaining live stock or money to the equivalent of eight to twenty “chees,” or $176 to $440 (a “chees” equals $22.00), the selling price depending upon the beauty of the girl and the prominence of her family from the standpoint of wealth and influence. Among these races the really fat girl commands the highest admiration. The heavier she is the more she is desired and the better price she brings.

Formerly the Christian and Hebrew families gave their girls little schooling, but instead taught them to do embroidery and crochet work. Among even relatively poor families there exists a certain pride that causes housework to be regarded as degrading, and only those will become servants who are forced to do so by straitened circumstances. In late years there is a tendency to give the girls some education, which the Christians and Jews receive at the mission establishments of the Americans, French, English, Italians, Germans, Swiss, etc., while a very limited number of Mohammedan girls attend local public schools conducted exclusively for them.

Contrary to the custom prevailing among the Arabs, Kurds, and Fellaheen, the Christians and Jews greatly prefer to have boy babies, and it is considered a great misfortune if most or all of the children of a family are girls. The boys are sent to the respective community and foreign mission schools, and some of the more enlightened and progressive families afterwards send their boys to the colleges at Beyrouth, Syria, to complete their education.

It is the main object of every such family to marry off the girls as soon as possible, for it is considered a great shame to the girl if she is left unmarried until after twenty or twenty-two years of age. Marriage is the most important event, and the only one in which she is in any way prominent in all her life. Her great object in life is to become a wife and be the mother of a boy, the latter event always raising her in the estimation of her acquaintances and friends, and giving her considerable importance for the time being, whereas it is the contrary if the baby is a girl. In many families the young wife is not permitted to speak aloud in the presence of strangers or of the father-in-law until a boy is born to her.

Parents generally engage their children at very early ages, in which little attention is paid to the wishes or dislikes of the prospective bride and groom. In fact, unborn children are sometimes provisionally engaged to each other by their parents, either for sentimental or financial reasons. Perhaps three-fourths of the girls of the country are married before they reach the age of sixteen, and many are married between twelve and fourteen.

The consideration paid on the occasion of the marriage of non-Mohammedan, or Christian and Jewish girls, goes the other way from that paid at the marriage of an Arab girl, it being the desire of the groom to have as large a dowry as possible for his wife, and which goes to help make up the family exchequer. It consequently results that if a family that is not well to do has many girls it is very difficult to marry them well.

A certain brutality of parents towards their children exists among the lower classes, a condition that is probably due more to inferior intelligence caused by lack of education than to anything else. As but a very small minority of the population of this part of the country, say twenty per cent., and a much smaller proportion of the tribes of the interior read and write, this attitude is readily understood.

The prevalence of crippled begging children in the cities leads to the supposition that they are not all deformed by accident or disease, but that in many instances they have been purposely so rendered in order to more profitably ply their trade by creating sympathy in the minds of the persons addressed in their appeals for succour. During the summer months a considerable number of such pitiable creatures between four and eight years old may be seen in the streets of Aleppo, some with deformed legs, some with spinal afflictions, and others blind or otherwise maimed, many unable to walk and hutching from place to place, collecting coppers from those whom their condition touches. As the hour grows late in the night these unfortunates gradually disappear one by one, and if a person is interested in their destination they may be seen to be gathered up in some obscure corner by an apparent relative or guardian, lifted to the shoulder and carried away into the maze of various Oriental residential quarters, where their scanty collection is spent in support of a family, or for the poisonous rakee, a strong alcoholic drink much relished by the lower element. It was suspected that a sort of society existed whereby such children were produced and let out to certain parties to be exploited for their personal benefit, but no serious investigation has ever been made, and the nefarious traffic continues.

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient servant,