We, in our turn, wish happiness to the bride on her bridal throne, as we pass before her in solemn procession. Last of all comes the feast, for women only, after which the happy couple are, at last, “introduced.”
At this charming and strange ceremony I also witnessed a fine example of true democracy as practised in the East. Among the guests in their elaborate ball-dresses, trimmed with orange blossom, I noticed the Grand Vizier’s wife; and then, catching sight of a very differently attired group of women, wearing faded and worn tcharchaffs and feradjés, I realised that the “bath-women” of the family had come uninvited to the feast! And the door of the harem was wide open, that all might enter in to see the presents, admire the dresses, and all the other delightful feminine intimacies of such an occasion.
As a matter of fact, I was told by Zeyneb, any woman can go to a Turkish wedding without having been invited. “You, in England, only ask your intimate friends, and yet you have to employ detectives to watch the presents.”
When my attendant, Cadem Haïr (whose colour led me to call her Miss Chocolate) became engaged to a coffee-coloured railway official, she was treated like one of the family by the Pasha’s household. Fatma and I bought her trousseau, we arranged for her to be photographed, and secured a Kara Kheuz (or Punch and Judy show) for the wedding festivities.
So many confidences, so many romances and love-stories inside the Imperial harem, and outside! They would fill a volume.
I have never met an “old maid” in Turkey, and I doubt whether one could be found. I well remember the distress and anxieties of a certain matron whose daughter was still unmarried at twenty-eight. The girl had resolutely refused all offers, and her poor mother could only suppose she had been bewitched. Then one day he appeared, and that story had a happy ending.
Whether the reforms Mustapha Kemal is so determined to promote will substantially diminish the number of early marriages, one cannot, of course, foresee. At present, fortunately, the most brilliant, practical, and advanced Turkish women have found their own sphere, and do not enter into open competition with men. If they are tempted to follow our Western feminists, to steal, not only men’s prestige, but their bread and butter, domestic chaos and anarchy may spread to the East.
For the moment, one does not expect advance beyond “The Pasha’s” own striking example. He has not only chosen his own bride, but dispensed with the Imam—a parallel to the first Englishman who dared to marry in a registry office!
I always said this man would scatter many coupés d’état, once peace was signed; but he has not waited for the signature!
The originality of his gifts to the bride recalls the Prophet of Islam. Mahomet gave his daughter a Koran, a prayer-carpet, and a coffee-mill; Mustapha Kemal has given his wife-to-be General Trécoupis’ revolver and an Arab horse! She is an excellent rider, sitting astride, with the veil only confining her hair.