Women in white raiment

by John Lemley

At last the much desired smallness is obtained, the feet are deformed for life and she is greatly admired by all her friends. If she is not betrothed until she is ten or more years of age, one of the first questions is, “What is the length of her feet?” Three inches is the correct length of the fashionable shoe, but some are only two.

But this has respect only to those girl-babies who are suffered to live. The horrors of heathenism permits the new-born girl baby to be disposed of. There is outside the city walls of Fuchan, China, a structure of stone without doors, but with two window-like openings. This well-known and frequently visited building is the baby tower—not a day nursery for the care of the infants of the poor, not an orphanage where the little waifs are clothed and fed and educated, but a place where girl-babies can be thrown and left to die. In larger cities, such as Pekin, carts pass through the streets at an early hour of the day and gather up the babies abandoned to the streets by their inhuman parents.

Women in the common walks of life are the slaves of their husbands. The wife rises early in the morning, does the housework for the day, and prepares the morning meal for her husband, who always eats it by himself while she serves. Having finished her own meal, after her husband has eaten his, she cleans up the dishes, and then hastens to the fields to toil all day under a burning sun. The husband, meanwhile, spends the day in sleeping, or gambling, or when opportunity occurs, in thieving or marauding. Sometimes, frequently indeed, the women are carried off by other tribes while out in the fields, and are only released at a price, varying with the excellencies of the woman in question. And yet, if any one were to offer to relieve these women of their work, their offer would be rejected, for this life of toil is what they have been brought up to and trained in, and they know of nothing better. They especially like to be in the fields by themselves, for then they are alone, and are free from the hated presence of man (curiously enough they are said to hate their men), and surely no one would grudge them their liberty.

In dark Africa, where lives one-sixth of the heathen population of the globe, human sacrifice is something awful. And the saddest of all is, the victims are mostly from the ranks of women. Of the languages and dialects, five hundred have never been reduced to writing. What scenes of horrors are locked up in oblivion among these wild tribes of that dark land. Almost daily, the numerous wives of the rulers, as they die, are buried alive in their graves, being compelled to hold the dead bodies of their husbands on their laps, until they themselves are relieved by death. The witch doctors annually slay thousands of innocent women. Among the Masai, a woman has a market value equal to five glass beads, while a cow is worth ten of the same.

Woman’s life in the harem of the Mohammedan is but little better. The code of morals is a very loose one, and the degradation of women beyond our pen to describe. The women of the harems are divided into three classes: The Rhadines, or legitimate wives. The Ikbals, or favorites, out of whose ranks the Rhadines are chosen, and Ghienzdes or “women who are pleasing to the eye of their lord,” and who have the chance to advance to the rank of Ikbals. If the wife of a Turkoman asks his permission to go, and he says, “go,” without adding, “come back,” they are divorced. If he becomes dissatisfied with the most trifling acts of his wife, and tears the veil from her face, that constitutes a divorce. In the streets, if a husband meets one of his numerous wives, he never recognizes her, or ever introduces her to a male friend. A Mohammedan never inquires after the female portion of the household of his friend. The system is full of cruelty and despotism. In Mohammedan countries women suffer from the low opinion held of them by men. The prophet said: “I stood at the gates of hell, and lo! most of its inhabitants were women!” And yet, strange to say, while the religion of Islam denies that woman has a soul, it teaches a sensual paradise.

In fact, in all nations where the Bible is unknown, woman is the slave of man’s lust. She is a drudge or a toy, whose reign is as short-lived as her personal charms. She may not be trusted out of sight of her guardians, though the masculine members of the family are anything but choice in their associations. Indeed, in some countries a woman can not visit even her own mother without being carried in a palanquin or guarded by slaves.

One of the strangest, saddest sights we ever saw was at Mersina, in the Levant. Passing a field one day there were six native women (noble in form and of beautiful olive complexion) hoeing what looked to be cucumbers, while a step or two in their rear stood a negro, a full-blooded Nubian, with a long stick, like an ox-goad, in his hand, evidently their master.

In Ceylon, when it was proposed by a missionary to teach women to read, one native said to another, “What do you think that man is talking about? He wants to teach the women to read! He’ll be wanting to teach the cows next!”

Such is the disrespect in which women are held by heathen people. Five words describe the biography of women in all lands where the Bible is not known: Unwelcomed at birth; untaught in childhood; uncherished in widowhood; unprotected in old age; unlamented when dead.

Such, in brief, is the treatment of womanhood in lands where the Bible is a sealed book, and truly, in comparison with their heathen sisters, women living under the blessed teachings of Christianity are “clothed in white raiment.”