Moslem and Christian Girls Reading Together
The following are the words of another writer:
Never believe people who tell you Moslem women are happy and well-off. I have lived among them for nearly eighteen years and know something of their sad lives.
A Moslem girl is unwelcome at her birth and oppressed throughout her life. When a child is born in a family the first question asked is, "Is it a boy or girl?" If the answer is, "A boy," congratulations follow from friends and neighbors. But if the answer is, "A girl," all commiserate the mother in words such as, "God have mercy on thee."
As the little one grows up she has to learn her place as inferior to her brothers, and that she must always give in to them and see the best of everything given to them.
I am glad to say that Christian missions have made it possible for her to go to school if she lives in a town. But at the age of ten she is probably taken away from her mother, the only real friend she is likely to have in the world, and sold by her male relations into another family where she becomes what is virtually a servant to her mother-in-law. We know that mothers-in-law even in England have not always a good name, but what may they be to a young girl completely under their power? Many are the sad stories I have heard of constant quarrelling, followed on the part of the little bride by attempts to run away to her old home, and the advent of her relations on the scene of strife, to patch up a reconciliation and induce the girl to submit to her fate.
Perhaps you say, "Why does her husband not protect his wife from unkindness, does he not care for her?" There you strike upon the root of a Moslem woman's unhappiness. The boy husband has no choice in his bride, has probably never set eyes on her until the marriage day. He seems to care little about her beyond making use of her. She is to be his attendant to serve him and provide him with sons. As to the first, I have watched one of these girls in a merchant's house in Jerusalem standing in attendance on her young husband's toilet, handing him whatever he wanted, and folding up his thrown-off clothes. But I looked in vain for the least sign of kindly recognition of her attentions from him in look or word or deed. The Moslem thinks it beneath his dignity to speak to his wife except to give orders, and does not answer her questions. It is not customary for them to sit down to meals together, and as for going for a walk together it would be scandalous! One must not even ask a man after his wife in public and she may not go out to visit friends without his permission, and then veiled so thickly as to be unrecognizable. The higher her social rank the greater the seclusion for a Moslem woman.
Then, as to her motherhood. The young wife's thoughts are continually directed to the importance of pleasing her husband and avoiding the corporal punishment which accompanies his anger. If she does not bear him a son she is in danger of divorce or of the arrival of a co-wife brought to the house. It is strange that the latter trial seems to be faced preferably to the former, which is a great disgrace.