In the towns along the coast, where there is more enlightenment; the women have more freedom and seem outwardly happier than those who are more strictly secluded in the towns where Mohammedanism is the predominant influence. Freedom, however, is used as a comparative term, for the following was told to me to show what privileges are accorded under that name to the upper-class women in one of the smaller coast cities. They are allowed to go often, every day if they like, and sit by the graves in the Mohammedan cemetery. When you consider the fact that they are shrouded in their long "covers" or cloaks, with faces veiled, and that the cemetery is not a cheerful place, to say the least, and that it is the only place where they are allowed to go, this so-called "freedom" does not seem to be so very wonderful, after all. However, it is far better than being shut indoors all the time.
A Family Group at Jericho
Any one living among these people becomes gradually accustomed to the accepted state of things, especially when one has learned that outside interference only makes matters worse, and it is only now and then when some especially sad or heart-rending thing comes to your knowledge that you realize how truly dreadful the whole system is. The other day I was talking about this with a friend whose knowledge of Mohammedan women had been confined to a few families who on the outside would compare very favorably with Christian families she knew, as regards comfort, cleanliness, and contentment. I agreed with her that there were many of the nominal Christian families where there certainly was great unhappiness. But one must not, in comparing the two, lose sight of the bitterest, darkest side. No Christian woman has to contend with the fact that if her husband wearies of her, or some carelessness displeases him, he is perfectly at liberty to cast her off as he would toss aside an old shoe. In fact he would use the same expression in speaking of his shoe, of a dog, some loathsome object, the birth of a daughter or of his wife,—an expression of apology for referring to such contaminating subjects. Nor does a Christian woman fear that as the years pass and her beauty fades, or her husband prospers, that one day he will cause preparations to be made and bring a new wife home. The Mohammedans have a proverb that a man's heart is as hard as a blow from the elbow, and that his love lasts not more than two months.
A Mohammedan friend was telling me of a woman she knew and was fond of. "She was a good wife and mother," she said, "and she was very happy with her two children, a boy and a girl; her husband seemed to love her, for she is not old, and it was a great surprise to her when he told her one day that he was going to marry another wife, for she had forgotten that it might be. He said he would take a separate room for the new wife. She said nothing—what could she say? But he deceived her, for he only took the room for the new wife for one week, and then he brought her to live with the first wife. And now she weeps all the time, and oh! how unhappy they all are! I tell her not to weep, for her husband will weary of her and divorce her." A shadow crossed the face of my friend as she spoke, and I could see she was thinking of her own case, and fearing the fear of all Mohammedan women. "Why did that man take another wife when he was happy and had children?" I asked, for I knew that where there are no children a man feels justified in divorcing his wife, or taking a second, third, or fourth. "He wanted more children. Two were not enough."
Can there be any real happiness for a Mohammedan woman? She gets little comfort from her religion, although if she is a perfectly obedient wife, attends faithfully to her religious duties, and does not weep if her child dies, she has a hope that she may be one of seventy houris who will have the privilege of attending upon her lord and master in his sensual paradise. The idea of these two horrors, divorce and other wives to share her home, is constantly before her.
A Protestant woman recently told me that she had let some of her rooms to a Mohammedan family from Hums. The man was intelligent and the wife was an attractive young woman with a little girl. The man told her in the presence of his wife that when he went back to Hums he thought he should take another wife. "Why do you do that when you are so happy as you are? Think of your wife—how unhappy it would make her to have you bring in another!" The man laughed and told her that she made a great mistake in thinking that Mohammedan women were like Christian women, that they did not mind having another woman in the house, they were accustomed to it and brought up to expect it. "But I hope that what I said will make him think and perhaps he will decide not to take another wife, for I showed him plainly the evil of it."
The women may be brought up to expect it,—they may have been the members of a polygamous family themselves,—but the human heart is the same the world over, and the sanctity of the home with one wife is never invaded without poignant suffering. A wealthy Mohammedan will establish each of his wives in a separate house, those not able to afford this luxury have their harem in one house. It does not require a very vivid imagination to be able to picture the inevitable result: jealousies, heartburnings, contentions, wranglings, and worse.