The veil has always been, to the European mind, the point of departure for Turkish feministic reform, and the wearing of it by those who stand for such reform, when many Turkish women have discarded the impenetrable yashmak entirely and a still larger number wear only veils of gauze, seems an anomaly. To realize that it is not, one must get below current misunderstandings and baseless reports and know the high-caste Turkish woman as she really is—for with her Turkish feministic reform begins and by her it is being safeguarded.
Many who are familiar with the diplomatic and social life of our European capitals have stated that the high-caste Turkish woman of today is as a class more highly educated, and also more feminine, in the tenderest and most refined meaning of the term, than any other woman in the world. She not only knows the history, geography, and literature of her own and foreign nations, but in addition knows two, three, and often four languages besides her own—always French and German, usually English, and often Italian or Russian—languages which she does not speak haltingly but with fluency and perfection, for in the wealthier Turkish families of today French, German, and English governesses are a recognized institution. She is very beautiful, always refined, unobtrusively thoughtful of others, and supremely loyal to her ideals of character and duty—and her ideals always center about the home.
Yet her life is virtually an imprisoned one, bounded as it is, day and night, year in and year out, by the four walls of the women's apartment or harem. She cannot go out unattended in the daytime, nor in the evening at all; she may not attend theaters nor even a concert; she may not attend social or other gatherings where men are present.
This state of things was not so unendurable to the women of the preceding generation, for they had not been permitted to embrace European ideas through an education on European lines, but to the high-caste woman of today, who has been given a glimpse into a larger world than her own, and a world very wonderful and alluring, the old harem existence is almost intolerable. Yet she must continue in it for a time, and here is the wonderful thing—she does this, in the deeper sense, willingly.
Those who know her best tell us that out of the silence and seclusion of her life, the Turkish woman has evolved a philosophy of her own, and one that is not limited to the orthodox Muslim view of woman; those who know life and humanity best know also that this could never have come to her past the impenetrable barriers of caste and orthodox religious doctrine, had she not attuned her life to some, at least, of the higher notes of Life Universal. And it is the teaching of Theosophy that this can only be done by those with whom duty is the highest ideal—duty, for ever and ever, duty. In a heroic determination to do her whole duty to husband and family, to nation and to home, the Turkish woman may well be commended to that ultra-modern type who leaves husband and children to their own devices while she is away, chasing some will-o'-the-wisp or fad. Of this type Turkey is yet as destitute as certain strata of European and American life are prolific.
The Turkish woman is wise enough to wait in trust the day of her complete emancipation, and she feels it is approaching—but she also knows that to push or hurry it forward would invoke a reaction that might ruin her country and defeat her hopes. She knows that methods even approaching those of the modern "suffragette" would only blot the golden dawn and put back until a later cycle the glorious day. We see now why the members of this deputation wore the orthodox veil, or partly why, for no Turkish woman of the educated class is unaware that to needlessly offend the conservative element is to fetter the Young Turk movement, that evolving drama of national life in which woman played so heroic a part. Says a current writer:
Everybody agrees that the most remarkable change in social conditions caused by the revolution in Turkey has occurred among the feminine portion of the population, and it is conceded that the wives and mothers of the Young Turk party had a powerful influence in bringing it about. During the anxious months of conspiracy and preparation many high-born Turkish ladies worked with courage, enthusiasm and intelligence for the cause of liberty. Some of them acted as messengers, carrying concealed about their persons papers which, if discovered, would have been their death; others afforded the revolutionary committees opportunities for holding their meetings, and furnished those who were in danger means of escape. Twelve thousand spies in the employ of Abdul Hamid were unable to outwit the women of Turkey in this work, and the leaders of the Young Turk party concede that they owe their success largely to the assistance of their wives and sisters and mothers.
In that intimate blending of heroic self-abnegation and of wisdom which characterizes the efforts and the daily life of the typical high-caste Turkish woman, the world has offered for its reading a great lesson. The Ottoman woman possibly has found her intuition, which is the soul's own voice, and her will, which is "the soul at work." Pain, misunderstanding, oppression, and heartache, have opened many doors in the chambers of her being, and in wrestling with the angel of untoward circumstance she has found the inner power that enables one to turn the leaden fetters about one's feet into the golden sandals of Hermes himself. If this has come about, and those who know the Ottoman woman best declare that it has, then we know that it is because she has striven to attune her life to that which must be the keynote of all lasting feministic reform—womanliness—true womanliness, with its overtones of tenderness, compassion and aspiration, and its deepening undertones of solid attainment, of patriotism, of courage, of loyalty to one's ideal, and of faithfulness to duty.