Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/474

 460 HAREM and preserve their modesty, and discover not their ornaments, except what necessarily ap- peareth thereof; and let them throw their veils over their bosoms, and not show their ornaments, unless to their husbands, or their fathers, or their husbands' fathers, or their sons, or their husbands' sons, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or unto such men as attend them and have no need of women [eunuchs], or unto children." The apartments of the women are generally in the upper stories, and so contrived as to secure the utmost privacy. They have commonly a separate entrance, and care is taken to place the windows so that they shall not be seen from the windows of any other house or from the street. In a harem containing several wives, it is usual to assign to them separate suites of apartments. In some places the harem is often superbly furnished and decorated, while the more public part of the dwelling exhibits every sign of poverty. The inmates of the harem consist of a wife or wives and of any number of female slaves, some of whom are kept merely as servants to cook, to clean the rooms, and to wait upon the wives and concu- bines. It is estimated, however, by the best informed travellers, that only one man in 20 has more than one wife. It is only the very rich that maintain populous harems, and many of these are content with one wife. In frequent instances the wife who will not tolerate a sec- ond spouse in the harem will permit the hus- band to keep concubines for the sake of having them to wait upon her. It is said that Mo- hammedan women do not dislike the seclusion in which they are kept, but take a pride in it as an evidence of their value. If the husband permits them to be freely seen by other men, they regard his liberality as indicative of indif- ference. The Christian travellers most familiar with oriental life have passed very opposite judgments on the nature and effect of the harem system. Lady Mary Montagu, who visited the harems of the great officers of the Turkish em- pire, has left gorgeous pictures of what she saw. She describes the harems as glittering with splendor and inhabited by lovely girls magnifi- cently attired, leading a gay and happy life. Har- riet Martineau, who visited some harems of the higher class in Cairo and Damascus in 1847, gives a very different picture. In a harem at Cairo she found 20 women, some slaves, nearly all young, some good-looking, but none hand- some. Some were black, Nubians or Abyssin- ians, and the rest Circassians with very light complexions. She saw no trace of intellect in these women, except in a homely old one. Their ignorance she. describes as fearful, and their grossness as revolting. At Damascus she saw the seven wives of three men in one harem, with a crowd of attendants. Of the seven, two had been the wives of the head of the house- hold, who was dead ; three were the wives of his eldest son, aged 22 ; and the remaining two were the wives of his second son, aged 15. Of the five younger, three were sisters, children of different mothers in the same harem. They smoked, drank coffee and sherbet, sang to the accompaniment of a tambourine, danced in an indecent manner, and all the while romping, kissing, and screaming went on among old and young. She pronounces them the most stu- diously depressed and corrupted women she ever saw. Lady Shiel, wife of the British min- ister to Persia in 1849, who lived four years in that country, says that Persian women of the upper class lead a life of idleness and luxury, and enjoy more liberty than the women of Christendom. They consume their time by going to the bath and by a constant round of visits, and frequently acquire a knowledge of reading and writing, and of the choice poetical works in their native language. Cooking, or at least its superintendence, is a favorite pas- time. In populous harems the mortality among children is very great, owing to the neglect, laziness, and ignorance of the mothers and nurses. An American lady, Mrs. Caroline Paine, who travelled in the Turkish empire, says in her " Tent and Harem " (New York, 1859) that she made the acquaintance of Turk- ish women who were "wonderful instances of native elegance, refinement, and aptness in the courtesies, ordinary civilities, and prattle of society." She says: "Turkish women are by no means confined to a life of solitude or imprisonment, and they would be scarcely tempted to exchange the perfect freedom and exemption from the austere duties of life, which is their acme of happiness, for all the advan- tages that might be gained from intellectual pursuits or a different form of society." Capt. Burton, who travelled extensively in Moham- medan countries in the disguise of a native, and who in the character of a physician saw something of the interior of the harem, says that the oriental is "the only state of society in which jealousy and quarrels about the sex are the exception and not the rule of life." Since Abdul-Aziz succeeded to the throne of Turkey (1861), in some of the harems of Con- stantinople and other cities European ideas and manners have been engrafted upon Asiatic splendor, and the women, under attendance, now go into the streets and bazaars, covering the lower parts of their faces with a single white veil, so thin that it does not conceal the features, while the eyes and eyebrows are en- tirely exposed. The majority of the harems, however, in the cities and in the interior, still rigidly and religiously retain all the ancient rules and customs. The two ladies of W. H. Seward's party, in his tour around the world, in May, 1871, visited the harem in the palace of the khedive's mother (the princess valideh) at Cairo. After traversing a succession of sa- loons superbly furnished with velvet carpets, lace and damask curtains, satin-covered sofas and divans, large French mirrors, and crystal chandeliers, they were presented to the prin- cess, who was surrounded by the ladies of the