Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/510

 Women Among Mohammedans. wood for cooking, salt, vinegar and meat, every day, or according to the custom of the country. He must supply her with a mat or a bed, that is, a mattress and a covering. Of course these duties have correlative rights. The young Kabyle girl is sold in marriage by her father, her brother, her uncle, or some relative who is considered her legal owner. In some tribes she can twice refuse the man proposed to her; then her right is exhausted, and she is forced to submit. The legal owner of the girl generally gives to her at the wedding garments and jewels, or rather he lends them to her, for she must not dispose of them, and at her death these precious articles must be returned to her relatives. An essential condition of a Kabyle marriage, as of the Arab, is the pay ment of a certain price; this sum is gener ally a matter for discussion, but with some tribes there is one price for all girls. The sum is called the turban (thamanth), as with us ''pin-money" is spoken of. A penalty guarantees the payment of this money and the handing over of the girl. In principle the woman has no right over this thanwnih. The father receives also the provisions that will be consumed at the wedding feast, and he also stipulates that his daughter shall re ceive a gift of garments and jewels; if the husband gives this present, he is not bound to maintain the bride during the first year. Once handed over, the poor Kabyle wife is entirely at the mercy of the husband-pro prietor. She must follow wherever he goes to live; she can only own the garments which cover her; he can correct her with his fist, with a stick, with a stone or even with a poignard: he is, however, forbidden to kill her without a reasonably serious, reason. If she is not able to nurse her own babies, the law decides that the husband must supply a wet nurse. (Hanoteau and Letourneau, La Kabylie, II, 148-169.) The Koran is by no means silent as to the conduct of married women. In one place it

469

says: ''The women ought to behave toward their husbands in like manner as their hus bands should behave toward them, accord ing to that which is just; but the men ought to have the superiority over them. God is mighty and wise." In another chapter we have these words: ''Speak unto the believ ing women, that they restrain their eyes and preserve their modesty, and show not their ornaments (that is, their clothes, jewels and the furniture of their toilet, much less the beautiful parts of their bodies), except what necessarily appeareth thereof (their outer garments, or hands and faces). And let them throw their veils over their bosoms, and not show their ornaments unless to their husbands, or their fathers, or their hus band's father, or their sons, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or their slaves, or unto such men as attend them and have no need of women, or unto children who distinguish not the nakedness of women: and let them not make a noise with their feet, that their orna ments which they hide may thereby be dis covered." Only the nearest male relatives were allowed to see Mohammedan women, and they only such parts of them as cannot be well concealed in the familiar intercourse of the family. Doctors of the law vary con siderably in their interpretation of this pas sage. It will be remembered that the He brew prophet Isaiah was very severe on the Jewish matrons who were fond of "tinkling the ornaments of their feet." "As to such women as are past child-bearing, who hope not to marry again, because of their ad vanced age, it shall be no crime in them if they lay aside their outer garments, not showing their ornaments: but if they ab stain from this it will be better for them. God both heareth and knoweth." (Sura, XXIV.) "Woman's rights, of a kind, are not un known in Turkey, it would seem. The wife is mistress of her own domain. She man ages the household and the children; and