Page:The young Moslem looks at life (1937).djvu/110

 He kneels, taking the same position but several feet behind the bride, and chants several phrases from the Koran.

We wait breathless and expectant, for we are perhaps as eager to see the groom as is he to see his bride. Of course he has never seen her and she is not supposed to have seen him—though fleeting glimpses she has had. When he arrives he too kneels in front of the mirror, reaches for the hand of the bride and looks in the mirror at the shy and lovely creature, while the priest begins another chanted prayer, which fortunately for them lasts only a few moments. The ceremony is over and the groom withdraws to his own home where his male friends and relatives are being entertained in honor of the occasion; the bride is conducted to her chair under the mantelpiece and showered with rose-petals and tiny white sweets. There is more music and dancing. More tea and ices are served and the bride is the center of attention as the guests come to wish her well.

While the marriage age for girls in Moslem lands is rising with the spread of education, yet there is still a vast amount of child marriage among girls. This is especially true of the Moslems of India. Wherever women doctors are to be found in the Moslem lands, they have many sad stories to tell of the tragedies in girl life that are found because of this practice of child marriage.

Another ancient Moslem institution that is being widely discussed and criticized today is polygamy. Moslem women are speaking out, and in their conferences in India, for example, are boldly denouncing