Page:Walter Matthew Gallichan - Women under Polygamy (1914).djvu/179

 forms of freedom in society enjoyed by English and American women, they have a much firmer security in a legal sense. There was no need for a Married Woman's Property Act in the Ottoman Empire. Complete possession and control of the personal property of women was granted ages ago.

Every Turkish mother has sole guardianship of her children in their early years. In after life, the children seek her counsels, and the sons frequently obey their mothers during the whole of their lives. Upon divorce or repudiation by a husband, all of a wife's property is allotted to her.

It is supposed that divorce is impossible for a woman in Turkey. This is incorrect. There are several causes for a legal separation from a husband. Cruelty, and even neglect to maintain a wife in the station in which she was born, are reasons for a woman's plea for divorce. Desertion by a husband is another cause. If a wife wishes to leave a husband on any of these charges, she is entitled by law to a return of the dowry paid upon marriage.

"Turkish women," writes Mrs. Garnett, "thus already possess all the legal personal and proprietary rights necessary to give them a social position equal, if not superior, to that of European women generally; and the objection to their emancipation from harem restraints is consequently one of custom and prejudice