Page:Walter Matthew Gallichan - Women under Polygamy (1914).djvu/205

 It is easy to accept the monogamic principle in marriage as the noblest and highest form of love between the sexes, and to dismiss all possibility of lofty emotion and refined feeling from the harem marriage. I have heard more than one Western woman, living under Eastern custom, assert that polygamy possessed many advantages for their sex, and solved the problem of the enforced celibacy which is common among whole masses of women in the monogamous countries. One of these ladies professed a strong preference for "the sheltered, protected life of the women of the East."

Let us survey a part of the teaching of the apostle of the creed of Islam referring to men's relations to women. Among them we shall find several precepts that point to an esteem for the mother and wife.

First, in regard to mothers, Mohammed affirmed that "Heaven lieth at the feet of mothers."

Celibacy, which is one of the anomalies of Western civilisation, is forbidden in the saying: "Marriage is incumbent on all who possess the ability. There is no monasticism in Islam."

In the treatment of wives the Moslem is instructed to "admonish with kindness."

"Do you beat your wife as you would a slave? That you must not do."

"He is of the most perfect Moslems whose disposition is most liked by his own family."