A guileless reader of Chavanne's book on the Sahara is apt to get the
impression that there is, after all, an oasis in the desert of African
lovelessness and contempt for women. Touareg women, we are told
therein (208-10), are allowed to dispose of their hands and to eat
with the men, certain dishes being reserved for them, others
(including tea and coffee) for the men. In the evening the women
assemble and improvise songs while the men sit around in their best
attire. The women write mottoes on the men's shields, and the men
carve their chosen one's name in the rocks and sing her praises. The
situation has been compared to mediaeval chivalry. But when we examine
it more critically than the biassed Chavanne did, we find, using his
own data, more of Africa than appeared to be there at first sight. The
woman, we are informed, owes the husband obedience, and he can divorce
her at pleasure. When a woman talks to a man she veils her face "as a
sign of respect." And when the men travel, they are accompanied by
those of their female slaves who are young and pretty. Their morals
are farther characterized by the fact that descent is in the female
line, which is usually due to uncertain paternity. The women are ugly
and masculine, and Chavanne does not mention a single fact or act
which proves that they experience supersensual, altruistic love.
So far as the position of Touareg women is superior to that of other
Africans, it is due to the fact that slaves are kept to do the hard
work and to certain European and Christian influences and the
institution of theoretical monogamy. Possibly the germs of a better
sort of love may exist among them, as they may among the Bedouins;
they must make a beginning somewhere.