HOURIISM.
Married, not mated.
There are some aspects and incidents of the subject of the preceding
chapter which, though one would prefer passing them by unnoticed, cannot
be omitted from an honest attempt to sketch the peculiarities of Eastern
life. For instance, in the Christian heaven they neither marry, nor are
given in marriage. Of this everybody approves: at all events one never
met, or heard of, a Christian who wished it otherwise. In the Mahomedan
heaven, however, those who have kept the faith, and lived holy lives,
will be rewarded with houris, damsels whose earthly charms have been
perfected for the hareems of Paradise. This article of his faith is
of such a nature, that it colours all the believer’s conceptions not
only of the life that is to come, but also of the life that is now. The
vision of these companions, as bright as stars, and as many in number,
is so attractive, and so engrossing, that all other thoughts of Paradise
die out of the mind and heart by the side of it. It is enough. It is
Paradise. And if so, then the houris of earth are the Paradise of earth.
I have been told by men who have resided long in the East, and have
had good opportunities for knowing the people well, that the facts of
life there have conformed themselves to this anticipation. The houris
of earth are the end-all and be-all of oriental life. Unlike anything
amongst ourselves, it is with a view to them that even the arrangements
of oriental houses are designed. No wonder men think they cannot make
too much of, or guard too carefully, this treasure, for what more can
heaven itself give them? Each, therefore, at once makes for himself in
this matter, as far as his means allow, a present Paradise. The Sheik
of the Great Mosk of Omar at Jerusalem introduced me to his son, a lad
of sixteen, who was, as I have lately mentioned, already the master of
two houris. It is said at Cairo that this part of the present Khedivé’s
household does not at all fall short of what might be expected of the
ruler of Egypt. To oriental thought there is nothing incongruous,
nothing unbecoming, in their prophet, the chosen recipient of the Divine
mind, and of all men the most absorbed in holy things, having been a
matrimonial pluralist.
This is the very opposite to a sentiment with which the European world
has been made familiar: the sentiment that husband, or wife, cannot be
loved, except at the expense of the love of God; that it would be well if
love were no worse than of the earth earthy; that those who do life-long
violence to this master sentiment of our youthful nature, who trample
upon it, and endeavour to extinguish it, and who put in its place such
feelings as minds, that do this despite to nature, can alone originate,
are better, and purer, and holier, than those who accept the duties, and
cares, and happinesses of wedded life. It is strange that these ideas,
which, through a natural reaction, had their birthplace in the East, are
now most alien to oriental modes of thought.
Orientals are not more luxurious than ourselves. The difference is that
their luxury is directed more exclusively to one object; and that that
one object is of such a nature as to make their luxury more enervating
than ours. Their luxury is houris, and all that appertains to them;
and all that contributes to investing their society with a halo of
sensuous delights; gorgeous apartments; plashing fountains; shady, and
colour-enamelled gardens; exquisite odours. Our universal luxury does not
relax the fibre of our minds, and bodies, as much as their one particular
luxury does theirs.
We may bring ourselves to understand, to some extent, how this system
acts on Orientals by picturing to our thought how it would act on
ourselves. Take the first fifty men you meet in the Strand, or see coming
out of a Church. Look into their faces, and endeavour to make our what
you can about them from their appearance. They are evidently most of them
married men. This means with us that their bark of life, as respects one
most important matter at all events, is now moored in harbour. Hope and
fortune are words that, in this matter, have no longer any meaning for
them. They have accepted the situation, and have ceased to think about
houris. Each has taken his wife for better, for worse; for sickness and
for health, till death shall part them. Their thoughts are now about
their business, their families, their pursuits, their society. But what
a change would come over the spirit of their dreams, if each could have
as many houris as he pleased, and could afford, of one kind or another,
houris ever fair and ever young; and could dismiss at any moment any he
wished, for any reason, to be rid of, by the simple form of a writing
of divorcement: no more trouble in it than in making an entry in one’s
pocket-book, and as exclusively one’s own affair; and could dismiss some
without even this small formality of the writing of divorcement. Under
such circumstances the houri question, which now has no place in the
thoughts of one of these worthy members of society, would straightway
occupy in the minds of many of them the first place of all. It would then
become necessary that a complete end should be put to many things that
no harm comes from now. These staid and respectable gentlemen would soon
find that houris must be excluded from Churches, as Orientals have found
that they must be from Mosks, during the time of Divine Service, because,
under the new system, it would be impossible for them to be devout when
surrounded with houris. Neither could houris be any longer domestic
servants in our fashion. Houris also must be excluded from society. Nor
would it be admissible for houris to appear in public, or anywhere,
except in the presence of their lords, with unveiled faces. A little
exercise of the imagination enables us to see what the metamorphosis
would be in ourselves. And on the Oriental the effects of the system are
even greater, because he has no political life, less pre-occupation from
business than we have, and none of those pursuits, and employments for
the mind, which our education, and the state of knowledge amongst us give
rise to here.
As we were returning to Cairo by the river, we passed the corpse of a
woman floating on the water. Every European of the party felt pity for
her fate, and for her fault. Had it been possible we would gladly have
given sepulture to these dishonoured remains of our common humanity, from
which the Divine inmate had been expelled so cruelly. Such sentiments,
however, are unintelligible to the Arab mind. The dogs and the vultures,
they think, will give sepulture good enough to one who has brought
disgrace so stinging on father, brothers, and husband. No pity have they
for the fallen. No consciousness of failings of their own.
This is evil. But perhaps it might be more evil to care for none of these
things. Indifference might be worse than hardness. Indifference would
mean moral decay and rottenness. Hardness here is moral indignation,
kindling up into an uncontrollable flame, which burns up, like stubble,
all other feelings. These are simple-minded people, and they feel
strongly within their narrow range of feelings.
Something perhaps might be said in extenuation of the fault of this poor
frail one, whose punishment, if it were not greater than her fault, was
still the extremest man can inflict. What agonizing moments must those
last ones have been when, not weakened by slow disease, nor broken by
days spent in long imprisonment, but fresh from her home, in the flower
of youth and Nature’s pride of strength, with the blood quick and warm,
she was being dragged away to the dark river, and by those God had made
nearest and dearest to her. Her brothers are foremost in the work. There
is not a heart in all the world, except, perhaps, of one whom she dare
not think of now, that is touched with pity for her. Brothers are turned
to worse than tigers, for they never did to death their own kin, or even
their own kind.
But under such a system there will be some, among those who have wealth
and leisure more than enough, who must fall. Women, like men, are only
what the ideas in their minds make them. Every idea that is implanted,
or springs up in the mind, may be regarded as a living thing. It has
the attributes of life. It roots itself in the brain; it feeds, and
assimilates what it feeds on; it grows; it ramifies; it bears fruit: it
propagates itself after its kind; it carries on the Darwinian conflict
for life with other ideas. If not killed itself, it may kill them. It may
develop itself abnormally. It may get possession of an undue proportion
of the ground.
These are general properties. But each particular idea has also,
precisely as the various species of plants have, its own special
properties. Some are beneficent, and these are beneficent in various
ways. Some are poisonous, and these are poisonous in various ways. Some
bear little fruit, some much. Some are serviceable to all, some only to
a few. Some are feeble, some strong. Some are bitter, some sweet. Some
burn, some soothe. Some are beautiful, some unsightly. Some can stand
alone, some need support.
Every brain is a world any of these may grow in, and in which some must
grow. For the seeds of some are carried about in the air. The seeds of
others circulate in the blood. Others come from the heart. Some also are
the growth of good seeds deposited in the mind by human intention and
care.
What, then, are the ideas which have been implanted, or have somehow come
to exist, in the minds of these inmates of the hareem? As a rule they
have been taught nothing. Not even their religion. They have not been
permitted to enter a Mosk at the time of prayer. All the ideas which get
established in the minds of educated women in our happier part of the
world, through some religious instruction, through some acquaintance
with history, or art, or science, or poetry, or general literature, have
never had a chance in the minds of the ladies of Cairo. They were left
to those ideas, the germs of which float about in the air, or circulate
in the blood, or come from the heart. And the only air that could convey
ideas to them was that of the hareem; first of the hareem in which they
were brought up, then of the hareem in which they must pass the remainder
of their days. They have never breathed, and will never breathe, any
other air. And as to the ideas, the germs of which are in the blood, and
which come from the heart, they never had any chance of regulating them.
Womanhood came upon them at the age of ten. Many were married at twelve.
Why, before it could have been possible, had the attempt been made, for
them to receive the ideas that come from religion, literature, poetry,
science, art, or history, the germs that come from the blood, and from
the heart, had got possession of the whole ground, and had absorbed
all the nutriment the ground contained. There was no room for, nor
anything to feed, any other ideas: for them time was necessary, and that,
precisely, was the one thing it was impossible to have.
No wonder, then, that the lords of the hareem suppose the ground
incapable of producing anything better. Under the circumstances perhaps
they are right. Hence comes their thought that a woman is a houri, a
toy: nothing more. But a toy that is very liable to go wrong: perhaps
they are right again under the circumstances: and so must be carefully
guarded. All experience, however, teaches that there is nothing so
difficult, almost so impossible to guard. This is a case in which no bars
or sentinels can save the shrine from profanation, unless the goddess
within herself will it. The supple and soured guardians, too, are often
useless; often, indeed, the intermediate agents in the very mischief
they were to guard against. And so the toy goes wrong. And then it must
be ruthlessly crushed. The men have their business, their money-making,
their ambition, their society, their religion. In their minds all these
implant counteracting ideas. And yet all these we are told are with them
sometimes feeble in comparison with the ideas that come from the blood.
How, then, can we wonder that the frailer, and more susceptible minds,
being absolutely deprived of all counteracting influences, should at
times become the victims of their susceptibility and frailty? Nor need
we be surprised that, when detected, their brothers, and fathers, and
husbands should avail themselves of the permission, given both by law
and custom, to wipe out their disgrace, by putting out of sight for ever
the cause of it. Disgrace they feel keenly; and pity is not one of their
virtues.