Turkish ones are--merely “pleasing females” for the most part, who,
barely knowing how to read and write, as a matter of fact do neither;
miraculous beings those who have a little superficial smattering of
education. It would not be agreeable to the men, in whose eyes they are
endowed with “long hair and little brains,” for them to cultivate their
minds, as it might be very inconvenient were they to become equal in
this respect, or even superior to, themselves. And so, as they never
read and are debarred from picking up any stray crumbs of knowledge
by association with men, they grow up in a state of crass ignorance.
The separation of the sexes also results in the loss of gentleness on
the one hand and of high-mindedness on the other. The men grow rough
as they grow older, and the women become gossips: even in old age,
from never having moved in any society beyond the narrow circle of
their female friends and relatives, the women retain something puerile
in all their ideas and habits, are excessively curious, everything
astonishes them, and they make a great deal out of every trifle; they
have spiteful little tricks, too, and are inclined to look down on and
despise education; they burst out laughing when any one speaks to them,
and pass hours at a time over the most childish games, such as chasing
each other from room to room, and snatching sugar-plums out of one
another’s mouths. On the other hand, to paraphrase the French saying,
they have good qualities in their defects: their natures are frank
and open, easily read at a glance; they impress you as being “real
persons,” as Madame de Sévigne said of them, not masques or caricatures
or apes; free, natural, and, even when they are unhappy, “_all of one
piece_;” and if, as it is said, one of them has only to affirm and
reaffirm a thing for every one to discredit it, it only means that
she has too little art to deceive with success. At all events--and
it is no small praise--there are no dull blue-stockings among them,
or wearisome pedagogues who can talk of nothing but language and
style, or those spiritual creatures who dwell on a loftier plane than
ordinary mortals. It is, however, perfectly true that in their narrow
lives, cut off from all elevating association or occupation, with
the instinctive desire of youth and beauty for love and admiration
constantly thwarted and dissatisfied, their souls remain undeveloped.
When once an evil passion gets control of them, having none of the
checks and self-restraints imposed by education, they run into violent
excesses. Their idle, purposeless life fosters the growth of all
manner of foolish tastes, which they pursue with the utmost obstinacy,
determined to satisfy them at whatever cost. Moreover, in the sensual
air of the harem, surrounded constantly by women inferior to themselves
in birth and education, and away from men, whose presence would act
as a check, they abandon themselves to the most indecent crudities of
language; ignorant of all shades of expression, they say things right
out with brutal frankness, using words at which they ought to blush,
and indulging in equivocal jests, becoming at times openly abusive and
insolent: sometimes the ears of a European who understands Turkish
are treated to a flood of invective and abuse directed against a rude
or impolitic shopkeeper, which, coming as it does from the lips of a
_hanum_ to all outward appearance of the highest breeding, would never,
among us, be heard from the mouth of any but the lowest class of women.
It seems as though their virulence increased in proportion with their
knowledge of European customs and intercourse with the women of other
lands--as though the spirit of rebellion was stirred up within them by
these means. A Turkish woman, finding herself really beloved by her
husband, takes advantage of the fact to visit him with all manner of
petty acts of tyranny in revenge for the great social tyranny of which
she is the victim: she is often represented as being all sweetness and
bashful timidity, but there are fierce, bold spirits as well, and in
popular uprisings it is not uncommon to find women in the front ranks:
they assemble and arm themselves, and stop the carriages of unpopular
viziers, covering them with abuse, stoning them, and forcibly resisting
arrest. They are, indeed, like all other women, sweet and gentle when
unmoved by passion, treat their slaves with great kindness when they
are not jealous of them, and are tender and affectionate with their
children, though even if they were willing to take the trouble to
have them educated or trained, they have no idea how to set about it.
They contract the most ardent friendships with each other, especially
those who are separated from their husbands or are suffering from the
same kind of misfortune: these friendships are of the most exaggerated
character; they wear the same colors, use the same perfumes, put
on patches of the same size and shape, and make enthusiastic
demonstrations and protestations of undying regard. I might add here
the remark that has been made by more than one lady traveller from
Europe, that there “exist among them all the vices of ancient Babylon,”
were I not unwilling in so serious a matter to make a statement which
rests wholly on the assertions of others.
* * * * *
The manners of Turkish women reflect their characters. They are
all more or less like young girls of good family, who, having been
brought up in the country and arrived at the transition stage between
childhood and womanhood, keep their mothers in a constant state of
uneasiness by their want of conventionality. It is very funny to
hear a European lady’s account of a visit to a harem. The _hanum_,
for instance, after sitting for the first few moments in a dignified
attitude upon the sofa, just as she sees her visitor doing, will
suddenly and without any warning clasp her hands over her head, or
begin to yawn loudly or to nurse one of her knees. Accustomed to the
liberty, not to say license, of the harem, and to the easy attitudes
of idleness and fatigue, and weakened as they are by their prolonged
and frequent baths, they quickly tire in any erect or constrained
position, and, throwing themselves on the divan, toss continually from
one side to the other, twist and tangle up their long trains, roll
themselves into balls, catch hold of their feet, put a cushion on their
knees and rest their elbows upon it, straighten themselves out, twist,
turn, stretch, arch their backs like cats, roll from the divan on to
the mattress, from the mattress on to the rug, from the rug on to the
marble pavement, and go to sleep like children wherever and whenever
they happen to feel sleepy. One French lady traveller declares that
they are something like mollusks, and they are nearly always in such a
position that one could take them in his arms like a ball. Their most
conventional attitude is sitting cross-legged, and it is said that the
defect of slightly crooked legs so common among them comes from their
having sat in this position since childhood. But how gracefully they do
it! You can see them in the public gardens and cemeteries. They drop
straight down without so much as putting out a hand, erect as statues,
and rise with the same ease, perfectly straight and without leaning
upon anything, as though they were being drawn out. But this is about
the only free, strong movement they have. The grace of a Turkish woman
seems to consist entirely in those attitudes of repose which display
to their best advantage the charming curves of her figure. With head
thrown back, hair streaming loosely over the pillow, and arms hanging
down, she can draw money and jewels from the husband’s pocket and drive
the unfortunate eunuch to the verge of despair.
[Illustration: Dancing Girls.]
Nor is the practice of such arts as these the only occupation by which
they seek to enliven the deadly monotony of the greater number of lives
passed in a harem--a monotony resulting not so much from the absence of
employment and distractions as from their all being so much alike, just
as certain books are tiresome from their uniformity of style, while
their subjects may be entirely different. They do everything in their
power to combat ennui: the whole day is often nothing but a prolonged
struggle with this dreaded enemy. Seated upon rugs and cushions, with
their slaves grouped around them, they hem innumerable little
handkerchiefs to give away to their friends; embroider night-caps and
tobacco-pouches as presents for their husbands, fathers, and brothers;
tell the beads of the _tespi_ a hundred times; count as high as they
know how; spend hours at a time watching the movements of the ships
on the Bosphorus or Sea of Marmora from the small round windows of
their elevated apartments; or weave interminable romances of love
and liberty and riches as they watch the smoke from their cigarettes
curl upward in blue wreaths. Tired of their cigarettes, they betake
themselves to the chibuk and inhale the “blond hair of Latakia,” then
a cup of Syrian coffee and a few sweetmeats, or some fruit or an ice,
which they can spend half an hour in eating; then comes a little more
smoking, the narghileh this time, perfumed with rose-water, and after
it a piece of mastic gum, which they suck to get rid of the taste of
the smoke; then some lemonade to do away with the taste of the mastic.
They dress and undress, try on all their costumes, make experiments
with all the colors in their little boxes, put on and take off patches
cut like stars and crescents; and arrange a dozen or so mirrors and
hand-glasses in such a way that they can see themselves on all sides;
finally, when they are tired out, two young slaves will dance for their
amusement accompanied by tambourine and tabor, while a third repeats
the well-known song or fairy-tale that every one can say by heart,
or the usual couple of mascottes dressed like acrobats perform the
regular wrestling-match, which always ends in a stamp on the floor and
an artificial, mirthless laugh. Sometimes a troupe of Egyptian dancers
will present themselves, and this event is made the excuse for a little
fête, or a gypsy comes and the _hanum_ must have her fortune told
from the palm of her hand, or purchase a talisman that will preserve
her youth, or a decoction to bring her children, or a love-philter.
She will pass hours with her face pressed against the window-grating
watching the people and dogs pass in the street below, or teaching
the parrot a new word; then go to the garden to swing: returning to
the house, she says her prayers or throws herself upon the divan to
play a game of cards; then a visitor is announced and she jumps up to
receive her, and there follows the customary round of coffee, tobacco,
lemonade, and sweetmeats, of empty laughter and tremendous yawns,
until, the visitor having departed, the eunuch appears in the doorway,
saying in a low voice, “The effendi.”--“At last! Really, Providence has
sent him; I don’t care if he were the ugliest husband in Stambul.”
* * * * *
Such is the life in a harem where there is at least peace, if nothing
more, but there are others in which the dulness is relieved, not to
say annihilated, by the storms of passion which sweep across them,
and there the life is something altogether different. All is peaceable
enough in a harem where there is but one wife whose husband loves her,
pays no attention to the slaves, and has no outside intrigues. There
is also, if not happiness, quiet, in those where the several wives
are equally cold or indifferent, none of them caring particularly for
the husband, who on his part does not distinguish among them, but
bestows upon each in turn a sufficient amount of attention--where no
one is impelled by love or jealousy or ambition to try to supersede
the others. These good-natured wives have for a common object the
getting as much money as possible out of the effendi; they occupy the
same house, never quarrel, call each other sister, and join in one
another’s amusement. The boat is made after the devil’s pattern, but
it goes ahead all the same, and there is peace or the semblance of it,
in a harem where the wife, finding herself set aside to make room for
another, accepts the situation in a spirit of resignation, and, while
declining the shreds of love her husband is still willing to allow
her, continues to live in his house on friendly terms with him and the
other inmates, consoling herself in a sort of dignified retirement
with the society of her children. But when, as is sometimes the case,
it is a question of a woman of high spirit and fiery passions, it
is an altogether different matter. She declines to submit quietly
to her rival’s triumph or to the shame of desertion, and will not
consent without a fight to see her children set aside to make room
for those of a new-comer. Life in one of these harems is a fore-taste
of the infernal regions. There are weeping and lamentation, breaking
of crockery and glass; slaves die from having long pins driven
into them; plots are hatched, crimes contemplated, and sometimes
committed--stabbing, poisoning, or throwing vitriol in the face of the
enemy. Existence is nothing but a series of persecutions, implacable
hatreds, fierce and deadly acts of revenge. The man, in short, who has
several wives must either, if he loves one, sacrifice his peace, or
else care for them equally and purchase quiet at the expense of love;
in either case he usually walks straight to his ruin. If his wives are
not jealous by reason of their love for him, they are from motives of
ambition and rivalry in luxury and dress. So, then, if he gives his
favorite a piece of jewelry or a carriage or a villa on the Bosphorus,
he has to do the same for each of the others, or he soon has the house
down about his ears, and so buys his peace for its weight in gold. And
the same difficulties extend to the children, those of the neglected
mother being filled with hatred and envy for those of the favorite; and
it is not hard to imagine what sort of training they must get, brought
up in harems whose very air is heavy with violence and intrigue,
surrounded by slaves and eunuchs, with no help from their fathers, no
examples set them of application or self-control, in that sensual,
enervating atmosphere, the little girls in especial being taught from
earliest infancy to build all their hopes of future success upon their
ability to arouse a sentiment for which “love” seems too lofty a title,
and receiving the necessary training partly from their own mothers,
partly from slaves, and mostly from Kara-Gyuz.
* * * * *
There are, besides the peaceful and tempestuous, two other types of
harem--that of the young and liberal-minded Turk, who encourages his
wife in the cultivation of European ideas, and that of the Turk of
the old school, who is either strict by nature or else is under the
influence of relatives, especially of an old mother if she happens to
be one of those inflexible Mussulman women sternly opposed to change of
any sort, and determined that he shall manage his house according to
her ideas. Nothing can exceed the contrast between the two. The former
has the air of a European lady’s house: there is a piano on which the
_hanum_ is being taught to play by a Christian music-mistress; there
are work-tables, straw chairs, a bedstead, and writing-desk; a good
crayon portrait of the effendi by an Italian artist of Pera hangs
on the wall; in one corner stands a small bookcase containing two
or three dozen books, among which may be found a little French and
Turkish dictionary and the last number of _La Mode illustrée_, which
is sent to the mistress by the wife of the Spanish consul after she
has done with it; moreover, there is a complete box of water-colors,
with which the _hanum_ paints fruits and flowers, and she assures her
friends that she never suffers for a moment from ennui. Among other
things, she is writing her memoirs, and at a certain hour of the day
her French master arrives to practise French conversation with her
(of course it must be understood that he is old and bent and feeble).
Sometimes a German female photographer comes from Galata to take her
photograph. When she is ill a European doctor attends her, who may
even be young and handsome, her husband not being such a jealous beast
as some of his more antiquated friends; and now and then a French
dressmaker is summoned to cut and fit a costume in the very latest
style as it is given in the fashion-plates, so that she may give her
husband a charming surprise on the following Thursday evening, that
being the special feast-day of Mussulman couples, when the effendi
pays particular court to his “rose-leaf.” And then the effendi, being
a person of high position, has promised that she may watch the first
large ball given at the English embassy during the following winter
from the crack of some retired doorway. In short, the _hanum_ is a
European lady of the Mussulman faith, who says to her friends with
intense satisfaction, “I live like a _Cocona_”--a Christian. And her
friends and relatives, though they may be unable to do the same, would
like to; and among themselves they talk of the fashions and theatres,
telling each other stories of the “superstitions,” the “pedantries,”
and the “bigotry” of Old Turkey, winding up every discourse with the
remark, “And it is high time that we should change all this and begin
to lead lives more like rational human beings.”
But that other harem! Here there is nothing that is not severely
Turkish, from the costume of the mistress to the smallest article
of furniture--not a book except the Koran, the only newspaper the
_Stambul_. Should the _hanum_ fall ill, instead of a doctor, one of
those innumerable Turkish doctresses, with a miraculous specific for
every kind of disease, is summoned. If her parents have become tainted
with the European craze, they are only permitted to see their daughter
once a week. Every door and window in the house is furnished with
bars and bolts: absolutely nothing European but the air is allowed to
enter the household, unless the mistress has unfortunately been taught
a little French in her girlhood, in which case the mother-in-law is
perfectly capable of thrusting a coarse romance of the worst type into
her hands, so as to be able to say, “There! you see now what fine sort
of people these are you are so crazy to imitate! what pretty things
they do and say! what a beautiful example they set!”
And, notwithstanding all their restrictions, Turkish women’s lives are
full of plots and schemes and scandals to a degree that at first sight
would seem impossible in a society where there is so little direct
communication between the two sexes. In one household, for example, the
old mother has made up her mind to prejudice her son against one of his
wives, so that another, her favorite, may occupy the chief place. So
she tries, among other things, to keep the first one’s children in the
background and prevent them from being educated or made attractive in
their father’s eyes, hoping that he may neglect them for those of the
second. In another the deserted wife revenges herself upon her rival
by throwing a beautiful slave, whom she has sought over land and sea,
in the husband’s way, hoping to make him leave the second one, as he
has her. Another with a genius for matchmaking manages so that one of
her own family shall see and fall in love with a certain young girl
of her acquaintance, and by marrying her himself balk her husband,
whom she suspects of having views in the same direction. A number of
wealthy women club together to purchase and present a handsome slave
to the Sultan or the grand vizier, to further some private scheme
they have on hand; other women of good family, by means of secret
wirepulling and their influence over powerful relatives, can accomplish
almost anything they want--the disgrace of a prominent official, the
elevation of a friend, the divorce of this one, the dismissal of
that to some distant province; and, although there is so much less
social intercourse than among us, they do not know any less about one
another’s affairs. A woman’s reputation for wit or insane jealousy or
stupidity or a slanderous tongue extends far beyond the circle of her
immediate acquaintances, while a clever speech or one of those plays
upon words to which the Turkish language lends itself so admirably
flies from mouth to mouth and is repeated far and wide. Births,
marriages, circumcisions, fêtes, every little event which occurs in the
European colony or the Seraglio, forms the subject of endless talk and
gossip: “Have you seen the new bonnet of the French ambassadress?--Who
knows anything about the pretty Georgian slave the Validêh Sultan is
going to give the Pâdishah on the feast of Great Bairam?--Is it true
that Ahmed-Pasha’s wife was seen the day before yesterday in European
shoes trimmed with silk tassels?--Have the costumes for the ‘Bourgeois
gentilhomme’ they are going to perform in the Seraglio theatre actually
come at last?--Mahmûd Effendi’s wife has been going for a week past
to the Bayezid mosque to pray for twins.--There has been a scandal in
connection with such and such a photographer’s shop in the Rue de Pera,
on account of Ahmed Effendi’s having found his wife’s picture among the
photographs.--Madame Ayscé drinks wine.--Madame Fatima has ordered
visiting-cards.--Some one saw Madame Hafiten go in a Frank shop at
three o’clock, and she never came out till four.”
The chronicle of petty gossip and malicious tattle flies in and out
among those innumerable little yellow and red houses with incredible
rapidity, circulates about the court, crosses over to Skutari, proceeds
along both banks of the Bosphorus as far as the Black Sea, and not
infrequently, finding its way to the large provincial cities, returns
from thence with each particular added to and embellished to provoke
fresh mirth and gossip in the thousand harems of the great metropolis.
* * * * *
If you could only meet in Constantinople one of those walking society
chronicles with which all European cities are provided, who know
everything about everybody and are always quite willing to impart
their knowledge, it would be beyond measure amusing and instructive to
get him to station himself by your side at the entrance to the Sweet
Waters of Europe on some great fête-day and whisper a word or two
about every noteworthy person who passed by. There could certainly be
no better method of obtaining an insight into Constantinople manners
and customs. But, after all, what difference does it make whether we
have his help or not? As long as the incidents are perfectly well
known, we can imagine the people for ourselves: for my part, it
is just as though I stood there looking and listening. The people
stream by, and our Turkish gossip points and whispers: “Do you see
that lady passing now? She has quarrelled with her husband and gone
to Skutari to live: that, you know, is where they all go when they
are discontented or have a falling out with their husbands. She is
staying with a friend, and will wait until her effendi, who at bottom
is really very fond of her, shall go and tell her that the slave
who caused the trouble has been gotten rid of, and conduct her home
again pacified.--This effendi is in the Foreign Office: he has just
done what numbers of others do to avoid being pestered to death with
relations-in-law and relations of relations-in-law--that is, married
an Arabian slave: his sister is giving her her first lessons in
Turkish.--That handsome woman over there is a divorcée. When Effendi
So-and-so has succeeded in repudiating one of his four wives, she
is to take her place, having been promised it some time ago.--That
one just behind her has been divorced twice from the same man, and
now she wants to marry him again, he wishing it as well. So she is
about, in obedience to the law governing such cases, to marry some one
else, whose wife she must be for twenty-four hours, after which the
capricious fair one is free to marry her first husband for the third
time.--The brunette yonder with the expressive eyes was an Abyssinian
slave who was sent by a great lady of Cairo as a present to a great
lady of Stambul; on dying the latter left her the post of mistress of
the establishment.--That effendi is fifty years old, and has had ten
wives, but the old lady near him dressed in green has done better yet,
having been the lawful wife of no less than twelve husbands.--There
goes a personage who makes her living by purchasing young girls of
fourteen or so, and, after teaching them music, singing, dancing,
and the manners of good society, resells them at a premium of five
hundred per cent.--Now, there goes a very handsome woman whose exact
value I happen to know: she is a Circassian bought at Topkhâneh for
one hundred and twenty Turkish francs, and resold three years later
for a bagatelle of four hundred.--This one near us, who is adjusting
her veil, has had a somewhat checkered career. She began as a slave;
then she was an odalisque; then she married, was divorced, and married
again; at present she is a widow and is looking about for some fresh
matrimonial venture.--Do you see that effendi? Well, you could hardly
guess what has happened in his household: his wife has fallen in love
with a eunuch, and they say that if he does not look out there will be
something queer in his coffee one of these days, and she will be free
to end her life in peace with the object of her choice; nor will it
be the first time that that kind of thing has happened.--There is a
merchant who has married his four wives with an eye to business: he
keeps one in Constantinople, one in Trebizond, one in Salonika, and one
in Alexandria. Thus at the end of each journey he finds a home awaiting
him.--There is a handsome young pasha only twenty-four years old: a
month ago he was nothing but a poor subaltern in the Imperial Guard,
whom the Sultan promoted at a bound, so as to marry him to one of his
sisters; but he is not an object of envy to the other men, for it is
no joke to be the husband of one of the sultanas: as every one knows,
they are as ‘jealous as nightingales.’ Probably were we to search
through the crowd we would find a slave dogging his footsteps now, so
as to note and report every one whom he either does or does not look
at.--See that slender, graceful figure over there? One need not be very
discriminating to know her at once for a flower from the Seraglio. She
was one of the Sultan’s beauties: a few months ago an official of the
War Office, who has managed to ingratiate himself at court, obtained
her hand in marriage, and before long he will mount rapidly.--That
little five-year-old girl was betrothed to-day to a youngster of eight.
The groom elect was taken to see her, and, finding her to his taste,
promptly flew into a violent passion because a small boy cousin about
a yard high kissed her in his presence.--There goes an old hag who
had two sheep killed the day before yesterday in gratitude to Allah
for having removed a daughter-in-law whom she hated.--There goes the
wife of a friend of mine with her face completely covered and wearing
a lilac _ferajeh_: he is a Turk, but she is a Christian and goes to
church every Sunday: don’t speak of it, though, to any one--on her
account, not his. The Koran does not forbid such marriages: for one of
the faithful to purify himself from the embrace of an unbeliever he has
only to wash the face and hands.--Ah! what have we missed! One of the
Seraglio carriages has just gone by with the Sultan’s third _kaydyn_
inside: I recognized it by the rose-colored ribbon around the lackey’s
neck. She was a present from the pasha of Smyrna, and is said to have
the largest eyes and smallest mouth in the empire--a face very much on
the order of that of the pretty little _hanum_ with an arched nose who
scandalized Christian and Mussulman alike the other day by flirting
openly with an English artist of my acquaintance. Little wretch! When
the two angels, Nekir and Munkir, come to judge her soul, she thinks
she will be able to get out of it with the usual fib, saying her eyes
were shut at the moment, so she did not see that it was an unbeliever.”
* * * * *