plenty of conjugal happiness in spite of so much that is often said
about the impossibility of such a thing in a Moslem family. The little
wife was beautiful, bright, and intelligent, being fairly well
educated; and was able to make her house into something like a real
home. They were blessed with a family of interesting and promising
children. The father was wont to boast that he a Mohammedan could verify
the fact that such a thing as a perfect home could exist under Islamic
conditions. But temptation came his way. He divorced his beautiful
unoffending wife to marry the temptress, who though rich and of a high
family (which was her recommendation and considered sufficient excuse
for his base action), was ignorant and ugly, the only thing which seemed
to give him any pangs of regret.
There was a man who was fairly well-to-do and was considered by his
neighbors as being very respectable. The first wife was a very nice
woman but had no son, so her husband divorced her and married a second.
Still there was no son, so he married a third. It was believed he did
not really divorce the second wife, but pretended to do so to please the
third, who would not consent to being one of two wives. After a while a
son was born to the third, and so his first wife was brought back to the
house as nurse to the child. She was the most ladylike of the three
wives, but she had to carry the baby and walk behind the mother like a
servant. When the baby died the parents quarrelled. Number three left
the house and went into the country. The husband at once brought back
number two, whereupon number three returned in a rage and number two
was turned out of the house. On the next quarrel with number three the
man married a fourth time--a girl younger than his daughter by his first
wife. About this time he met the Bible woman in the street and asked her
why she did not visit his house as usual. She replied, "I do not come
because I never know which lady to ask for."
The house of Ali might be supposed to be rather a religious one, for the
mother of the family has performed the pilgrimage to Mecca and one of
the sons is a howling dervish. Here we were introduced to a young bride,
wife of a brother of the dervish. Calling again a few months later we
found another bride, the one we had seen on our former visit having been
divorced. The third time we went the first wife was there again and the
second had been divorced. The woman had been married to another man and
divorced by him during the short time of separation from the first
husband, and when the latter wished to have her back her parents could
not agree about allowing the marriage and quarrelled so much that they
divorced each other! The time occupied by these proceedings was between
a year and eighteen months. Here were six persons concerned, and four
marriages and four divorces had taken place. A baby had arrived on the
scene, but its parentage was a mystery in the mix-up.
It is quite usual for a woman to be divorced before the birth of her
first child, and we could not but feel sympathy with the poor young
mother who under such circumstances called her baby "Vengeance."
Love, the best and most holy of human joys, has been almost strangled to
death in Egypt by the institution of divorce, and the family can seldom
be considered a community of common interest. As one woman was heard to
say, "We go on the principle of trying to pluck or fleece our husbands
all we can while we have the chance, since we never know how soon we may
be divorced."
It has been said that the character of a nation cannot rise above the
character of its women. What can be expected of a nation when hate and
jealousy are the ruling passions of its women, of its mothers who
nurture and train up its young!
The question has been asked what is the condition of the children of
divorced parents. According to the law the mother is given an allowance
by her former husband on which to bring up their children to a certain
age; then they are his. If they are girls they often are allowed to
become servants to the mother's successor, although there are fathers
who do have enough natural affection to give the daughters of a former
wife the proper place in the house. The allowance given a divorced woman
when she has children is most often a mere pittance and too often she
never gets one at all. She marries again and the children live with
grandparents or other near relations or even alternate between the
houses of the remarried father and mother, thus becoming mere little
street waifs who have no definite abiding place. They certainly do
suffer from neglect, but seldom are they victims of deliberate cruelty,
although such cases are not unheard of.
The distressing screams of a child once attracted the attention of a
family; on investigation it was discovered that the Mohammedan neighbor,
who had just brought home a new wife encumbered with her little
four-year-old daughter, had been cruelly ill-treating the little mite by
shutting her in a dark cellar for hours at a time.
The moral effect of divorce on the children is very bad. They often seem
to have an inborn passion of hatred and jealousy. The head mistress of a
school for girls said she had often noticed how little gentle affection
and love seemed to exist between Mohammedan sisters. These passions are
also trained into them, for they constantly hear their parents spoken
against and see the jealousy that exists between their mothers and the
wives who have supplanted them.
The children of divorced parents, being neglected and not having any
settled home, generally grow up in ignorance, because they do not stay
long enough in one place to go to school regularly. A school was
established in a Mohammedan quarter of a large city with a view to
reaching the people in that district, but they were of a class whose
social system was in such a constant state of upheaval by divorcing and
marrying new wives that it was quite impossible to keep the children in
school long enough at a time to make any impression upon them. When
asked why a certain Zeinab had not put in her appearance, "Oh, she has
gone to see her mother who lives across the canal."--"Where is
Tantaweyah to-day?"--"Gone to stay with her father awhile in another
village."--"What can be the matter with Kaleela?" the teacher asks. She
knew Kaleela loved school and would not stay away without an excuse, and
she knew that her father wanted her to stay in school, but she had a
suspicion that the new wife at home had been the means of putting a stop
to Kaleela's schooldays. Her suspicion was true, for the new wife's new
baby required a nurse.
The institution of polygamy like that of divorce is a natural
consequence of the strict seclusion of woman, for it would be unfair to
a man to be put under the necessity of taking a wife he had never seen
without allowing him some license should he be disappointed in her. In
fact, polygamy was the original institution, a relic of the ancient and
more barbarous times, Jewish as well as Heathen. By making polygamy a
religious institution, the Prophet preserved a relic of barbarism.
Yet even among Mohammedans polygamy is a dying institution. Its
death-blow has been struck because educated Moslems are beginning to be
ashamed of it and doctors of Mohammedan law are beginning to interpret
the law to mean that Mohammed allowed a man to have four wives on the
condition that he could treat all alike; and since human nature makes
that condition next to an impossibility therefore Mohammed meant for a
man to have only one wife! Many educated Mohammedans in Egypt are taking
this position. Among the middle classes the difficulty of supporting
more than one wife at a time is decreasing polygamy. But by no means is
polygamy an unheard-of thing, even if it is going out of fashion.
Fashion is always slow in reaching the country places, and it seems to
be in the country villages that polygamy seems to be more generally
practised. Two brothers, representative country-men, wealthy and
conservative, were known to have very extensive harems, each one having
twenty-four wives and concubines.
Many fruitless attempts have been made to defend polygamy and to defend
the prophet of Islam for preserving it, but, as a careful student of
social and moral ethics has said, "To an ideal love, polygamy is
abhorrent and impossible," and when ideal love is impossible to the
wife's heart she is degraded because the passions of hate and jealousy
will quickly and surely take its place.
The Arabic word which is applied to a rival wife is "durrah," the root
meaning of which is "to injure," "to harm." This appellation certainly
shows that the fellow-wives are not expected to be on terms of amity
with each other.
The most common excuse for taking a second wife "over the head" of the
first wife, as expressed in Arabic, is that she has failed to present
her husband with a son. To die without a son would be a great disgrace,
so he takes his second wife. A well-educated, pleasant-spoken Moslem
sheikh, who was teaching some new missionaries the Arabic language, was
just on the point of marrying. Being much interested in the young man,
one of the missionaries took occasion to impress upon him some of his
moral duties toward his new wife. Among them that he should never take
another during her lifetime. "Yes, honorable lady, I promise to do as
you say if God is willing and she presents me with a son, otherwise
against my will I must take a second."
A missionary lady and a Bible woman were making some house-to-house
visits in a little country village. As they were going through the
street two smiling-faced women standing together in the door of their
hut pressed them to enter and pay them a visit, too. In the course of
the conversation it turned out that they were fellow-wives. "Have you
any children?" was asked of the older. "No, neither has she," was the
quick response indicating her rival with a nod of her head. Their common
disappointment in not having any children seemed to draw them together
and they seemed more like sisters than rival wives, but if one had a
child and the other not there would have been some quarrelling and
trouble.
As can be quite easily understood it is rarely possible for fellow-wives
to live together in the same house. In one village there were two
houses quite near each other. One was known as the "house of Hassan";
the other as the "little house of Hassan." The former is the family
house, and the other is hired by one of the sons for his second wife,
the first wife being in the larger dwelling. The quarrels are so
incessant that it is difficult for any one to be friendly with both
parties, and the second wife is ruining her health with inordinate
smoking "to kill thought." She seems very lonely and dull, but says the
arrangement is good, for when her husband is vexed with her he goes to
the other house, and when vexed in the other house he comes to her, and
she added, "If we lived together and he were vexed with both at once, he
would have to sleep in a hotel!"
A Bible woman was wont to visit two young women who lived in a large
apartment house, on different floors one just above the other. At first
they were believed to be the wives of brothers, but they were so much at
variance with each other that neither would enter the apartment of the
other, so had to be taught and read to separately, much to the
inconvenience of the teacher, who could not understand why two
sisters-in-law, as she thought, could not meet together to read. She
soon discovered that they were both wives of one man and that jealousy
was the cause of the disagreement.
Child-marriages have always been considered one of the curses of the
East. In Egypt thirteen is about the average age at which the girls are
married, but one is constantly meeting with cases of marriage at a much
earlier age. A woman of twenty-five, prematurely old, seemed to take
great delight in telling of her marriage when she was only seven years
old, about as far back as she could remember. Another often tells the
story how she escaped being married when she was only eight years old.
The guests were all assembled, the elaborate supper had been enjoyed by
all, the dancing women had been more than usually entertaining; the time
for the bridal procession came around, but where was the bride? Her
father searched all through the house for her. At last he found her
lying asleep in the ashes in the kitchen. His father heart was touched
and he said to those who followed him, "See that baby there asleep! Is
it right to marry her?" At the risk of bringing great disgrace upon
himself, he then and there stopped the marriage and the next day started
her off to school. This custom of child-marriage is one of the very
fruitful causes of the ignorance of the women.
Ignorance and superstition always go hand in hand and they jointly are
both a cause and an effect of the degradation of women in Egypt.
Superstition might almost be called the religion of feminine Egypt. The
people have many curious beliefs about the influence of the "evil eye"
and as many curious charms to protect them from this influence. Many
mothers will not wash their children for fear they may be made
attractive and thus fall under the influence of the evil eye. One woman
never compliments another woman's child for the same reason. Two women
were companions in travel on the train; by way of introducing the
conversation, one said to the other, "What is that ugly thing black as
tar in your arms?" The other smiling held out her little baby. "Ugh! how
ugly!" said the first woman. "Is it a boy or a girl?"--"A girl," said
the mother, but it was quite understood that it was a boy. Boys on
account of the very high premium put upon them in Egypt are considered
to be very much subject to the influence of the "evil eye," so often he
is dressed as a girl and called by a girl's name till he reaches the age
when he rebels.
The social evils of Egypt are endless, but there is a hope of better
things for the future. One of the characteristics of the "New Egypt" is
a reaching out after higher ideals. The ideal of the marriage relation
is rising, the educated young Egyptian is beginning to claim his right
to choose his own bride, thus making the marriage relation more stable
because the grounds of compatibility are surer. With this change of
ideas on the marriage question and because an educated man would rather
choose an educated wife, there is a growing demand for female education.
The evangelical community has the reputation of being the best educated
class of people in Egypt. The last census of all Egypt showed that only
forty-eight in one thousand could read. A special census of the native
evangelical community showed that three hundred and sixty-five in one
thousand could read. The census also brought out the fact that in the
evangelical community female education has taken a great step in
advance, showing that while in all Egypt only six women in one thousand
could read, in the evangelical community two hundred in one thousand
could read.
It would be interesting to take a peep into some of the homes of these
representative Christian women and see for ourselves how a Christian
education has developed those wives and mothers into true home-makers.
First let us get acquainted with the dear old grandmother who has just
been on a visit to her son and his family who live in our city. She and
her son have come to make us a farewell visit before she leaves for her
native town. Her feeble voice, her slow step, her dimmed sight, the
appealing marks of old age interest us in her. The goodbye kiss and an
affectionate pat from her withered old hand draw our hearts to her, the
tender filial light in the eyes of her son tells us that this gentle
little old lady has been a power for good. After they leave we learn in
conversation with those who know the story of her life that she is one
of the faithful mothers who has endured much persecution, separation
from friends, leaving a home of wealth and influence for one of poverty
all for the sake of Christ. The best commentary on her life is the
beautiful Christian home of this son, where his sweet ladylike little
wife presides over their family of clean, well-ordered children with all
the gentle dignity of a real queen. We are perfectly at home with them,
for we see nothing but what accords with our ideal of a real home.
Without any previous information it would be easy to know that this home
is a Bethel where Christ delights to dwell.
Let us go to a distant town far up the river and visit an old couple who
have spent many years in God's service. Their lives are a perfect
illustration of what Christ can do for a life. Reared under all the
tenets and principles of Islam and not being converted to Christianity
till they were mature in years, it might be doubted whether a complete
change could be wrought in their lives. It did not come all at once, God
works out some of His greatest changes in lives slowly and quietly, a
"growing up unto Him in all things." The story of the growth of these
two followers of Christ is long and interesting. It is enough to know
that they have attained to that point where they can truly be called a
"holy temple in the Lord." Their home is a model of Christian happiness
where "cleanliness and godliness" dwell together. Their lives are lives
of service for their Master. The daughter of this home, a woman of rare
beauty, carefully brought up and well educated, is one who although yet
young in years has had a marked influence for good in Egypt, first as a
teacher in a large girls' school, then as the honored and much loved
wife of the pastor of a flourishing evangelical church. To visit her in
her home, to see her in the midst of her little sons and daughters, to
join with the family in the evening meal which has been prepared by her
own hands, to hear her talk of her work among the women in her husband's
large congregation makes one reverently breathe a prayer of thanksgiving
to God that He has let us have a glimpse of the possibilities of
Egyptian womanhood.
All up and down the valley of the Nile can be found women from this
representative two hundred in different stations of life; and each one
filling in a womanly way her position. Generally she is a wife and
mother, but a true home-maker whether she be the wife of a noble or a
peasant. Sometimes she is a servant, faithful, honest, and helpful;
often she is a teacher throwing out great circles of influence, which
are widening out till thousands of Egyptian women will be reached.
Sometimes she is a humble soul who gives herself over entirely to the
service of her Master.
Such a one was Safsaf, converted at the clinic. Her husband had cast her
off because she was nearly blind. Her great desire was to learn to read.
She was presented with a primer and New Testament when she returned to
her village after being in the hospital three months. Who would teach
her to read? She begged a lesson at every opportunity from those in her
village who had a little learning. No one imagined that she was such an
earnest Christian till she soon mastered the reading and after going
through the New Testament three times, she began to teach the very ones
who had taught her, rebuking them for their sins. They cursed her,
saying, "Did we teach you so that you would accuse us!" Her old father
learned the truth through her teaching. He then arranged their little
hut so that she might hold meetings for women. Her influence among the
women and children was wonderful and everybody began to recognize it.
Through her efforts a boys' school was started and a capable teacher was
secured. The greatest desire of her heart was to have the ministrations
of an evangelist in her village. She mustered up courage to go to the
meeting of Presbytery and present the request. This was a daring and
unheard-of thing for an Egyptian woman to do. But the members of
Presbytery were much affected by her pleading and granted her request.
The next thing was to get a church; she gave her own little bit of
ground, her all, then begged money to build the church on it. In
addition to these wider interests, she faithfully and lovingly fulfilled
home duties. Her sister, an ignorant, selfish, and very superstitious
woman, was her great trial. This sister became ill, so she took her to
the hospital. The doctors told her there was no hope. She begged them to
allow her to remain. Safsaf spent days and nights praying for her
sister's recovery. She began to mend, and the prayers of her devoted
sister at her bedside that she might be restored so as to have an
opportunity to learn of God and become a converted soul, led her to
accept Christ as her Saviour.
The life of this humble, quiet-spoken, earnest-hearted, patient, loving
woman, who lives close to Christ, is exercising an influence in her
native village which even men wonder at, but only God knows how
far-reaching it is.
The possibilities of the Egyptian women are great either for good or for
evil.
It is said that Ismail Pasha, the grandfather of the present Khedive,
who in his day ruled Egypt with a tyrant's hand, was himself ruled by a
woman. His mother, a woman of strong character, was the power behind the
throne. Much has been said about the downtrodden condition of Egyptian
women, and none too much. Islam puts its heel on the neck of woman. It
debases and despises her. But there is another side to the picture.
Woman was born an invincible spirit, which even the yoke of Islam has
not been able to crush. And in Egypt scarcely less than in lands where
she is more honored, she exercises a sway that can neither be denied or
despised. The lords of creation--and that the men of Egypt feel
themselves decidedly to be--yield to their women far more than a casual
observer or even they themselves imagine.
An illustration of this is seen in connection with the mourning customs.
The government, and in the case of the Copts, the Church also, has
interfered to break up the violent mourning of the women at the time of
deaths. Yet very little have they yielded.
This is only one of a thousand instances in which, despite all
restrictions, they do as they please. But their influence reaches to far
deeper things. They cling to superstitions and a false faith with far
more tenacity than do the men. They bring up their children in the same
way. It is they who make the marriages for their sons; and they rule
their daughters-in-law. They keep many a man from acting up to his
religious convictions, and drag many a one back to the denial of his
faith. They submit in many things; they are weaker, but it is true that
work for women lies at the very foundation of mission work. An Egyptian
once said in answer to a statement that the primary object of Mission
schools for girls was to lead them to Christ, "If you get the girls for
Christ, you get Egypt for Christ."
IV
THE WOMEN OF EGYPT ONCE MORE
"Hasten the redemption of woman ... by restoring her to her mission of
inspiration, prayer, and pity."
--MAZZINI.
What are the women like? Are they pretty? How do they bring up their
children? How do they keep their homes? Do you like them? Are they
lovable?
Such are a few of the many questions which are put to the traveller and
resident in Egypt, by those interested, for various reasons, in the land
and its people.
How differently these questions can be answered. The ordinary tourist
sees the black-robed figures (with features invisible except for two
eyes peering over a black crape veil) walking in the streets of the
cities, or driving sitting huddled together on karros,[A] and he remarks
on the discomfort of the costume and the cleverness with which they
succeed in balancing themselves on the jolting springless carts. Or
again he sees ladies of the upper class driving in their carriages and
motor broughams, wearing indeed the inevitable "habarah" and veil,[B]
but the former cut so as to well expose the upper part of the person
which is clothed in rich satins and adorned with sparkling jewels, and
the latter made in such fine white chiffon and hung so loosely over the
lower part of the face only, that the features are distinctly visible;
and he marks with a smile the effort made by woman to emancipate herself
from customs which deny her the prerogative of attracting admiration to
herself.
[A] Long narrow carts, the sides of which are only very slightly
raised.