I have been this afternoon with Fâtima buying “birth” presents. In
a Moslem house it is difficult to find a more appropriate name for
these presents, which correspond to our christening presents. These
“birth” presents, however, were not only for a little new arrival in
this world, but for the dear friend to whom this little life was to be
entrusted.
This custom of honouring the mother as well as the child, insignificant
though it may seem, is only one of the few ways in which homage is paid
to the mother in the East. Here all maternity is respected. Not only
the married mother, but the unmarried mother, is respected, so that
the woman who is left with the “child of her shame” to do the best
she can for it and herself does not exist yet in Turkey. It is true
the Turks do not consider their women “responsible” for either their
good or bad conduct, however much freedom Islam gives them. In this,
as in most things, we and the Turks are at the Antipodes. According
to the Moslem law, a woman has absolute control of her own fortune;
she can exercise any profession she likes; but when it is a question
of a misdeed--theft, for example--the husband is responsible. I do not
defend the Turkish system--nor do I defend ours, and the Turkish women
themselves now recognize they must be accounted responsible for their
good and their bad deeds.
To understand the importance given to maternity, one must have lived
for a while in the East. Mahomet placed maternity above everything
else when he said “Paradise was at the mother’s feet.” In the highest
circles and in the poor man’s house the mother rules. As cadines
(wives) the Sultan’s legitimate wives do not count socially, yet if
the son of one of them becomes Sultan, she then is the highest lady in
the land--the Validé-Sultana, to whom all petitions from the women to
the Imperial Master must be addressed. She is the head of the Ottoman
Court, the only woman before whom the Sultan kneels.
And so in private life, the relations between mother and son are not
the same as with us. There are always reverence and respect for her as
well as love. She is not the “old mater,” nor would he allow her to
wait on him. However great a scoundrel a man may be, however deep his
hands may be steeped in blood, he will rise when his mother comes into
the room, kiss her hand, then raise it to his forehead as a sign of
great respect, and inquire for the health of Annajim (my dear mother),
and give her the seat of honour.
In the homes of the people, in the two-roomed cabins in Asia Minor, and
where they still eat out of one dish, helping themselves with their
fingers, the son will only take his share when he is sure his mother
has taken a substantial helping. The law of Islam obliges a man to keep
his mother, and his wife accepts this as a matter of course.
A young Turkish woman who marries and has her own establishment, as
with us, is the exception rather than the rule, and, personally,
amongst all the women with whom I am acquainted, I know no one who does
not live either with her husband’s or her own parents. Some parents
make the stipulation before consenting to their daughter’s marriage
that she shall still live with them, and I have met some parents who
have refused good marriages for their daughters simply because they
could not allow them to leave their home. The Turkish mother urges her
son to marry as soon as possible. He marries before he can even keep
himself. His family sees nothing extraordinary in the fact that they
have not only to keep him, but his wife and family.
“And the mother-in-law?” one naturally asks. The relationship between a
Turkish mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law is quite different from
the relationship existing in the West. My hostess and her mother-in-law
remind me not a little of Ruth and Naomi. The daughter-in-law treats
her husband’s mother just as she would treat her own mother, _i.e._
she has the same position towards her mother-in-law that she had
towards her own mother before marriage. It is the mother-in-law who
is the head of the house, the mother-in-law who sits in the place of
honour, the mother-in-law who is first greeted, the mother-in-law who
gives permission to do such and such a thing, and who is called by her
daughter-in-law Hanoum Effendi (honoured lady).
My friend cannot understand how difficult it would be for a
daughter-in-law in England to live with her husband’s mother, nor can
she understand the tactless Western woman who expects a mother-in-law,
her superior in age and experience, to give over the household to her
son’s wife. “My turn will come, alas! only too soon,” one lady said,
“when I become a mother-in-law, then I expect my daughter-in-law to
treat me as I have treated my husband’s mother--to love and respect
me, and not to make of me a subject of ridicule.” I must say it is
difficult to think of the sweet-faced woman who sits at the head of
our table as a mother-in-law in the Western sense of the word. She
effaces herself with exquisite tact; absents herself when she thinks
her presence unnecessary--for example, at our harem tea parties; gives
advice only when it is asked; and is always ready to show how grateful
she is to have gained a daughter and not lost her son.
It is curious and astonishing to see this woman of another generation
not understanding in the least her daughter-in-law’s civilization and
culture and yet accepting it as perfectly all right. After the midday
meal her prayer carpet is taken out of the cupboard and laid for her
on the floor of her room, her shoes are removed, she performs her
ablutions, veils her hair, and prays in the picturesque manner of the
East. She obeys the teaching of Mahomet in the letter and not in the
spirit, yet if it enters her head to wonder why her daughter-in-law
performs none of the prescribed religious duties she never makes a
remark.
When the young Bey’s brother officers dine with us she absents herself
from the table, for although nothing would induce her to be present,
she sees no reason for her daughter-in-law not presiding at the table.
Is it, I wonder, a broad mind which understands without understanding,
or is it a supreme trust in her son, that he will only allow his wife
to do those things which are right, or is it fatalism, a resignation to
put up with what you cannot change? At any rate, the smooth working of
a ménage of women of totally different centuries, the possibility of
their living together in perfect peace and affection, shows there must
be sacrifice on both sides, and a tact and diplomacy, which we do not
possess.
It might be argued, the Turkish bride is of the mother-in-law’s
choosing. Generally yes, but not always. In a marriage _à la Turque_
the bridegroom takes on trust her whom his mother chooses for him. He
is usually content with the choice, or, if he is not, he accepts her
as his written fate and makes the best of the situation. But since the
Turkish man has become accustomed to Western civilization he no longer
will marry _à la Turque_, and since the customs of the country do not
allow a man to see and speak with the woman he is to marry, many of
them prefer to marry a European.
A Turk recently told me you could not expect thinking Turkish men to
make a real Turkish marriage. He does not want a plaything--he wants a
companion, and Europe affords him the possibility of at least knowing
the woman he is to marry. To me it seems a dangerous and unsatisfactory
way of solving the woman question. Turks who have acted otherwise have
in general linked their existences with that of not the best class of
European society, to put it rather mildly. In fact, so serious did it
become that a short while ago the then Turkish Minister of Foreign
Affairs issued an order forbidding Turkish diplomatists to marry
without the consent of their Government. Truly a wise measure. All
details are required by the Turkish Government of the young lady’s
Embassy, and marriage without the Government’s consent means dismissal
from the service.
When the Turkish woman has a foreign daughter-in-law, the ménage does
not always run on smooth lines. The European is unable to adapt
herself to her new surroundings, she does not take the trouble to
understand the working of an entirely new civilization.... I have in
these cases, however, always admired the forbearance and tact of the
Turkish woman.
The modern Turkish woman demands the privilege of talking with her
future husband before her fate is signed and sealed. She does not have
the opportunity of knowing him as we Englishwomen know our future
husbands, but she can at least know whether he will “get on her
nerves,” in which case she refuses to marry him. Judging, however, as
she still does, by instinct, she generally chooses at least a man whom
she can respect and a man whose physical appearance pleases her. Many
women, however, have owned to me that they accepted their husbands
not with any feeling of gratitude or delight, but rather with one of
profound thankfulness they were no worse.
Most emphatically I disapprove of marriages between men of the East and
women of the West, not because I do not think Turkish men good husbands
and fathers, not because I do not consider them honest, upright men,
but because I always see in one of these unions, if not disaster for
the young couple themselves, at least disenchantment for the children
of these unions.
When discussing this subject seriously with a Turkish man who honoured
me by asking my advice about his proposed marriage with a foreign lady,
he confessed he preferred to marry a Mohammedan lady, but the “veil”
placed too many obstacles in the way of his enjoying her companionship.
“Why not marry a Turkish woman and give her her freedom?” “No,” he
answered, “the women must go slowly; I shall be in my grave before they
are free.”
If ever Turkish women wanted an argument in favour of a strong militant
movement, they have it in the colossal egoism of men like these. Had
she the courage to break her fetters, then he would honour her with his
protection, but since she has not, the foreigner, often the Turkish
woman’s social inferior, becomes his life companion. The law of Islam,
at least a bad interpretation of the law of Islam, refuses to allow a
Turkish woman to marry any but a Mohammedan, whereas a Moslem man may
marry a Christian woman; the woman now understands the slight this is
to her sex and intelligence.
Since Turkish women cannot retaliate, then, by marrying a man of the
West, how are they to accept the challenge other than by fighting for
freedom?
I have so often sighed here for the daring of some of my countrywomen,
inconsistent as it may seem. What these women need is a strong woman
at their head--a strong, responsible woman, with a definite programme,
and able to gain the confidence of her sex. It is the circumstances
which make the hero or heroine. “I am such an one as my age requireth,”
says the Book of Judith. It was the Hamidian régime which made Enver
Pasha--there will come, most surely, a woman leader, and that moment
may not be far off.
With a feeling of thankfulness that her husband is no worse, the
Turkish woman (there are exceptions, of course) naturally stakes
everything on maternity. That there should be women in the West who
actually refuse to have children is incomprehensible to my friends,
and that there are women who for the sake of their figures give their
children to strangers to nurse is almost as incomprehensible.
“What have we Eastern women in common with you women of the West--not
even the heart,” said one day a Turkish woman to me as she caressed the
little curly-headed girl who played at her knees. She added, “All my
life’s happiness is in that little form; my greatest sorrow was when
I found it was physically impossible to nurse her, and every time I
hear her call her foster-mother ‘Anna’ (mother), a name no doubt she
deserves, I have just a tiny pain at my heart.” And yet how good she is
to this poor peasant woman. She had been deserted by her husband, her
own child died a few days after its birth. “You understand,” she went
on, “she will stay with me as long as ever she likes. She has been too
good to my child for me ever to leave her without a home.”
Aïche-Hanoum, the mother-to-be, for whom we bought presents, has
been the subject of conversation for weeks past. To her all kinds of
delicacies are sent, the most comfortable place is reserved for her
in the harem, there is always some one to tuck her up amongst the
cushions. How tenderly she is spoken of, how tenderly she is spoken to
... in a short while Aïche will be called to fulfil the divine mission
(according to the East) for which every woman was sent into the world.
Then her outlook on life will be different. She will have a different
position towards her friends; it is almost as if she had, as it were,
risen in the social scale.
* * * * *
We went to visit Aïche, the very day the little new arrival was
expected. “In all probability we shall stay all night,” said my friend
before we started. “But shall we not be in the way?” I asked. “Of
course not,” she replied. “How happy Aïche will be to feel we are
there; we Turkish women always take part in one another’s joys and
sorrows.”
With my British fear of being in the way where I was certainly of no
use, I took my place with the other six friends of Aïche who had come
to be present at this very important moment in her life’s history.
We were seated round the big mangol alternately drinking coffee (which
we ourselves made on the red-hot charcoal), smoking and eating sweets.
Two of the ladies had bound their heads up with handkerchiefs to
prevent their having headaches, a precaution I did not imitate however
much my friends advised me to do so. We did not speak. We just sat
round the mangol waiting, waiting....
I occupied the most comfortable of the _mussaffir’s_ rooms (guests’
rooms) that night, for the other guests’ beds were made on mattresses
on the floor, in the Eastern unceremonious fashion. I should have
preferred to occupy one of these “emergency” beds--they are perfectly
comfortable--for in the guests’ room when I finally sank to rest after
the safe arrival of the little girl, I had the same uncomfortable
feeling of the unnecessary trouble I was giving.
But the Eastern woman has not yet begun what we in the West know as
“the servant trouble.” With the abolition of slavery, however, this
is on its way. When all the slaves in Fâtima’s family are married,
she must necessarily employ hired domestics; with education “hired
domestics” become _exigeants_. They will object to making coffee and
emergency beds at all times and at all hours, then “good-bye” to the
charming unceremonious hospitality of the East.... I asked a Turkish
lady who had lived for some months in London what she most appreciated
in our capital. “What I know best,” she answered, “is Mrs. ----’s
registry office for servants.”
The next afternoon a host of friends and acquaintances arrived to pay
a visit to the mother and the little girl. In my country the doctor
and the nurse would have forbidden these visits as the height of
imprudence; here “it is a matter of habit.” It is true the visitors, in
most cases, only passed in a procession before the mother and child,
but even that seemed unnecessary fatigue for the mother, much as I was
assured to the contrary.
The mother and daughter were picturesquely arranged. The mother, in
her big bed, covered with a priceless embroidery, and the child, in
a smaller bed, covered with a smaller quilt of the same priceless
embroidery, peacefully sleeping, and a French Sister of Mercy, with
her big white _cornet_, playing the part of nurse. It was a pretty
picture--a picture which brought tears of emotion to the eyes of the
visitors. It is an old and beautiful masterpiece--the mother and her
child--all the world over, and a masterpiece at which every true woman
looks again and again, and always with delight.
All the guests brought presents for the mother and child, according to
their means. Some were of the greatest value--jewels, embroideries,
stuffs--and Fâtima tells me her “birth” presents formed a very
important part of her trousseau. But why, at a Turkish birth ceremony,
is cinnamon syrup given to the guests? No one can tell me. To me this
beverage is the only unpleasant feature of a most charming ceremony.
They called her “Melek” (Angel), the little girl. I made a sign of the
Cross on her little forehead. Her mother was pleased. And as I made
that sign I wondered why our Western mothers are not honoured as they
are in the East. Christ paid as high a tribute to maternity as Mahomet.
Who is responsible for the misinterpretation of His words? Is it
civilization, or is it the Church?