for he insulted nature with less peremptory prohibitions against the
union of sects. A Mohammedan may marry a Jewish or a Christian woman,
when he feels excessive love for her, or cannot procure a wife of
the true faith; but she does not inherit his property or impart her
religion to her offspring. The children of a Jewish woman, if they
are not educated to the Mohammedan, must embrace the Christian creed,
which is considered better than their own. In this we find a privilege
reserved by the male sex to itself, for a woman of the Prophet’s faith
dare not marry an infidel, unless compelled so to do by actual force.
This has given rise to many apostasies, which form the subject of
numerous romances.
The degrees of consanguinity within which marriage is prohibited are
strictly marked. A man may not marry his mother or any other relative
in a direct ascending line; his daughter or any descendant; his sister,
or half-sister; his aunt, his niece, or his foster-mother. The Hanafee
code enacts that a man shall not take as his wife any woman from whose
breast he has received a single drop of milk; but E. Shafæee allows it
unless he has been suckled by her five times within the course of the
first two years. Nature, in this respect, is the principal guardian
of the law, for as women in Egypt age very quickly, the men endeavour
to obtain more youthful brides. A man may not marry the mother, or
daughter of his wife, or his father’s or his son’s wife; his wives must
not be sisters, or his own unemancipated slaves--if he already have
a free wife. Those women whom the Muslim is forbidden to marry it is
lawful for him to see, but no others except his own wives or female
servants.
The marriage engagement is merely a civil transaction. The man and
woman having declared in the presence of two witnesses their mutual
willingness, and part of the dowry being paid, their union is legal.
The bride usually signifies her consent through a deputy. If, however,
she be under the age of puberty, her assent is not necessary, and she
is in the hands of her friends. A boy may also be thus disposed of; but
he may divorce his wife if he be not contented with her. Usually, if
rich, he neglects the first, and takes a second by way of solace after
his disappointment.
In one feature of its manners, modern Egypt resembles the States of
ancient Greece. The character of a bachelor is ridiculous, if not
disreputable. As soon as a youth has attained a proper age, with
sufficient means, his friends advise him to marry. His mother, or a
professional match-maker, is usually left to choose the bride. When a
girl has been fixed upon with his approval, some one goes to her father
to effect an arrangement. The price is fixed, with the amount of dowry,
and the future ceremonials depend on the resources of the two families.
Sometimes a profusion of rites is insisted upon; sometimes the simplest
agreement is all that is required, for the law exacts nothing but the
plain convention we have before described. The giving of a dowry is,
however, indispensable. With all who can afford it, also, the sanction
of religion and the witness of the law add solemnity to the occasion.
The rich choose it as an opportunity to display the pride of wealth,
and the poor to indulge in a little show, with that idleness which is
so essential to the happiness of most Asiatics.
The condition of wives in Egypt has been much misrepresented by some
popular writers, to whom the imprisonment and slavery of women offer
a fertile theme for declamation. The word harem, or _harim_, indeed,
meaning _sacred_ or _prohibited_, applies to the women as well as to
the apartments in which they dwell; but considerable liberty is allowed
them. Those of the upper classes are secluded, and go veiled in the
streets. They are seldom seen on foot in public, and their costume is
indicative of this detail in their manners. Though, however, they have
a suite of apartments assigned to them, they are not prisoners. A few
Turks, jealous to exaggeration, may immure the inmates of the harem,
and shut them altogether from contact with the world; but, generally,
they are allowed to go out, pay visits, and control the household.
The theory of the Muslims is more rigid than their practice, which,
were it consistent in all its features, would swathe the female sex
with convention, as the ancient inhabitants used to swathe their
mummies--until the form of humanity is lost amid the very devices which
seek to preserve it. To such an extravagant height do some of them
carry their ideas of the sanctity of the female sex, that their tombs
are closed against strangers, while others will not permit a man and a
woman to be buried in the same grave. Generally, however, husbands do
not object to their wives mingling with the public throng so as they
religiously veil their faces. The lower orders are, of course, the
least restrained. Those of the wealthiest and proudest men are most
strictly secluded; but the interchange of visits between the harems is
constant. With this degree of freedom the Egyptian women are content.
Time has trained them to their situation, until a relaxation in their
discipline is viewed less as an indulgence than a right. The wife who
is allowed too much liberty imagines she is neglected, and, if others
are more narrowly watched, is jealous of the superior solicitude
bestowed on them. Among the rich the harem supplies all the delights
of life. Rose-water, perfumes, sherbet, coffee, and sweatmeats,
constitute the supreme joys of existence, with precious silks, muslins,
and jewels. Among the poor, though reduced to beasts of burden, their
buoyant hearts are not depressed under the load, and they sing from
infancy to old age. Nevertheless their lives are full of misery, but it
is the misery of a class, not only of one sex.
The Muslim woman is _proud_ of her husband, and _fond_ of her children.
Exceptions undoubtedly occur, in which the warmth of the Oriental
temperament takes the form of refined and spiritual love; but these
are rare. In their offspring they find the chief resource of their
lives. They may become mothers at twelve years of age, and at fifteen
commonly do so. They give proof of astonishing fecundity, bearing
numbers of children, though ceasing at an earlier period than among
Europeans. That is the critical occasion of their lives, but they who
pass it safely often survive to an extreme old age. The manners of the
country render it necessary that midwives only should attend at the
accouchement, which is usually easy. When a physician is called in,
he must feel his patient’s pulse through the sleeve of her garment,
while her face is almost invariably wrapped in a veil. The utmost
kindness, even in the indulgence of their most trifling whims, is shown
to pregnant women. The absence of that sentiment which, according to
English notions, should attach a wife to her husband, is made up by
the stronger bond which binds a mother to her child. Upon this all
the wealth of her affection is bestowed, and in that precious charge
all her soul is centred. This feeling--the most pure and true of any
that grow in the human breast--stands to the woman of Egypt in place
of every other. A proverbial saying expresses the national philosophy
upon this subject: “A husband is a husband; if one is lost another
is to be got; but who can give me back my child?” To be childless is
regarded as a signal misfortune, and with those who happen to be barren
many devices are employed to remove the curse. Among these, one of
the most curious is--to wash the skin with the blood of an executed
criminal. Her fecundity, with her parental care, might be expected to
prove itself by a flourishing population; but the blind rapacity and
profligate contempt of human life exhibited by the tyrants who, in
succession, have ruled Egypt, have been more than enough to neutralise
the liberality of nature.
The Mohammedan is essentially an Epicurean. In him the object of nature
appears perverted. Instead of the animal being made subservient to the
intellectual man, the mind is devoted to gratifying the sense. His
life is divided between praying, bathing, smoking, lounging, drinking
coffee, and the gratification of the various appetites. Voluptuary as
he is, therefore, the opulent Egyptian does not rest content with the
four wives allowed him by the law. He takes as many concubines as he
can afford. They are all slaves, and are absolutely at the disposal
of their master, who may handle, whip, or punish them otherwise as he
pleases, and incurs very slight danger by killing one of them. The same
regulations as to blood affinity apply to them as to free women. A man
when he takes a female slave must wait three months before he can make
her his concubine. If she bear him a child which he acknowledges to
be his own, it is free. Otherwise it is the inheritor of its mother’s
bonds. She herself cannot afterwards be sold or given away, but is
entitled to emancipation on the death of her lord. He is not, however,
obliged to free her at once, though, if he have not already four wives,
it is considered honourable to do so. A wife sometimes brings to the
establishment a few handmaidens. Over these she has control, and
need not, unless she pleases, allow them to appear unveiled in their
master’s presence; but occasionally we find a wife presenting her
husband with a beautiful slave damsel, as Sarah presented her bondwoman
Hagar to Abraham. Rich men often purchase handsome white girls. Those
of the humbler class are usually brown Abyssinians, for the blacks are
generally employed in menial offices. Neither the concubine nor the
wife is permitted to eat with the lord of the house. On the contrary,
they are required to wait on him, and frequently, but not always, to
serve as domestics. In consequence of this system, a great gulf lies
between man and wife. His presence is viewed as a restraint in the
harem, which, from all we can learn, is mostly lively and loquacious.
Nor is this surprising, when we consider that the harems of aged men
are so frequently filled with young girls in the fresh bloom of life,
who can never learn to be fond of their husbands. The Egyptian proverb
in reference to this is peculiarly apt. It describes an ugly old Turk
with some beautiful youthful wives as “A paradise in which hogs feed.”
Ibrahim Pasha introduced into his private apartments the amusement of
billiards, which at once became a favourite recreation.
Though polygamy is not only licensed but esteemed, and concubinage
unlimited, few Egyptians have more than one wife, or one female slave.
Not more, indeed, than one in twenty, it is said, indulge in this kind
of pluralism, and it is probable that concubinage might be almost
altogether abolished by the suppression of the slave trade. At present
the markets are continually supplied with girls kidnapped in various
countries, and these are sometimes stripped and exposed naked to the
purchaser’s inspection.
Satisfied as he generally is with one wife, the Egyptian Mohammedan
is not by any means remarkable for continence. He may content himself
with a single woman, but he may change her as often as he pleases, a
privilege which is continually abused. The facility of divorce has had
a most demoralising effect upon Egyptian manners.
A man may twice put away his wife and take her back without ceremony.
If, however, he divorces her a third time, or deliberately unites in
one act the effect of three, he cannot take her again until she has
been married and divorced by another husband. The manner of divorce
is sufficiently simple. The husband says, “I divorce thee,” and
returns his wife about one-third of the dowry, with the effects which
she brought at her marriage. He may do this through sheer caprice,
without assigning or proving any reason; but when a woman desires to
put away her husband, she must show herself to have suffered serious
ill-treatment or neglect, lose the share of her dowry, and often go
into a court of justice to prove her claim. With the man this is
never required, as is indicated by the common proverb: “If my husband
consents, why should the Kadi’s consent be necessary?”
A widow must wait three months, and a divorced woman three months and
ten days, or, if pregnant, until delivery, before marrying again. The
latter, in this case, must also wait an additional forty days before
she can receive her new husband. Meanwhile her former proprietor must
support her, either in his own house or in that of her parents. If he
divorce her before the actual consummation of the marriage, he must
provide for her more liberally. In case, however, of a wife being
rebellious, and refusing to recognise the lawful authority of her
husband, he may prove her to have offended, before a Kadi, and procure
a certificate exempting him from the obligation to clothe, lodge, or
maintain her. Thus she is desolate and without resource, for she dare
not go to another home; but if she formally promise to be obedient in
future, her husband must support or divorce her. When a wife desires
to be freed from any man’s restraint and is unable to dissolve the
union altogether, she may make a complaint and obtain a licence to
go to her father’s house. In that case he, through sheer spite,
generally persists in refusing to divorce her. Sometimes a man with a
disagreeable mother-in-law quartered upon him, puts away his wife in
order to be rid of both.
The slightness of the marriage tie, and the ease with which it may be
severed, leads, as we have said, to a profligate abuse of the power
thus assumed by the male sex. Numbers of men have, in the course of
their lives, 10, 20, 30, or even 40 wives. Women, also, have as many
as a dozen partners in succession. Some profligates have been known
to marry a woman almost every month. A man without property may pick
up a handsome young widow, or divorced woman, for about 10_s._, which
he pays as dowry. He lives with her a few days or weeks, and then
divorces her with the payment of about 20_s._, to support her in the
interval during which she is prohibited from marrying again. Such
conduct, however, is regarded as disreputable, so that few respectable
families will trust a girl with any man who has put away many wives.
The crime of adultery is laid down by the law as worthy of severe
punishment. Four eye-witnesses, however, are necessary to prove the
fact, and the woman may then be stoned to death. From the secluded
nature of their lives, and from the nature of the offence itself, it
is rarely that such testimony is to be had. Cases, therefore, scarcely
ever occur before the public courts. Heavy and ignominious penalties
are denounced against witnesses who make these charges and fail in the
proof. Unmarried persons convicted of fornication may be punished by
the infliction of one hundred stripes, and, under the law acknowledged
by the Sumrh sect, may be banished for a whole year.
Egypt has in all times been famous for its public dancing girls, who
were all prostitutes. The superior classes of them formed a separate
tribe or collection of tribes, known as the Ghawazee. A female of
this community is called Ghazeeyeh, and a man Ghazee. The common
dancing girls of the country are often erroneously confounded with the
Almeh--Awalim in the singular--who are properly female singers; though,
whatever some authoritative writers may assert, they certainly practise
dancing, as well as prostitution, especially since the exile of the
Ghawazee. They perform at private entertainments, and are sometimes
munificently rewarded. The Ghawazee, on the other hand, were accustomed
to put aside their veils and display their licentious movements in
public, before the lowest audience. The evolutions with which they were
accustomed to amuse their patrons were commonly the reverse of elegant.
Commencing with decency enough, they soon degenerated into obscenity,
the women contorting their bodies into the most libidinous postures.
The dress was graceful, but exposed a large portion of the bosom, and
was frequently half thrown aside. The Ghawazee sometimes performed
in the court of a house or in the open street; but were not admitted
into the harems of respectable families. A party of men often met in a
house, and sent for the dancers to amuse them. Their performances, on
such occasions, were more than usually licentious, and their dresses
less decent. A chemise of transparent texture, which scarcely hid the
skin, and a pair of full trousers, was frequently all that covered
them. Drinking copious draughts of brandy or some other intoxicating
liquor, they soon laid aside even the affectation of modesty, and
scenes took place like those with which the priests defiled the
temples of India. Many of the women who thus degrade themselves are
exceedingly beautiful. As a class, indeed, they are described as the
handsomest in Egypt. They are distinguished, by the peculiar caste of
their countenances, from all other females in the country, and there
can be little doubt that they spring from a distinct race. They boast
themselves of the Barmecide descent, but this is impossible to be
proved. It has been conjectured that they are the lineal, as well as
the professional descendants of those licentious dancers who exhibited
naked--as these sometimes do--before the Egyptians in the age of the
Pharaohs. Some imagine that the dancers of Gade, or Cadiz, ridiculed by
Juvenal, were the prototypes of the modern Ghawazee; but it has been
supposed, with more reason, that the Phœnicians introduced the practice
thither from the East, where profligacy flourished at the earliest
period.
It has been the pride of the Ghawazee tribes to preserve themselves
distinct from all other classes of the population, to intermarry, and
thus to perpetuate their blood unmingled. A few have repented their
mode of life, and married respectable Arabs; but this has not often
occurred. They never among themselves took a husband until they had
entered on a course of prostitution. To this venal calling they were
all trained from childhood, though all were not taught to dance. In
this community of harlots, it is singular to find that the husband
was inferior to the wife; indeed he was subject to her, performing
the double office of servant and procurer. If she was a dancer he was
generally her musician, and sat by quietly tinkling upon a stringed
instrument, while she, his wife, exposed her person in the most
indecent attitudes, and by every voluptuous artifice endeavoured to
seduce the spectator. Profligacy never assumed a more infamous form
than that of the husband assisting at the daily adultery of his wife.
Some of the men earned a livelihood as blacksmiths or tinkers. Many of
them, however, were rich, and the women, especially, were possessed of
costly dresses and ornaments.
The Ghawazee generally followed the kind of life led by our gipsies,
whom some, indeed, have traced to an Egyptian origin. Many, but not
all, of the wanderers of this nation in the Valley of the Nile,
ascribe to themselves a descent from a branch of the same family from
which the Ghawazee claim to have sprung; but both traditions rest on
doubtful testimony. The ordinary language of the Ghawazee is similar
to that in use among the rest of the Egyptian population; but like all
other unsettled, wandering tribes, they have a peculiar dialect, a
species of slang, only intelligible to themselves. Most of them profess
the Mohammedan faith, and they were accustomed to follow in crowds the
pilgrim caravans to the sacred shrine at Mecca.
Every considerable town in Egypt formerly harboured a large body of
the Ghawazee, who occupied a distinct quarter, allotted entirely
to prostitutes and their companions. Low huts, temporary sheds, or
tents, formed their usual habitations, since they were in the habit
of frequently transplanting themselves from one district to another.
Others, however, occupied and furnished handsome houses, trading
also in camels, asses, and grain; possessing numerous female slaves,
upon whose prostitution they also realized much profit. They crowded
the camps and attended the great religious festivals, and on these
occasions the Ghawazee tents were always conspicuous. Some joined the
accomplishment of singing with that of the dance.
The inferior Ghawazee women resembled in their attire the common
prostitutes of other classes, which also swarmed in Egypt. Many of
these also, who were not Ghawazees, took the name, in order to increase
the gains of their calling.
The system of marriage, to which we have slightly alluded, is worthy
of more particular notice. The man who married a Ghazeeyeh was a
low and despised creature. The saying is proverbial in Egypt, that
“the husband of a harlot is a base wretch by his own testimony.”
The law among the Ghawazee was, that a girl as soon as marriageable
must prostitute herself to a stranger and then take a husband. He is
constantly employed in looking for persons to bring to her, himself
cohabiting with her only by stealth, for she would be exposed to
shame and made the object of ridicule were it known that she had
admitted her own husband to her embraces. Polygamy is unknown among
the Ghawazee. In that community, indeed, as it existed previously to
the edict of 1835, we find a system exactly the reverse of that in the
midst of which it existed. The birth of a male child was looked upon
as a misfortune, since he was of no value to the tribe. Women, on the
contrary, were precious, because they were sought after by nearly the
whole male population of Egypt. The Ghazeeyeh made it a rule never to
refuse the offer of a person who could pay anything. The fashionable
dancer, therefore, at country fairs, though glittering with golden
ornaments, and arrayed in all the beauties of the eastern loom, would
admit the visit of any rough and ragged peasant for a sum not exceeding
twopence. In this manner, by seizing whatever was offered to them, they
often accumulated wealth, dressed in superb attire, rich embroidery
of gold, with chains of golden coins, and solid bracelets of the
same costly metal. In many instances, when the Ghazeeyeh had lost or
divorced her former husband, and become opulent upon the profits of
her venal calling, she married some village Sheikh, who was proud of
his acquisition. A virgin Ghazeeyeh was never induced to forsake her
hereditary profession; but when she formed such an alliance, she made
a solemn vow on the tomb of some saint, to be true to her new partner,
sacrificed a sheep, and was generally faithful to her sacred engagement.
It was not only in the more populous cities and districts of Lower
Egypt that the Ghawazee pursued their double calling of dancer and
prostitute. Those in the Upper country were equally addicted to that
immoral calling, and were, in proportion, equally encouraged. Even
in the small villages a company of them was usually to be found,
glittering in finery of gaudy colours, unveiled, and clothed only in
those light transparent garments in which the members of the same
sisterhood are represented on the monuments--a loose chemise of gauze,
a scarf negligently hung about the loins, and loose trousers of the
most delicate texture. Their dances were exhibitions of unrestrained
indecency,--attitude, look, and movement being equally lascivious. They
also sang and played on the viol, lute, tambour, lyre, or castanet. The
common prostitutes of the meaner class excelled them, at least in the
affectation of modesty. Many of the Ghawazee, however, appear sensible
of the degradation to which they are consigned.