The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-02-07
The Women of the Harem.

degree OF Loerty than is generally sup
posed. They visit each other great
deal, and enjoy all the pleasures of gos-
sip and scandal which their freer sisters
can do. AS they never read, and never
work, and have no household duties to
occupy their leisure, talk, and eating
and drinking, and unlimited smoking,
are their only resources for killing time.
At home they vary these amusements
by calling in the aid of the singing and
dancing girls, as they do not consider
it dignifed to practice or possess these
accomplishments themselves. The sing
ing and dancing women are profession
ais, and generally of very unequivocal
character-in fact, are almost universal
ly disreputable class. Then, too, on
Fridays the ladies go to the bath, and
spend the day there chatting and gos-
siping with each other. This is their
club, and they enjoy it thoroughly once
a week.
Shopping, too, is another of their
pastimes. In the bazars you meet them
in great numbers, either on foot or
perched on small donkeys, muffled up
and covered with large silk cloaks, with
only a bright pair of wicked-looking
eyes visible, and guarded by an old
woman or sable eunuch. They are
quite as eager and as animated in shop
ping as any Western woman can be.
The richer ladies have also goods
brought to their houses by female trad
ers, who make a very profitable trade
out of their fanciful customers, who
are entirely regardless of expense in
gratifying any whim or caprice that
seizes them.
The expenses of a mans harem in
Turkey far surpass all those for the rest
of his household. 1t is his most ex-
pensive luxury.
The best trait of these lazy, idle, and
uneducated women is their devotion to
their offspring. They are good mothers,
and their love and devotion are reci-
procated by their children. The strong
est sentiment the Turk has is his rever-
ence for his mother. However elevated
his position, he always stands up in her
presence until invited to sit down, a
compliment he pays to none besides.
It is related of the famous Ibrahim
having offended his mother, the old
lady Intentionally omitted asking him
to sit down, and compelled him to stand
1OI oil uOu1-d BSNCIO 1OI
an Oriental. Yet he at the time was
absolute arbiter of life and death
throughout Egypt, and still slave to
the whim of an old woman, because she
was his mother. Women who can COM
mand reverence and obedience as un-
qualified as this surely must deserve it.
The practice of purchasing Georgian
and Circassian women for the harems is
still kept up, Constantinople being the
great mart or central depot of these
willing victims.
They prefer the gilded slavery of the
harems, where they soon become des-
pots, to the life of hardship and priva-
tion which would be their lot at home.
On all the steamers coming from Con-
stantinople you may meet some sensual
looking Turkish or Egyptian magnate
in charge Of a bevy of yelled females,
whom he is bringing back to replenish
his stock of wives or slaves. They are
secluded in private cabins,
and when permitted to breathe fresh air
on deck, resemble walking bundles of
black silk, SO carefully are they envel-
oped, neither face nor figure to be seen.
The surprise of foreign visitors to
these Gagged birds B Yery great when
they are contemptuu5isly cbndoled with
on the little care their husbands take
of them, and the indifference they must
feel toward them, in permitting their
unveiled faces to be seen by every eye.
The Eastern woman is proud of the
precautions her husband takes to insure
her fidelity, conceiving it to be mark
of his interest in her. At the same
time they conceive themselves perfectly
at liberty to battle that vigilance if
them, although the punishment, if de-
tected, is sure and sudden death.
AS to what we regard as the pleasures
Of home and society, they are neither
known nor priced in those regions. |
They live an animal existence, and en-
JOY life in that sense only. An educated
and cultivated woman is a rGra avis |
among them. Such a one was the |
princess of Said Pasha, former Viceroy
Of Egypt. She not only was musician,
but a poetess as well, and impressed all
foreign ladies who saw her by the grace |
and elegance Of her manners and |
speech.
While very young the Eastern women
may be charming, but they become
old at an age when Wes-
5ern women are in their prime. Early |
development (they are manageable at
5en years of age,) and the indolent life
hey lead, stufing themselves with un-
food, tend to produce this
effect, together with the enervating eff
'ects of climate and early maternity.
Such is the true picture of the life of
IN Eastern woman, who is the pampered
md petted plaything, not the COM
oanion, counselor, and friend, of her
and whose code of morality is
20 lax as to justify the restraints placed
1pon her, unless, indeed, it may be
argued that the effect is produced by
hat very cause, and the system which
seeks to prevent produces the universal
axity of morals, which none can deny.