The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1875-08-12
Woman, Coartship ana Marriage
.~~-.. Among the Turks.

II By the sweet waters of Asia-by leaning
lmmovably against tree or the fountain,
In the attitude of one who is lost In pro.
found reverie--1 have been able to catch
glimpse, OF more than one lovely face
but lmperfectly concealed by q thin veil
OF gauze half withdrawn, and more than
one snowy throat cleaning between the
folds OF half-open feredge, while the at
tendant was walking at little distance or
gazing upon the steamboats, on the Bospho-
rus, assured by my assumed air of drowsi.
ness and abstraction.
The Turks, however, see no more of
them than the Giaours do. They never
pass beyond the selamlick even in the
houses of their most intimate friends; and
they are acquainted with no woman but
those of their own harems. When the in
mates OF. one 7iarem visit those of another
the we'll known custom of placing the slip
pers of the visitors upon the threshold of
the harem which they are visiting an.
snounces the presence of strangers and in
terdicts the entrance of the odalick, even
to its own master, who thus finds himself
at any moment shut out from part of his
own house. An immense, female popula-
ton, anonymous and unknown, circulates
through this mysterious city, which is thus
transformed into sort Of vast masquer-
AIDE, with the popularity that the domi-
noes are not permitted to unmask. The
father and the brother are the only males
who are allowed to behold the faces of the
daughters and sisters, who rigidly veil
themselves for any relative Of remoter de-
gree; and thus Turk may in his whole
life, have seen but half a dozen faces of
Moslem women!
The possession Of large and numerous
harems is restricted to Viziers, Pashas,
Beys and other persons of either great
wealth or high rank, for their mainte-
nance is enormously expensive, especially
as each female who becomes mother is
entitled to her separate apartment and her
own suit Of slaves. The Turks of middle
rank have rarely more than one wife (al-
though legally entitled to espouse four),
together with perhaps three or four pur-
chased females; and for them the rest of
the sex remains in the condition of myth
or chimera.
The sentiment of love and the delica.
cies of courtship are, necessarily, almost
unknown to the Moslemah. A Turk who
wishes to marry has recourse to some
woman of mature age, who exercises the
profession of matrimonial negotiator
This woman gives him minute descrip-
ton of the personal charms of certain
number of Asmes, Rouchens, Nourmahals,
Leilas and other beauties of manageable
age, taking proper care, of course, to
adorn with the greatest profusion of meta
phors the portrait of the young girl whom
she herself fayors, or whom it is her in
terest to select The offcndi becomes q
lover. on the strength of her description;
Ill III ,rAc A.,
path by which his yelled idol must pass;
and, after the interchange of few chances
(his share of which is limited to such
glimpses of a pair of eyes as he can
snatch through a close.drawn veiD, de-
mands the maiden of her father, offering
her dowry proportioned to his passion
and his fortune, and at length, after the
marriage ceremony, sees removed for the
first time the yachmack which has hithes-
to concealed the fair ones features from
his longing gaze-7heophile Gautier.