The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-06-14
GLlMPSES OF HAREM LIFE.
How Gentle Woman Is Loved and Petted in
PharaOh's Old Land.

sons, are, in many respects, an exception to
general rule in their accomplishments, education
and manners. While they have in many re
spects, European customs and habits, yet these
are modified by restraints of secluson; and they
share with their sisters of all classes the odious
law of the Prophet that they should be held
prisoners under rigid surveillance of guardians
especially prepared for the unholy Office
Statements are made that serious misunder-
standings often occur among them in conse-
quence of this oppression. There is doubt
that the beautiful young daughter of the
Khediye, who was accustomed until thirteen
years of age to visit the opera without veil
rebelled when the time came for incarceration,
and that she lamented in tears her unfortunate
fate. Marrying soon after seclusion, she lived
but few months Universally the Moslem
women know nothing of life, being simply pieces
of furniture in their homes. With no education,
they strangers to the interests and affairs of
their masters decked out with fine dresses and
jewelry, they are sensuously content
They amuse themselves in crunching melon
seeds, eating candy, smoking cigarettes and
showing their jewelry and fine toilets to their
friends. Living a life of ease and incidence they
are never supposed to soil their hands with
labor or rack their brains with thought. When
they toll their sole occupation is to beautify
themselves, When young they are well made;
their eXtremities are fine and their hands
soft white and supple and they might be Ikened
to the budding flower which opens at the first
rays of the morning sun. Their compilations are
white and their cheeks tinged with rose; their
eyes are sometimes blue, but that is excep-
tional; they are generally black as jet, and
when fully open are of almond form and
full of sensibility and delicate sweetness.
They never conceal them. and gallant men
often confess that they have interfered with
their repose of mind. 1t is pleasing to speak
of these beauties, for they have few to
admire even this much of their comeiness. The
houses. many of them are elegant and so con
structed as to completely conceal the hidden
glances of the fair who are doomed to eternal
isolation when without veil, as no woman can
he seen lawfully by any other man than her
husband. She is forbidden the homage that all
nature demands, Controlled by a powerful
hand and bound irrevocably by custom, she is
compelled not only to kiss the hand of her
tyrant but to hug the chain which manacles
her
This despotism is the more extraordinary on
the part of the men, inasmuch as they pretend
to feel delight in beautiful objects of natures
they will watch the play of birds for hours and
think it crime to disturb or deprive them of
the free air they breathe Yet they incarcerate the
loveliest and most beautiful of all the Creators
works, and think it a great favor to permit
woman's enjoyment of towering shrub in
some hidden recess.
In tearing aside the impenetrable curtain of
the harem it is only to see its inmates like the
flower which the heated Khamsin touches, with
ering under Jealous despot whom the law arms
with complete power, and whose cruel suspicion
is endured in savish silence. Such is the rule of
custom, which alone regulates society among
Mohammedans, if intercourse between the sexes
there can be dignifed with so exalted term
The women rarely leave their homes, or even
enjoy the beauties of nature as do the men,
who profess great love for rare exotics and beau
tful flowers. They are employed in preserving
their compilations, the delicate tint of which is
never blemished by the light of the sun, and en-
HANGING their beauty by every means that long
studied art can effect, only to please one whose
delight is assured when he knows that his pris-
oner is safely confined. 1t seems incredible
to men used to our Western civilization that
in the nineteenth century, among so large
a portion of the human family there
should be an impossible barrier drawn between
the two sexes when every manly inspiration
dictates generous sympathy for the delicate
and graceful woman whose instincts prompther
to trust in man as the natural protector of her
SEX Here she finds in him the contrary a
violator of a great law of nature, who assumes
the right not only to shackle her mind, but
also to confne her person by law OF his own
operation.
So binding is the law that no man shall see
the face of woman not his property, that in
case of violation of its sancity it looks with
favor on the action of the injured husband
should he solace his jealousy with the life of the
intruder 1t is not even permitted to recognize
a woman outside of the harem. 1t spite of
strenuous precautions and the difficulties which
environ them, Moslem women, eluding the
greatest watchfulness, are fond of coquetting
like their Western sisters Though en-
tirely uncultivated, they have delicate and
pretty ways, and show, as if by accident, their
beautiful dresses and jewelry in opening the
black silk habaran which envelopes them when
on the street No women excel them in the Ian
guage of the eyes, which, with them, are always
large and wide open.
Society among the inmates of the harem
means simply smoking cigarettes and pipes and
IL ~ V,1~k 81 ~,
sparkling conversation and pleasant music with
which the sexes reciprocally entertain each
other among Western people, horrible scream
ings, the monotonous noise of drums and the
clang of tambourines are here the solace of
women in her hours of ease The
boosted luxury of the palaces offers in its
isolation no attraction to a refined nature. This
life makes people prematurely old; man of
fifty is weak andsuperannuated, and woman of
thirty has passed her meridian. No one works
unless compelled to it, as tranquility of mind
and person best pleases the Oriental taste
They ignore the passage OF time, which never
disturbs them with the cry of bukrah (to-mor-
row): vet people write of the destinations of
Eastern life. 1t may be the climate, with it's
sunny sky and the quickening air of the desert,
or possibly the stagnation of existence which de-
ludes them. 1t cannot be the effort of thinking
or of feeling that awakens pleasing impressions,
for there is nothing here that does not clash
with every sentiment habit and custom of intel
lectual life.
Society is the isolation of prison, though the
captives are surrounded by numbers of people.
The philosopher residing in the East is forced to
mediate bitterly upon the waste of humanity
around him Only an anchorite, whose religious
duty consists in counting beads, could be
charmed with such monotony and silence.
The man of energy and thought would think it
cruel punishment to be forced to undergo the OF
deal Of intellectual stagnation amid people
whose ignorance and Incidence fill their minds
with egotisn, obstinacy and self-importanee. 1t
is common thing for Egyptians who have been
educated by order of the government in the best
colleges in Europe to come back to Eastern life
and Immediately throw away their books,
abandon intercourse with intelligent for
eigners, and shut themselves in harem
among ignorant women and there end their ex-
istence. This is probably what they mean when
they say that lin their education of mind they
do not neglect the heart" An Eastern man will
sit for hours inhaling the perfume of q sweet