The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-08-12
WOMAN IN MOROCCO.
A Lnnd Where the Female Sex Has
Only n Right TO Exist.


Morocco is a paradise for the woman
hater. He who hath been scurvily served
by the unfair sex may there find balm for
his bruised spirit. Either woman is not
seen at all. or. If noticed in the public
ways is cursed and cuffed Her highest
ambition is to fatten on sweet stun as
Gagged bird on grapeseed: when her youth
and beauty leave her, and kohl and henna
no longer staTe off the ravages OF time and
domesticity, she is thrown on public char
ity as private nuisance To the Moslem
way Of thinking the new woman would be
as impossible Of acceptance as is the New
Testament. During his first few days in
the land and Englishman feels his blood
boil at 81 ght Of skinny and accomplishing
old hays keeping pace painfully on the hot
sandy highway beside the mule that bears
| their husband, son or brother; but habit
softens the shock, and to his first impulse
OF rebellion in favor of an. innovation Of
equality" much abused in the fair cities
OF the north there succeeds a cynical ac-
quiescence in this compromising survival
Of male 2scendsncy and female obsequious-
ness, tiiG rsifc of the old order at the
gates Of Europe. and not quite at the anti
podes Of New York
Woman in Morocco he soon perceives is
no more tan a domesticated animal: but
then students of social evolution assure US
that she was once on that footing pur-
chased and fed that she might do the work
OF the house and bear the race, In what
are now civilized communities. II Is the
utter misconception of the romance of
marriage that has raised her to a throne
that she often shows herself wholly unable
10 grace. They manage these things DIFF
ferently in Morocco. The grave old pasha
pays a good price 10 1er parents for Fat
ma, and Fatma by that same token he
keeps within doors, carrying the key of
her apartments in his sash. or entrusting
1t TO a slave answerable with his head
Fstma Is pampered as long as she is young
and may even be treated with kindness
in middle age. She can eat sweet cakes
and drink green tea or sherbert and deck
her comedy form in shoddy jewelry; and
she can ride % the bath closely yelled
and get passing glimpse OF the outer
world, of which. on marriage. she took
leave like any Christian novice taking
the veil And the good ST Efsrbi, her
lord, Is secure in his household. and would
chuckla nightly could he but read of the
matter that daily take up the time of
Naza' enc courts OF divorce.
T. ,orcs, forsooth! A good old scimitar
xii Damascene blade hangs between two
silelt timepieces In his inner hall-some-
WHAT duh and blunt, and demanding, per-
chanlS, second stroke to make doubly
sure; yet would 1t divorce a thoughtless
wife more rapidly, more effectively, than
the grave deliberations OF a whole mosque
full OF sapient feilow-citizens. And Fat
ma has seen the old scinlitar, and thinks
II looks best where Vt hangs. and is cir
| cumspect in the narrow market-way, her
mouse-colored mule brushes the glossy
, black charger Of the blue-eyed Nazarene
riding even then to visit her owner, and
wondering whether that unduating form
on mufeback Is set off by Dretty face