The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-03-30
WHAT TURKISH WOMEN REALLY
 THINK OF HAREM LIFE.

THINK OF HAREM LlFEn
 Mrs. Demerta Vaka Brown, born a Turkish subject but dwelling in Amer ica, has returned from visit to old friends of her youth, and she gives, in Appleton's Magazine, some amazing re- ports of the actual conditions in the harems They are far pleasanter read ing than usual
 1 Little River" she said bluntly, as is the Turkish custom, T hate to tbink of you living away in that half-civilized country of America. You really must stay here and be married"
 "Do you think, Djimlah, my dear" l said matching her own frankness, 'that I should be happy with "a quarter of a husband?'
 She laughed till the tears came to her eyes.
 T have just been paying a visit to Nassarah and Tsakran." I went on; 'but TslSaran is a little kitten and don't think it matters to her whether she is the first or second wife; and Nassarah, for the sake of the boys, does not mind sharing her husband"
 There is where you make a mistake, my little one,' Djimlah said. You never share your husband. What a man gives to one woman he never gives to another, What he is to his first wife he never is to his second or third. It always amuses me how slow you European women are to understand men. You put up with the greatest outrages in order to remain the only wives. A man is not like a woman, who Is essentially a mother. A man by nature is polygamous. His nature must expand; sometimes 1t Is more than one woman that he must love; sometimes he gives himself over to| state matters sometimes 1t IS a career or profession that he needs. But whatever he does, the love of one woman is not and cannot be enough | to occupy him. When a man has the nature to love more than one woman, what happens? According to our sacred laws he may marry them. They are loved and honored by him, and the children of this second or third love are his children, and share his name as they share his property. But what hap pens in your countries and with your hablts? A man repudiates his first wife generally with a great deal of scandal, ] for a second. He gives her little money and her children lose their fathers companionship If the man cannot di- vurce his wife he leads her the life of a dog, and lives a libertine himself. Or if he loves another woman and she | l., 1,;, woman carries burden of shame, and the children born out of their great love are outcasts"
 AS Djimlah spoke of our system her blue eyes widened, her long earrings shook, and disgust was painted on her beautiful features, 1 chuckled inward lly remembering some lectures I had heard in America in which the women of the harem were spoken of as most miserable beings. and in which our duty was pointed out to us to work toward their deliverance.
 | "Djimlah," I said. "you speak of course from your experience, as perhaps the most loved of the wives. Suppose tomorrow your husband were to cast you aside and bring into the household a younger and possibly a handsomer wife-what them"
 Djimlah's pretty face lighted up with a smile You dear, dear yavroum you will never understand. If my husband has ten more wives, 1t does not alter my position I shall be his Djimlah then as always. He will still love me for myself, for the love l have for him, and for the children I have lgiven him."
 But, Djimlah wouldn't that love be 1 greater if he only loved you, and shared it with no one else? If you were the only affection in his life?"
 Djinlah caressed my hand. My lit- tie one, don't make this mistake in life Ii you were the most intelligent woman in the world, the most entertaining, the most brilliant the most beautiful, you could never be everything to your hus- band That is the way Allah has made them that is the way all of them are and those that are not are good for nothing.