Watauga Democrat. [volume] (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.) 1888-current, 1927-08-18
SPEAKING OF
MEN AND WOMEN
Different Ways in Which the Sexes
View Each Other and Effect AS
ISOLATION Has Upon Their Lives
as Seen By Two Authors
By J. C. FLETCHER

Inc 0nflne Magazine Tor August
contains two interesting studies, en-
titled respectively, Speaking of
Women" and Speaking of Men"
The first speaking is done by Achmed
AbGullah, himself a Moslem, who
sms shes the age-old myth about mans
sup emacy in the harem. Speaking
Of Men" is done by Inez Haynes Ir-
win, who answers Abdullah's state
me1t that man rules the world, but
woman rules man.
Quantity, Abdullah reacts to the
implied suggestion that the appeal to
his knowledge and wisdom is made
because ho IS Moslem, his people
practice polgamy-because they have
harems. Therefore, the Moslem
should have more intimate knowledge
of woman and her ways. There is
thrill to the American man in the
wocd "harenl," but not to Abdullah,
for he has the experience and he
knows. The Occidental fondly
dreams of returning home and order
ing a dozen or SO of the members of
his harem to this or that task.
Imagination paints wonderful
picture of domestic tyranny and con-
jugal felicity-and Abdullah exress-
es the wish that it were so, but it is
not. Man is not the ruler of the
harem. Nor is the haram the wicked
and altogether romantic thing pic
tured by the missionaries and by
writer's of the "sheik school," 1t is
just that part of a Moslem's house
reserved for his wife, daughters,
mother and grandmothers, if widow
ed, female servants and odds and
ends of needy female relatives.
These relatives are not good to look
on, else they would have husbands
and harems of their own,< %
And who is the harem poss? None
other than the grar ;'mother, and
Abdullah ought-perhaps ought not
hear her language-as she rules the
childrenchildren and servants, in fact
everyone in the household with a rod
of iron, a discipline of pre-war eff
cheney with a tongue fluent in un-
restrained abuse, such as would cause
top sergeant in the A. E. F. to
blush with mingled shame and envy.
But how does grandmother Fatima
get that way? Abdullah echoes his
own question. Then ne endeavors to
answer it. She gets that way for
woman is always woman. What is
called woman's intuition is nothing
more nor less than woman's clever
ness and shrewdness. 1t begins
where man leaves off, and the fact
that the Oriental woman, being a
creature of the house and not of the
outside world, has her field of opera
tion and endeavor limited, makes her
shrewdness more efficient than that
of her more emancipated American
sister. Still the question persists,
how does she do it? Personally, Alb
dullah has not the faintest concep-
ton.
But he does know from "bitter and
motely experience" as he terms it,
that among all the worlds domestic,
even domesticated martyrs, there is
none quite as badly henpecked as the
Oriental husband, and he thinks that
the prophet Mohammed, too, spoke
from experience when, gallant and
reckless soul that he was, declared:
"Oh we women, give freely aims,
although it be of your gold and sill
yer jewels! For, verify, We are the
most worthy of hell on the day of
resurrection"
Abdullah, thinking Of women,
wrote this in fear and trembling, but
having spent eight long years in, the
war, he resolved not to be craven.
Thus, resolved to be brave, he
quotes three more of Mohammed's S
wise maxims, speaking about harems:
"There has not been given any ca
lamity more hurtful to man than
woman"
Forgive your wife seventy times
and seven."
Sullenly speculatively in the third:
"How then may wise man admonish
his wife? For woman was created
from the crooked rib of Adam.
Therefore, if you wish to straighten
it, belize you will break it, and if
you wish to let it alone, it will always
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