Among the Bedouins polygamy is not common nor is it among the poorer Arabs of the towns. The marriage ceremony among the Bedouins is as simple as it is long and complex among the townsmen. After the negotiations which precede the marriage contract, the bridegroom comes with a lamb in his arms to the tent of the girl’s father and there cuts the lamb’s throat before witnesses. As soon as the blood falls on the ground the contract is sealed; feasting and dancing follow, and at night the bride is conducted to the bridegroom’s tent where he is awaiting her arrival. Dowrys are paid more generally and more largely in the towns than in the desert. Among certain Arab tribes a demand of money for the hand of a bride would be deemed scandalous. From a western standpoint the women of the Bedouin stand on a higher platform of liberty and justice than those of the towns where the Koran has done its work on one half of society to repress intellect and degrade affection, and sensualize the sexual relation to the last degree. On the other hand divorce is perhaps more common among the Bedouins,[96] than among the city Arabs. Burckhardt met Arabs not yet forty-five years of age who were known to have had above fifty wives. Concerning the marriage-contract in the towns, the ceremony, the divorce proceedings, and the methods by which that is made legal which even the lax law of Islam condemns, the less said the better. On the position of women in Arabia we quote four unimpeachable witnesses who have nothing in common save their knowledge of the subject; there is truth on both sides where they differ; where they agree there is no question of certainty as to the fact. DOUGHTY, the Christian explorer, whose volumes are a mine of information says:[97] “The female is of all animals the better, say the Arabians, save only in mankind. Upon the human female the Semites cast all their blame. Hers is, they think, a maleficent nature, and the Arabs complain that ‘she has seven lives.’ The Arabs are contrary to womankind, upon whom they would have God’s curse; some, they say, are poisoners of husbands and there are many adulteresses.... The _horma_ [_i. e._, woman] they would have under subjection; admitted to an equality, the ineptitude of her evil nature will break forth. They check her all day at home and let her never be enfranchised from servitude. The veil and the jealous lattice are rather of the obscene Mohammedan austerity in the towns; among the mild tent-dwellers in the open wilderness the housewives have a liberty as where all are kindred; yet their hareem are now seen in the most Arabian tribes half-veiled.”