There are those who maintain that the women of the East are not only satisfied with polygamy, but that they do not so much as understand its injustice. To believe this one would have to be ignorant, I do not say of Oriental life, but of the human heart itself. And how is it, if this be so, that almost every Turkish girl, when she agrees to marry, makes it a condition that during her lifetime there shall be no other wife, or that large numbers of wives return to their own homes on account of the husband’s failure to keep this promise? and what is the meaning of the Turkish proverb, “A house with four wives, a vessel in a storm”? And even supposing her husband worships her, an Oriental woman can hardly fail to curse polygamy, obliging her, as it does, to live with that sword of Damocles suspended over her head--the daily dread of a rival, not hidden and distant and always in the wrong, as the rival of a European wife must necessarily be, but installed beside her in the same house, with the same name, and entitled to equal rights with herself. She is liable at any time to have one of her own slaves suddenly lift her head in her presence, treat her as an equal, and have children whose rights are the same as those of her own. It is quite impossible that she should be blind to the injustice of such a state of things; and when the husband whom she loves introduces another wife into his house, it may well happen that, reflecting upon the fact that he is but taking advantage of the code of the Prophet, and knowing full well at the bottom of her heart that an older and more sacred law has denounced that act as an infamous abuse of power, she rebels against and curses the conditions which have taken her husband from her, cut the knot which bound them together, and destroyed the happiness of her life. On the other hand, suppose she does not love him: she still has good cause to detest a law which so seriously interferes with the rights of her children, wounds her self-respect, and permits her husband to either neglect her altogether or seek her society solely from motives in which affection plays no part. It may be urged that Turkish women know that such misfortunes as these sometimes overtake European women as well: perhaps they do, but they also know that the latter are not obliged by the law, both civil and religious, to treat with respect and give the title of sister to the women who have poisoned their lives, and have, moreover, the comfort of being looked upon as martyrs, as well as a hundred ways of vindicating and consoling themselves without the husband being once able to say, as the polygamist can to his rebellious wife, “I have a right to love a hundred women, while it is your duty to love no one but me.” * * * * *