Our Moslem Sisters: A Cry of Need from Lands of Darkness Interpreted by Those Who Heard It
Religion
Our Moslem Sisters: A Cry of Need from Lands of Darkness Interpreted by Those Who Heard It
Women -- Orient
A native Bible woman who had worked among Mohammedans for fourteen years
when asked, "How many men or women of twenty-five years of age she
thought likely to be living with their original partners?" said, "Do you
mean that they should have kept to each other and that neither has been
divorced or married anybody else?"--"Yes." She laughed and said,
"Perhaps one in two thousand."
This was probably an exaggeration, but it shows that divorce is very
common, and that the percentage is even higher than those who love Egypt
and her people like to admit. It almost seems that the history of one's
Mohammedan acquaintances in Egypt might be given in an endless stream of
incidents about divorce and the intrigue and hate and jealousy attendant
on this, the greatest social evil of Egypt.
Many a young man has no hesitation about marrying and divorcing, keeping
up the process for a year or so till he at last finds a wife to suit
him. If it didn't degrade those he has cast aside, he might be excused
for doing so, as he has had no chance to choose his wife intelligently.
A young man of some spirit was determined to have a wife to please him
and who would be congenial to him. Seeing no other way to accomplish it,
he married and divorced in rapid succession six times. The seventh was a
queenly young woman, gentle and refined in all her ways, in whom the
heart of her husband might well rejoice, yet the terror daily hung over
her that she might be divorced in time like the other six. It was
pathetic to see how she tried to cultivate every little feminine art to
please her husband, how she tried to improve her mind so as to be a
companion to him, but constantly with the fear of divorce lurking in her
tender and loving heart.
Among the lower classes marrying and divorcing in rapid succession is a
form of dissipation. When pay-day comes, instead of going off on a big
drink (which, to the credit of Islam, is forbidden), they use their
money to defray the expenses of a season of debauchery, marrying and
divorcing as many wives as possible while the money lasts. Picture the
degradation of the poor women who are the victims (often unwilling
victims) of such orgies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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