What is an obvious fact, and which can by no means be ignored, even by the most zealous special pleader, is that the Eastern woman is far from being the equal of her Western sister, either in culture or in domestic and social privileges. Perhaps in no other country does woman enjoy these blessings to the extent to which the American woman enjoys them. Woman as man's intellectual companion, as a promoter of ideals, as a factor in domestic and social evolution, the Orient has never known. The Western type of woman is now partially represented in my native land by a minority of cultivated women, but their number is comparatively very small. The Oriental social code (if the simple social usages in that part of the world may be termed such) gives man the precedence. To give woman the social and domestic prominence, the little attentions and courtesies which she {317} enjoys in America, is to the Orientals not only unnecessary, but uncomplimentary to both sexes. It is perhaps for lack of such attentions and courtesies, more than for anything else, that the Occidentals consider the Oriental woman to be the slave of her husband. And, conversely, because of his giving the precedence to woman in all the courtesies and comforts of life, the Orientals, _both men and women_, consider the Occidental to be the slave of his wife. How often have I heard Syrians say, "An _affrenjee_ [that is, a European] is quite a man until his wife whispers something to him. Then he becomes her slave; he does just what she tells him." The Oriental's indifference to those fine points of behavior toward woman does not spring from the fact that he considers her to be intrinsically his inferior, and consequently his slave. I never had the slightest reason, nor the faintest suggestion, either by example or precept, to believe that my mother was in any way {318} my father's inferior. "Thou shalt honour thy father _and_ thy mother" is a commandment which was born of the deepest life of the East. I can think of no circumstances in Eastern life which compel a Syrian to think of his mother, sister, and wife in other than terms of equality in all essentials with the male members of the family.[1]