Travels into Turkey: Containing the most accurate account of the Turks, and neighbouring nations, their manners, customs, religion, superstition, policy, riches, coins, &c.Busbecq, Ogier Ghislain de
History
Travels into Turkey: Containing the most accurate account of the Turks, and neighbouring nations, their manners, customs, religion, superstition, policy, riches, coins, &c.
Busbecq, Ogier Ghislain de
Turkey -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
Divorces are made among them for many Causes, which Men easily pretend;
and when a Wife is divorced, her Dowry is restored, unless she be put
away on a dishonest Account: But Women have but few; to instance some
among those few, this is one, if their Husband do not allow them due
Maintenance; and if they offer to abuse them against Nature, (a Crime
usual among them) then the Wife goes to the Judge, and tells him, she can
no longer endure to live with her Husband; when he asks the Cause, they
say nothing, but pull off their Shoe from their Feet, and turn it up and
down, which is a Sign among them of the unlawful use of Copulation. The
greatest sort among them, that have abundance of Women, set _Eunuchs_
to guard them, not such as have only their Stones taken out, but such
whose Yards are also impaired; because other wise they think, such as
have lost their Stones only, may desire the use of a Woman, tho’ not for
Generation, yet for Pleasure. The great Men also have Baths at their own
Houses, wherein they and their Women do wash; but the meaner sort use
public Baths.
A _Turk_ hates bodily Filthiness and Nastiness, worse than
Soul-Defilement; and, therefore, they wash very often, and they never
ease themselves, by going to Stool, but they carry Water with them for
their Posteriors. But ordinarily the Women bathe by themselves, Bond and
Free together; so that you shall many times see young Maids, exceeding
beautiful, gathered from all Parts of the World, exposed Naked to the
view of other Women, who thereupon fall in Love with them, as young Men
do with us, at the sight of Virgins.
By this you may guess, what the strict Watch over Females comes to, and
that it is not enough to avoid the Company of an adulterous Man, for the
_Females_ burn in Love one towards another; and the Pandaresses to such
refined Loves are the Baths; and, therefore, some _Turks_ will deny their
Wives the use of their public Baths, but they cannot do it altogether,
because their Law allows them. But these Offences happen among the
ordinary sort; the richer sort of Persons have Baths at home, as I told
you before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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