WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
appreciation of love and the married state. Marriage was a method of avoiding carnal sin.
The Prophet of Mecca proclaimed a nobler estimate of wedlock, though this will be disputed by the extremists who cannot separate polygamy from innate iniquity in those who practise it. Liberal orthodox Christians have, however, admitted justly that a man with more than one wife is not of necessity an immoral character. They recognise that some of the most righteous of mankind have been supporters of polygamous marriage. The following passages from the Koran, while they enjoin modesty and restraint upon women, are less patriarchal in spirit than the injunctions of St. Paul:—
"And speak unto the believing women, that they restrain their eyes, and preserve their modesty, and discover not their ornaments, except what necessarily appeareth thereof; and let them throw their veils over their bosoms, and not show their ornaments, unless to their husbands, or their fathers, their husband's fathers, or their sons, or their husband's sons, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the captives which their right hands shall possess, or unto such men as attend them and have no need of women, or unto children, who distinguish not the nakedness of women.
And let them not make a noise with their feet that their ornaments which they hide may thereby be discovered."
Making a noise with the feet refers to the tinkling ornaments and bells that the women of the Prophet's time wore upon their ankles.
If the women of Turkey have not attained to those
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