Women Under Polygamy/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
WOMEN IN THE HAREM
In the poetry of Arabia the most loved and admired of maidens is lithe in body and "elegant as a twig of the Oriental willow." The beauty meet for the bride of a pasha must own luxuriant hair of the deepest black. Her cheeks should be rosy in the centre, and a mole, or beauty spot, is an added charm. Blue eyes are not usually prized; the eyes should be black, large, and almond-shaped, full of yearning softness, with long, drooping lashes. The eyebrows must be arched and not thick.
A small mouth is esteemed, and the nose should be straight. Bright, ruddy lips should reveal regular, small, white teeth. The breasts must be firm, rounded, and not large. A slender waist is an essential charm, and so is a fullness of the hips. The tapering fingers should not be large, and the feet well-formed and small.
The eyes of the Oriental belle are very beautiful and expressive, and their glance is rendered more conspicuous by the veil which covers the lower features. In Andalusia, where there is a Moorish strain in the people, the "black eye that mocks her coal-black veil" often glows with an extraordinary fascination from the white, moon-like faces of the women. Even more lambent are the glances of an Egyptian woman.
Miss Sara Jeanette Duncan, in "A Social Departure," speaks of the eyes of the women of Cairo—"conscious, tantalising eyes that shine lustrous between their blackened fringes, with a gilt wooden tube between and a good long strip of yashmak hanging from it, making a mystery of nose and lips and chin. They may all be beautiful—the presumption is against it, but the possibility is always there, and with crows' feet gathered too palpably above the yashmak, the eyes express the possibility in the most alluring manner—knowing very well that you are thinking of it, secure in the knowledge that you can't find out."
In his "Eastern Sketches" Thackeray writes of the Circassian beauties: "It is the Circassian blood, I suppose, to which the Turkish aristocracy that governs Egypt must be indebted for the fairness of their skin. Ibrahim Pasha, riding by in his barouche, looked like a bluff, jolly-faced English Dragoon officer, with a grey moustache and red cheeks, such as you might see on a field-day at Maidstone."
"The ladies whom we saw were equally fair, that is, the very slight particles of the persons of ladies which our lucky eyes were permitted to gaze on. These lovely creatures go through the town by parties of three or four, mounted on donkeys, and attended by slaves holding on at the crupper, to receive the lovely riders lest they should fall, and shouting out shrill cries of 'Schmaalek' 'Amlenck' (or however else these words may be pronounced), and flogging on the progress right and left with the buffalo-thong. But the dear creatures are even more closely disguised than at Constantinople; their bodies are enveloped with a large black silk hood, like a cab head; the fashion seemed to be to spread their arms out, and give their covering all the amplitude of which it was capable, as they beamed and ogled you from under their black masks with their big rolling eyes. The Arab women are some of the noblest figures I have ever seen. The habit of carrying jars on the head always gives the figure grace and motion, and the dress the women wear certainly displays it to full advantage."
The Persians are not so enthusiastic as the Arabs in their admiration for black eyes. They prefer gray eyes, or those that flash with the colour of red wine.
El-Sett Budur, in the "Arabian Nights," may be taken as a type of Eastern loveliness. Her hair was dark brown, and hung in three tresses that reached to her feet.
"Her cheeks are formed of an anemone divided into two corollas; they have the purple tinge of wine, and her nose is straighter and more delicate than the finest sword-blade."
"Her lips are coloured agate and coral; her tongue secretes eloquence; her saliva is more desirable than the juice of grapes."
"But her bosom, blessed be the Creator, is a living seduction. It bears twin breasts of the purest ivory, rounded, and that may be held within the five fingers of one hand."
Lane refers to the delightful moulding of the Egyptian woman's body, and says that fine forms are commoner than entirely beautiful faces. Many of the Nubian girls are extremely lovely, and willowy in figure. "Blacker is her hair than the darkness of night, blacker than the berries of the blackberry bush," runs an Egyptian inscription in the Louvre.
The older ideal of a graceful woman in Egypt was slenderness in form, resembling Psyche, or the figure of a boy. On the ancient pointings of the walls, and in statuary, it is often difficult to distinguish the men from the women. There is a strong facial likeness in the sexes even at this day.
In the time of the Ptolemys, the standard of female beauty seems to have changed, and we find in the statues a tendency to represent women as stouter in body, with curving outlines. From this period women seem to have cultivated plumpness. The chief characteristics of an Egyptian beauty were brilliant eyes, a soft skin, and a full figure. In Turkey most women desire to be fat, and they eat fattening food for that purpose. It is said that women of Eastern countries maintain the firmness of their flesh much longer than their sisters of the West.
The beards of the men in Egypt are much admired by women. A man should have a flowing beard, and a woman long hair. Herodotus states that the priests of ancient Egypt cut off their beards as a mark of sorrow and mourning. The Jews also cultivated the long beard.
Women in the harems of Cairo strive to increase the size and the brightness of their dark eyes by the use of kohl, which was a custom of the older days in Israel, and is still practised in India. To enhance the blackness and expression of the eyes Egyptian women of all classes stain the eyelids with galena. The lashes are also darkened.
The origin of veiling the faces of Mohammedan women is actually much older than the advent of Mohammed. This custom prevailed in very early times among the Arabs. In ancient Arabia men of fine and attractive countenaces wore the veil as a defence against the glance of malign spirits. Havelock Ellis suggests that this may have been the source of the practice of veiling amongst women.
As clothing is frequently employed more as an erotic lure than as a protection against cold, or from reasons of modesty, it is likely that the Arab veil was adopted by women as an attraction. The domino and the veil arouse curiosity concerning the features that they conceal, just as clothing excites interest in the charms that it hides. This is proved by the fact that savage courtesans, among tribes wherein the women are nude, put on garments as a token of their calling and a lure to the eye. Undoubtedly, the Eastern veil focusses interest and curiosity upon the face.
An Eastern song sets forth the loveliness of women in these lines:—
"The complexion of my love is like the freshness of the velvet-looking jessamine; her face is as resplendent as the bright, bright moon; her lips are as rosy as the choicest wine, and her lily-white bosom the fairest and softest-looking that an amorous youth ever beheld."
"Oh! beauteous creature, the perfume of whose breath is like the grateful odour of the musk rose, allow me to sip sweets from thy ruby lips, and pour forth into thy ear the passion that consumes my heart."
The Circassian women who recruit the harems of Turkey and Egypt are the flowers of their race. Many 
Bodenstedt, a poet and an accredited critic of womanly beauty, declares that the Georgians are a very handsome race, but he does not consider that the women excel the men in beauty. The women's faces seemed to this writer lacking in intelligence and refinement. "In a Georgian everything fades with youth. The eyes, which, notwithstanding their apparent fire, never expressed anything but calm and voluptuous indolence, lose their lustre; the nose, which even in its normal relations exceeds the limits of beauty, assumes, in consequence of the premature hollowness of the cheeks, such abnormal dimensions that many people imagine that it actually continues to grow; and the bosom, which the national costume makes no effort to conceal, prematurely loses its natural firmness—all of which phenomena are observed in European women much less frequently, and in a less exaggerated form. If you add to this the habit, so prevalent among Georgians, young and old, of using white and red cosmetics, you will understand that such rude and inartistic arts of the toilet can only add to the observer's sense of dissatisfaction."
The wealthy owner of a seraglio often selects those Circassian women who are most susceptible to blushing. A capacity for blushing adds to a girl's monetary value in the harem market.
The custom of the women of the Abode of Bliss is to dress in their daintiest attire for the pleasure of their husbands in the home; but out-of-doors they often wear plain and unattractive clothes. When not invited to the presence of the pasha, the girls often wear dowdy, untidy costumes in the harem.
Romantic love, based upon highly refined sentiment and mutual esteem, as it is understood in the older Western nations, is perhaps rarely associated with polygamy and love in the harem. Nevertheless, in the single marriages, which are the rule amongst the greater number of Turks and Egyptians, there is often intense conjugal devotion.
In a very ancient collection of Aryan maxims, by Halâ, there are sentiments which show that the love of men and women was not wholly of the senses. A lover speaks thus: "As in sickness without a physician; as living with relatives when one is poor; as the sight of an enemy's prosperity—so is it difficult to endure separation from you."
It is easy to accept the monogamic principle in marriage as the noblest and highest form of love between the sexes, and to dismiss all possibility of lofty emotion and refined feeling from the harem marriage. I have heard more than one Western woman, living under Eastern custom, assert that polygamy possessed many advantages for their sex, and solved the problem of the enforced celibacy which is common among whole masses of women in the monogamous countries. One of these ladies professed a strong preference for "the sheltered, protected life of the women of the East."
Let us survey a part of the teaching of the apostle of the creed of Islam referring to men's relations to women. Among them we shall find several precepts that point to an esteem for the mother and wife.
First, in regard to mothers, Mohammed affirmed that "Heaven lieth at the feet of mothers."
Celibacy, which is one of the anomalies of Western civilisation, is forbidden in the saying: "Marriage is incumbent on all who possess the ability. There is no monasticism in Islam."
In the treatment of wives the Moslem is instructed to "admonish with kindness."
"Do you beat your wife as you would a slave? That you must not do."
"He is of the most perfect Moslems whose disposition is most liked by his own family."
"A virtuous wife is a man's best treasure."
Infidelity is severely censured, even if not actual, but of the imagination.
"Now the adultery of the eye is to look with an eye of desire on the wife of another; and the adultery of the tongue is to utter what is forbidden."
May we not believe that throughout the Orient the following beautiful conception of passionate love is cherished by many men and women?:—
"Four eyes met. There were changes in two souls. And now I cannot remember whether he is a man and I a woman. Or he a woman and I a man. All I know is, there were two. Love came and there is one."
On the other hand, the segregation of women has its flagrant disadvantages. There can be no true social intercourse between the sexes, and no reciprocal understanding of each other's spiritual and mental needs and aspirations in societies wherein men and women move in entirely separate spheres. A girl entering the harem at twelve years is destined for the rest of her life, unless she deserts, to spend long indolent days in the company of her own sex.
Her sole desire is to become an ikbal, a petted play-thing of her master, and to receive his lavish gifts and favours. The outside world scarcely exists for her. Too often she has had little or no education; she lives divorced from culture, and knows nothing of the great movements in modern thought. The dressing of her hair, the polishing of her nails, and such preservation of her external charms are her chief and constant care. She speaks to no man but the pasha and her emasculated attendants. Certain privileges are vouchsafed to her when she becomes a mother, and there is then more occupation for her energies. But so long as she is childless, the days are idle, vapid, and productive of ennui.
The odalisque amuses herself with childish games and diversions. She smokes the Eastern pipe, with its glass bowl and long tube, as she squats on the langorous divan. Enervated by laziness, and bored from lack of employment for brain or hands, she seeks the solace of hashish, opium, and strong liquors. The bath, massage, and dressing occupy only a small part of the day. For the rest, she merely lounges, smoking or eating sweetmeats.[1]
Hashish, or fakir's plant, produces dreaminess without loss of consciousness, and many of the inmates of the harem use it freely. After taking it a strong thirst ensues, which is quenched with sherbet or wine.
The use of perfumes of a powerful odour is common throughout Islam. Mohammed, according to his favourite wife Ayesha, was very fond of the scent of musk and ambergris, and liked to smell camphor burning amongst wood. Musk is a favourite scent. It is popular in the Eastern harems, and is known as "the noblest of perfumes." Castoreum, vanilla, myrrh, otto of roses, sandal, and the perfumes from strongly-odorous flowers, such as the lily and tuberose, are all used.
Henna, used for staining the finger nails, gives forth a peculiar sweet odour. The flowers are often used in the harems to scent the body.
In spite of the religious injunction to avoid alcoholic liquors, wine is generally imbibed in the seraglios.
Under conditions in which one man controls several wives and a large regiment of concubines, it is obvious that polygamy does not solve adequately the problem of celibacy for women. Such an overplus of women for one man is an anomaly; and it is not necessary that I should be more explicit in allusion to this defect in the harem system.
- ↑ Thackeray refers to the alleged indecency of the women of the Cairo harems, in his "Eastern Sketches": "All their humour, my Dragoman tells me, is of the questionable sort, and a young Egyptian gentleman, son of a Pasha, whom I subsequently met at Malta, confirmed the statement, and gave a detail of the practices of private life which was anything but edifying. … He could give us no idea, he said, of the wit of the Egyptian women and their skill in double entendre; nor I presume, did we lose much by our ignorance."