CURIOUS CUSTOMS CONCERNING WOMEN.

Bush Advocate, Volume VII, Issue 475, 30 May 1891, Page 7

CURIOUS CUSTOMS CONCERNING WOMEN.

(St. Louis Globe Democrat.) Although among the Bedouins a wife is considered as a slave, singleness is looked upon as a disgrace. Persian women have little education, and are reared in seclusion and ignorance, knowing nothing beyond the walls of their houses. Hindu women aro forbidden to read or write. Indeed, tho**o who daro to indulge in such luxuries are often "accidentally" missing. Jewish women of tho higher classes were secluded from public life, and parsed their timo with tho distaff and spindle. At marriage the ceremonies lasted seven days. ! In China a wife is never seen by her future master. Some relative bargains for the girl, the stipulated price is paid, and ehe is afterwards a submissive slave. Tho women of ancient Rome were treated with tho greatest respost. Still, they wore not allowed to inherit property, and conld be ' divorced by their husbands for counterfeiting their keys and for wine-drinking. In Turkey woman is held in the mosfc rigid seclusion. She must always appear veiled. With pigs and dogs she is forbidden to enter a mosquo, and the Koran declares a woman who is unmarried to be in a state of reprobation. Siberian women are wiped as abject slaves, untidy in dress, and are bought with money. The most capricious whim of her husband is law, and should fche latter desiro a divorce he has only to tear the cap from hor head. Among the Congo negroes when a man wishes a wife ho secures one and koepß hor on probation a year. If her temper and deportment are satisfactory ho, at the end of the year, formally marries her. But should she prove an incumbrance, he sends her back to the parental roof.