LOVE MATCHES OF ISLAM

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 119, 13 February 1926, Page 22

LOVE MATCHES OF ISLAM

Western women often pity the Oriental for her enforced seclusion and her lack of liberty; above all for the husband who is forced upon her by her parents. And yet love matches arc by no means unknown in the East. Mokhtar-ben-Reschid-ben-Mansour, a voung merchant of my acquaintance, was a much-sought-after young bachelor of Tunis, but proved adamant until someone smuggled to him a snapshot of the daughter of a Raid. lie instantly fell madly in love with it and the women of his family hastened to call on hers and to bring back reports. . “It is all a mistake,” said a spiteful feminine cousin. “She is no more like that photograph than 1 am. She has a distinct cast in one eve and limps!” “She is lovely,” said/his sister, “and appeared interested in thee! they say she is verv sweet tempered.” “She has no dowry,” said his mother, “and is almost betrothed to her cousin. I do not think it is worth while upsetting the affair.” The unhappv voung man did not know what to think, but eventually got engaged, and remained in a torture of doubt until his wedding day, when he found that his bride was all and more than he expected.. Theirs is an ideal marriage, though unblest by those sens that nre supposed to be essential to happiness. Such romantic matches as this arc bv no means infrequent, and are usually successful, perhaps because beauty, placidity, and affection are all that a Mussulman asks of his wife. But I know of other matches still more romantic whose beginning lay in a childhood's friendship, necessarily, broken by the seclusion of the little girl at the ordained moment, and whose fruition came in an early marriage. Under the law of Islam a man is not only permitted but urged to divorce a childless wife, and this brings about manv tragedies—for the childless wife is often the best loved. There have been instances when family pressure has forced an Arab cither to divorce liis wife or to take another, and the result has been a tragic love-pact, 'the two, rather than be separated, have been found dead in each other’s arms. -—Dorothy Buck in the "Daily Mail.”