PROBLEMS OF HAREM FREEDOM.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3334, 16 August 1926, Page 2

PROBLEMS OF HAREM FREEDOM.

FORMER SLAVES JN OFFICE OR. FACTORY.

(JL5y Lady Drummond Hay.) Her newly-found freedom presents no new problems to the woman of Turkey. Emancipation is not all a bod of roses, us she is beginning to prove. Spoiled, lovely wives of wealthy pashas, whose former life was one of luxurious idleness, arc now confronted with that most unromantic of problems —the servant question! The servant question in the lavish East sounds absurd. How many English housewives in moments of stress and dilemma must have envied the easy lot of the harem favorite, surrounded by slaves to do her slightest bidding, passing the sunlit hours hi idleness? All that is finished now. When Mnstapba. Kema), the new President of Turkey, swept away the old order of traditional Oriental life, abolished bylaw the red fez and national costume, the women’s, gauzy veils went too. He emancipated at one blow the thousands of women who know no more of life than a. jealous, prejudice-bound husband and centuries of bondage had permitted them to guess at. Mnstapba Pasha, the Mussolini of the East, actually ordered these harem prisoners to throw off their veils and voluminous cloaks, to show their faces to the world of men. to walk unescorted in the streets, instead of being obliged to ride in a stuffy conveyance .under the espionage of a eunuch. Ho wanted the erstwhile harem girl to go to the theares, to the cinemas, to dance and enjoy life like her Western sisters. He not only encourages (hem to do it. but in tho case of Government officials Mnstapba Kemal exacts that their wives shall attend public functions in evening dress like European women, and dance with their husbands’ colleagues and friends. All this sounds delightful from the women’s point of view, and certainly it is difficult to find tho Turkish woman who has a word to say against the ■ otter. I had been told in England that the Turkish women were not altogether pleased with this rapid and nathless emancipation, but here in Turkey T can. find no trace of discontentment among them. On the contrary, they are enjoying gratefully the wider, fuller life so recently opened to them, and meeting their new problems in a sporting spirit. “How could any one suggest that wc are not tho happiest women in the East?'’ a noted Turkish woman exclaimed to me. “Of course, much ad’ustment and change is necessary, hut that will come, more gradually perhaps, than the actual emancipation. Rut harem life is abolished, our husbands have only on© wife, d’vorce evils arc remedied, our rights safeguarded not that they were not always more -dearly defined than women's rights in tho West,” she added. ‘‘And life in itfullness spreads before our eyes, which could formerly only, glimpse its possibilities through the triple veil. It is this realisation of the “possibilities of life.” as my Turkish friend put it, which is responsible for the present inaction against domestic service. Kvcn though the abolition of the harem. and many wives, must necessarily throw the superfluous women on the market, yet the mildest of them descendants of generation on generation accustomed to seclusion and housework, either as mistresses or slaves, revolt in these days of freedom against the drudgery of service. “l‘ really believe that the servant question iii Constantinople is just as acute as in England and Europe generally,” one harassed Turkish housewife told me. “Living has become so expensive, and servants, ask such high wages and so many privileges, that wc can only keep a third or a quarter ol the number wo used 1 to find und keep without difficulty.” The girls now crowd to the factories, 'where they can enjoy their novel freedom in tneir leisure hours. Better educated ones are entering banks and business bouses, and acquitting themselves well in unaccustomed conditions. The really advanced Turkish women, whose place, is not in (his article, eagerly swarm to the co-edneatioiial schools and universities. The 'emancipated Turkish woman has al>.) another anxiety in her brightened life. What shall she wear to-day? While many of the more conservative still retain the essentials of traditional Turkish costume, the younger generation arc adopting European dress in every detail except the hat. European means ‘ I’arisiennc,” if you please, with all its delightful accessories, and Constantinople has gained more color from its gay, audacious shop windows than it lost by the banishment of the red fez. Mamma and Auntie Turk may he (onteiit to trot along in the black “fbritji” and “tcberchart.” but the large black eyes of Tatima, Safich, and Nimette become larger and brighter as they lose themselves in the sheeny glories of the French emporium. Skirts are short here, revealing a not inconsiderable expanse of light-silk stocking-. heels arc high, elickcty-elaeking over the fusty old hobbles; colors arc ■ray.-and respond saucily to the scandalised Oriental sun. Bakst kerchiefs of futuristic design Pap an impertinent farewell at the oitier women from the nattily dressed heads of their merry owners, and the younger generation of Turkish girl nimbi, well be taken lor an English or French girl going to play tennis, or in lounge on the sea beach of some fashionable resort.