TURKISH WOMEN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 13949, 4 January 1906, Page 10

TURKISH WOMEN.

Aliss Alargaret Alacgregor, under the heading “ Behind the Lattice and the Veil,” gives some very interesting facts about the Turkish women of to-day in the August number of “ Good Words.” She shows by photograph, as well as by letterpress, that the yashmak of to-day half reveals, as well as half conceals, the charms behind : The Sultan is continually issuing orders enforcing the wearing of the thick veil that effectually hides those charms, but these orders are perhaps obeyed for a day) and then the Turkish beauty again brings out her thinnest and most transparent gauze. Just as the veil fails to hide her face, so also her trim black tchartchaff fails in its end, that of _ hiding her figure, and it is to-day taking lines that are distinctly Parisian, instead of being the shapeless black cloak that her grandmother wore over her baggy trousers. Beneath the tchartchaff almost every Turkish woman is a European, and the orthodox trousers of the Moslem women are practically never seen. It is Paris and Vienna that supply the gowns, of the ladies of the grand harems, while cheap Manchester cottons in befrilled blouses of loud patterns peep out from under tho tchartchafffe of the less wealthy. Aliss Macgregor says she has seen some lovely Turkish girls, but never a beautiful Turkish , woman. The true Turkish typo is a fat figure, sallow, hag-like face, hard, expressionless eyes —and the curiosity of children. The writer thus describes her experiences in a railway train;— As soon as yon enter a dames' torques your fellow-passengers will at once throw back their veils, and devour every detail of your costume, and before you are seated you will probably bs asked how much you paid for the material of your drees, nor will they scruple to take it in their hands and examine and discuss its quality. They will find cut how that frill is put on, and this tuck arranged, not improbably will they pick up your skirt to see what your petticoat is like ! You will then be asked whether yon are married or not, and if you are married, how many children you have, what your husband’s occupation is, and what income he has! And all of these questions are not / impertinent in their eyes, but a rather I flattering interest in your affairs, or ’ so you must regard them. I “ Harem life is simple, unalloyed dulness,” wanting now mostly the excitement of. polygamy. The modern Turk “ finds one wife as much as he can manage—financially speaking.” Re--1 speot for parents seems urged to an extreme:— “ A man can get another wife, but he cannot get another mother,” is the Turk’s explanation of putting his mother before his wife; and as it is tho accepted order of things, the wife does not feel aggrieved. But the new order is steadily l victorious. Even in tho furnishing of the harem the picturesque East is giving place to the sombre West:—It is usually Europeanised until it has no touch of the- East, and is only a travesty of tho taste of the West. The rugs and hangings and divans are superseded by linoleums and muslin curtains, and velvet upholstered chairs! The wall-papers are in colouring and pattern what you would have chosen for your servants’ bedrooms twenty years ago! Tho rooms are more like the show-rooms of an upholsterer’s than the lived-in rooms of a home, excepting that the modern upholsterer is artistic. The Turkish women have lost all their jqwh Oriental picturesqueness, and have not yet gained that indefinable charm that belongs to cultivated women of the West. Manv Turkish women are highly educated; they read and speak, perhaps, English and French, they are often good musicians, and usually beautiful workers, but all those little touches and little graces that reveal a woman in a house aro en- I tirely wanting in an Eastern harem. - Tho women check .all their natural Oriental taste and strive to be European, and the result is pitiable. , They have given up their beautiful Eastern embroidery for crude European crewel work on satin. Tho Sultan is continually repressing any sign of emancipation in the Turkish women, but apparently the woman is more than a match for tho Sultan.