HAREMS AS THEY ARE.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13417, 15 May 1912, Page 3

HAREMS AS THEY ARE.

Western.ideas concerning the Turkish haremi contain some fantastic misconceptions. The most popular notion is that of a collection of wives, moro or less numerous, penned up in' a sort oi' gilded cage-, and subject to the caprio-.j of some imperious "Bluebeard." This arises chiefly from the confusion in tit'"1 Western mind of tho harem with the. seraglio of the Sultans, an institution fundamentally different in constitution, traditions, and manners. Another enormous supposition is that polygamy is tho rule in Turkey, whereas it is a

very rare exception, and is becoming rarer every day. The law, it i:-; true, allows four wives, but one may frequent Turkish society a very long time without meeting with an establishment that ]'.;\s moro than one. To all who are not wealthy the expense would be deterrent, for tho law .requires the husband to provide each wife with a separate suite of apartments, servants, and all the adjuncts of a household, with an establishment of her own, in short. Hence polygamy is an impossibility for the vast majority, whilst among the few who could afford tho luxury of a dual establishment monogamy is a matter of pro-, feronco. Domestic peace is as dear to tho Turk as to anyone else, and he is pre-eminently a lover of tranquility. Again, albeit a Mohammedan, he is a child of the North, and not uxoricras in temperament, like the Arab. The felah of Egypt divorces and remarries with facility, a practice unknown to the Turkish peasants, among whom O7ie. moots with Darby and Joan as frequently as in England. Public opinion in the circles of the educated and well-to-do has sot its face against polygamy. It is stigmatised as barbarous and out of date, and, to put it on higher grounds, it is unfashionable. It would be a hard matter nowadays to find parents willing to give their daughter as a second wife. If there was really a disposition towards polygamy an effectual barrier to its

exists in the fact that, in spite of the introduction of slave women in past times, the female population is not greatly in excess of the male. This alone is sufficient to show that the' vul-' gar notion of the Mormon indulgence in plurality in wives has no foundation in fact.—"Turkey and the Turks," by Z. Duckett Ferriman.