Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1884 — Moslem Women. [ARTICLE]

Moslem Women.

The Moslem looks upon woman as an inferior being, unfit to advise him or to share in his pleasures and sorrows. The higher the rank of the Tunisian » lady the less she will be seen in the streets and bazars. As a rule, only women of -the lowest order, beggars, and the wives of the poor country Bedouins, are seen in the streets, and eve i thtese cover their faces with their hands when they meet a European. There is a general belief among Europeans that the Koran prescribes that women should be veiled when they appear in public. This is not the fact, xhe custom is not a religious duty, but a f sbson. The Chamberlain of an exGrund Vizier gave me some curious in formation on this subject. The Pasha’s

wife was taken sick with, the small-pox. A European physician was called; guarded by two eunuchs he was permitted to enter the chamber of the lady. Curtains concealed the bed. The physician insisted upon seeing the face of the suffering woman, but the eunuch refused, giving to the doctor & description of her face. When the doctor asked to see her tongue, here face was covered with a cloth in which a small .hole was cut; through this opening the woman showed her tongue. .When the physician felt her pulse, her hands and arms were covered, and the doctor was asked to close his eyes while counting the pulse. Witchcraft and the charlatanism of bld, cunning women are generally resorted to when women of the harems are sick. Many of the ladies of higher rank Eve and die without setting foot in the streets, or changing their abode, except once, when they leave the paternal roof to go to the house of their husband and master. With the exception of the nearest relatives, no man ever enters the harem.