Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1877 — Turks and Their Wives. [ARTICLE]

Turks and Their Wives.

Having obtained a wife, it is worth while to Inquire how a Turk treats her. I am not aware that she has much to Complain of generally from the personal ill-treatment of her husband. I should think, as a rule, that the Turk is a fair husband. The Turk, in ordinary life, is not unkind or cruel. The wife's misfortunes arise from her position. As husband and wife see little of each other, they are not spacially given to quarreling. But she is a woman, possibly purchased outright in the slave market, for it is pure illusion to suppose that the slave-trade in Turkey has been abolished, and being a woman she bears about her on every hand the marks of degradation. It is her duty to wait on her husband, if he is poor, at meals. Her accommodation in the house is inferior to his. In all things she is his slave. If the wife is the daughter of a wealthy man her lot is not ajiard-ene. As the law regards vnartiage merely as a partnership, she keeps her own property, and the husband has to be on his good behavior to obtain aghare of it. If she is of poor origin she can hardly be said to have any rights. On two or three occasions it has been my lot to travel in the steamers of the Austrian Lloyd’s when we have had a harem on board. In each case the husband was in the saloon with the rest of us, living well and sleeping in a comfortable cabin. The poor women were penned us as deck passengers, living on-wretched food which they had brought with them. Only a few weeks ago I traveled in a steamer carrying a harem where there were probably twenty women, wives and slaves, who were shivering under canvas which was quite insufficient to keep out the pelting ram. I know that it is a thing almost unknown for a harem to have cabins taken for it. The husband takes care of himself, has, perhaps, as I remember seeing, unlimited champagne, and leaves his women huddled together on deck to take care of themselves. I do not think it would be fair to charge the Turk with cruelty for thus treating his women. An Englishman does not usually take a first-class cabin for his servants, and the Turk, with no more intention of ill-will or intention of harshness than an Englishman who sends his servant thirdclass, will lake the cheapest method of transport for his women.—Constantinople Cor. London Dtfily Nent.