Chapter X: The Prophet and Polygamy

No book on Turkey would be complete without a chapter on polygamy--in justice to the Turk such a chapter is necessary. It is the chapter to which every reader will turn first of all, and not _one_ critic will allude to it. How well I know my countrymen!

Let me at once confess, however, to the morbid curiosity of actually trying to find a “harem” where there was more than one wife. Fâtima wished to satisfy that curiosity if it were possible. “You must see us as we really are,” said she and her husband, “and if this unfortunate blot on our civilization is still to be seen, you shall see it.” And he really went out of his way, this kind, courteous host of mine, Fâtima’s husband, to ask all and sundry where, in Constantinople, could be found two women sharing the protection of one lord and master, and for a long time not one was to be found.

I have met, however, men and women who are the children of fathers who had more than one wife. They are too proud to speak of their unhappy youth, but since we find them in the front ranks of those who are standing for the elevation of womanhood, we must necessarily draw our own conclusions. One of the most beautiful of modern Turkish poems is written by a feminist orator, describing in touching, eloquent notes the tragedy of being a child in a polygamous household.

To me, the lover of the East and the admirer of Islam, this “permission” to have four wives is regrettably unfortunate. From that “permission” we have totally misinterpreted the words of the Great Prophet of the Desert; we have classed Islam as a religion destined to encourage sensuality, a religion devoid of spirituality, a religion which has degraded womanhood, whereas those who take the trouble to study particularly that part of the Koran relating to women must pay homage to the wonderful foresight of this great reformer.

When Mahomet limited the number of wives to four, he was legislating for a people which polygamy had reduced to the depths of degradation, and those who will compare the history of the period when Mahomet began his ministry and the period afterwards, must surely admit the high place given to women in his teachings and the excellent laws made for their protection.

The poor down-trodden woman of the East is one of the fallacies which has descended through the ages, and nothing has done more to increase the misunderstanding between East and West than the Western disdain for what, to the Oriental, is all that he counts most sacred--his women and his religion.

When Mahomet limited the number of wives to four, he was legislating for a people who could not be brought too suddenly from the outer darkness to the great blazing light of civilization, but he put what appear almost like codicils to annul the statement about polygamy when he ordained that each wife must be treated with an equal amount of tenderness, that man _and woman_ must seek knowledge “from the cradle to the grave,” and “that they must keep travelling about, for there were many beautiful things to be seen on God’s earth.” There is also that splendid verse which I hope my feminist friends will stretch to its utmost capacity: “You must march on with the centuries.” Time and knowledge will put everything right, argued the Prophet. Alas! is it not the tragedy which accompanies the life-work of every great reformer for the meaning of his words to be misinterpreted?

Mahomet in his time was confronted with a woman’s problem as entangled as the woman’s problem of to-day. Although he considered maternity the destiny of woman, he did not prevent her entering the professions. Few women, however, could work, and since she could not work she had to be provided for. Was it not better for four women to be housed and cared for than for one to live in luxury and three to starve? No man was obliged to take advantage of the Prophet’s permission to have four wives, but the Prophet, with his keen knowledge of humanity, foresaw the danger to which the woman might be exposed, and polygamy was the loophole through which her honour could be saved.

But now all this is changing. For some time now polygamy has been very _mal vu_, and nothing hurts a Turk more than the eternal Western question: “How many wives have you?” An officer on board the man-o’-war which brought the Turkish Crown Prince to our Coronation tells me that every Englishwoman with whom he danced at the Naval Ball asked him that same question, “How many wives have you?” And to every one he replied: “Just one dozen, and I hope to have one dozen more before I die.” He was a bachelor.

Polygamy is not amongst the Turks the same smart smoking-room joke that it is in the West, and I have heard these Turks who are working day and night to save their country protesting with energy against the “princely privilege” of having more than one wife. “The whole system will have to be changed, and the sooner the better,” a Young Turk said, and, even as I write, the news comes to me that the Turkish Government has passed a decree forbidding polygamy in the Imperial household and refusing to recognize as legitimate any but the children of the first living _wife_.

This is, perhaps, the most important reform that Young Turkey has so far brought about, a change which will do more than anything to heighten her prestige in Europe, and it is the first step towards the formation of a “court” as we in the West understand that word.

It was during the reign of Abdul Hamid that the absurd rule which allowed Royal princes only to marry slaves was so strictly observed. So terrified was the ex-Sultan, in particular, of giving power to a subject, through the alliance of his family with the daughters of Pashas or Imperial Princes, that the wives of the Emperors had to be chosen from amongst the slaves of the Imperial harem--from amongst those girls who had been bought at an early age on account of their physical qualifications _only_, and their Circassian parents being paid a sum down renounced any claim to these children. These girls were prepared for the rôle of Empress which they might one day be called upon to play, dancing and music being very important items in their education. Then they had to await such time as they might find favour in the “Master’s” sight and become his favourites.

An ugly, unhealthy atmosphere surrounds this buying and selling of human beings after careful examination of their teeth, hair, and skin, and the Royal purchasers themselves are the first to complain about it. How can an intelligent man be expected to comply with such unnecessarily barbarous customs? If it is imprudent to marry the daughters of Pashas, have not Egypt and India enough and to spare of Moslem Princesses to grace the Ottoman throne? So probably the Imperial family has argued, for now for the first time two Princes of the Imperial Ottoman family are to marry the two daughters of the Governor of Broussa, the nieces of the Grand Vizier, Prince Said Halim, and nieces of the Khedive.

These two Princesses, although, like their mother, “more Turkish even than the Turks,” have travelled extensively, and are well read and cultured women. They have been brought up by an English governess. The Princess, their mother, an artist to her finger-tips, refuses to modify in any manner the sacred laws prescribed by the Prophet, yet she accompanies her husband on his official excursions into the interior of Asia Minor, and takes a particular delight in the study of the lives of those primitive peoples of Turkey whose hospitality she accepts. The Princess pays visits to the mosques and tombs, and what lover of art would not take the opportunity of studying in detail the most exquisite colouring and designs of the porcelains of those mosques, the Green Mosque in particular, which Pierre Loti has immortalized? Pierre Loti used, the guardian of the mosque told me, to write his books in the Green Mosque, sunk in the magnificent carpets, the quality and beauty of which have defied time, with on one side of him the door (which replaces our altar) of exquisitely blended green porcelain and beautifully worked golden lettering, and on the other side the central fountain, which, from its multitude of invisible mouths, sends out a gorgeous mass of exquisitely coloured rainbows between you and the sun.

Before dawn Loti was in the mosque, working all day in the hallowed atmosphere of God’s house, the kindly guardian bringing him coffee and his _narghili_ when he required them, and arranging the cushions when he wished to sleep. Loti’s best work was done in the Green Mosque at Broussa. No wonder!

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No one could dread more the advent of electric cars and light than the Princess. “It will not be Broussa any more,” she says, and rightly so, and yet the Princess herself is helping on progress--she has started schools in the town itself and in the neighbouring villages, she herself bearing the entire expense. And the little girls are taught Western dancing, they sing Western songs, and recite Western poetry. How is one to make a compromise between the two civilizations? I sympathize, however, with the Princess in her reluctance to welcome such intruders as cars and electric light. When once this tide of progress comes in it will sweep all before it. Historical associations will have to give place to hideous Western factories; smoking chimneys will obscure the sight of the minarets; but no longer shall we see the cabman tying up his back wheel with a cord to replace the brake. The students in the “Medressa” (college of Theology), the future Hodjas whom I saw busy washing their linen in the fountain, where will they be in the days of Western steam laundries?

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It is very difficult to give accurate knowledge about members of the Imperial family, unless brought into intimate contact with them. Their subjects do not know them, and they multiply so quickly that it is easy for a stranger to credit princes with accomplishments they do not possess and overlook the qualities of those princes who deserve praise. Of some of the princes it would be charitable to guard a discreet silence, and, after all, so little is required of them: they cannot even play a “spectacular” part, as our Western royalties do. Therefore, says Young Turkey, and wisely so, the State can no longer afford to keep these ever-recurring princes: one family is quite sufficient for each member of the Imperial house, we will recognize no more.

To all those who stake any importance whatsoever on soul heredity, this Eugenic manner of arranging Imperial marriages is a dangerous experiment. Fortunately they were given Circassian wives, otherwise whence would so many Imperials have acquired their talents, charm, and moral qualities. And Abdul Hamid, the criminal genius and madman, the monster tyrant--how far was he responsible for his actions? Who can tell us the truth about his birth? Some say he was born of an Armenian dancer, others credit him with French blood, brought into the Imperial harem by a lady of that race, captured by brigands and sold into slavery. All kinds of suppositions are advanced to explain the curious mentality of this man, who still puzzles criminologists of the twentieth century.

Most sincerely is Young Turkey to be congratulated on this new and enormous step towards progress. It is a bold step. Any blow levelled against the dynasty, any modification of the “divine” rights of the Kalife, is liable to rouse ignorant fanaticism of those turban-headed masses in Asia Minor who still know neither the meaning of Kalife nor that of the Constitution, but would willingly die for both.