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46 WOMEN IN TURKEY.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
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helpmate tliere on a heap of cushions , with , all the solicitude of a mother for her child . " How much you must love your husband !"
said I then to the blind woman . " I should love my sight" replied she .
I looked at the husband , who smiled sadly , but without a shadow of ill wiU .
" Poor woman ! " said he , passing" the back of his hand over his ; " her blindness makes her very wretched . She cannot get
eyes used to it : but you can restore her to sight , can you not , Bessadee ?" As I shook my head , and was about to assure him of my inability ,
he pulled the skirt of my robe , and made me a sign to be silent . " Have you any children ? " I then asked him .
" Alas ! I had one , but he is dead long ago !" " And how is it that you have not taken another wife , more
robust , and in better health , who might have given you children ?" " Ah ! that is easy to saybut this poor creature would have
been grieved by it , and that would , have prevented me from being happy with , another , even with children . You know , Bessadee _, one
cannot have everything in this world . I have loved my wife forty years , and I cannot make another choice ! "
The man who thus spoke was a Turk . His wife belonged to him like household goods , no one would have blamed , no law would
have punished him , had he freed himself by some violent measure from so useless a burden . In such a case , the only inquiry would
have been as to his motives for thus acting . Fortunately the character of the Turkish nation corrects its odious customs . There
is a precious foundation of goodness , gentleness , simplicity , and a remarkable instinct of respect fox what is greatof pity for what is
, weak . This instinct has resisted , and will long yet , we hopes resist the influence of dangerous institutions founded exclusively on the right
of strength and selfishness . To be able to understand what mildness and serenitthere is in the Turkish natureone should observe
the peasants of y Mahometan origin either in , the fields , at the market , or in the coffee-house . The harvest , the price of barley ,
their families , are the invariable subjects of their conversation . No one speaks in a loud voice , nor pushes a joke far enough to wound
or even weary his companions . No one ever mingles his -talk with those oaths or coarse sayings which the lower orders in otlier
countries delight to use . Do they owe this exquisite reserve , these noble yet simple manners , to education ? No , to nature alone . Nature
has been lavish to the , Turkish people ; its institutions tend but to destroy her gifts . As we depart from the classes where the
primitive character is preserved , and enter the middle or the yet higher regionsthere vice appears , vice which increases , spreads , and ends
, by reigning- alone . We have just witnessed the good instincts of the Turkish
nature as revealed in the peasant ; we must now study the
influence exercised over the superior classes by the deplorable
46 Women In Turkey.
46 WOMEN IN TURKEY .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1859, page 46, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091859/page/46/
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