Читать книгу The Harim and the Purdah: Studies of Oriental Women онлайн

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These harim women are just beginning to learn the joys of shopping. Formerly the husbands or fathers bought the goods for their dresses, or the shopkeepers sent their assistants, who laid the gay stuffs and jewels on mats within the courtyards, where the women could make their choice. But now in some of the larger shops parties of veiled ladies may be seen fingering the soft silks and satins, looking with curious eyes at the hats, and selecting the jewels with which they love to adorn themselves. Cairo is the happy hunting ground of the Parisian jeweller, as Egyptian women are noted for their love of bracelets, ear-rings, necklaces, and pins. The old-time heavy gold chains and hoops are losing their charm, and now the lady whose husband has a purse easy to open buys long pendant ear-rings set with many diamonds, bracelets of pearls and rubies, rings of turquoise and sapphires, and necklaces of emeralds. Quantity, not quality, she desires, and the colour and purity of a stone are not so much to be desired as the size or number. The women who make no claim to modernism are still seen in the goldsmiths’ shops in the native streets, sitting in front of the tiny cupboard-like holes in the wall, weighing, pricing, trying on the great barbaric hoops of gold for the ears, or the chains with large hammered pendants, made in the same form and with the same design as those worn by their mothers and their grandmothers. The merchant does not need to originate new designs to attract the conservative Egyptian woman who still clings to her native jewelry. It has been the same shape and design from time immemorial.