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

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It is easy for the Western mind to take exaggerated views of the unhappiness of the life in the harim. I found, among the better classes, with whom I came into contact more than I did with the very poor, the same average of happiness that prevails in any land. Seclusion which seems so dreadful in our eyes has grown to be a matter of caste, and the older women, at least, have no desire to depart from it. The power of the husband is greater than it is in foreign lands, but he is generally a kindly man who leaves the women’s department strictly alone, to be ordered as his wife desires. It is she who has charge of the children while in infancy, teaching them or having them taught the Koran, taking them with her on visits to friends, and being with them much more than does the average Western mother of the same class. A middle-class Egyptian woman does practically the same things as does the wife of a middle-class Englishman. She cooks, washes, mends the clothing, keeps the house, and sews her children’s dresses. If she is able to have servants—and one is very poor in Egypt not to be able to afford at least one servant—the work of the household is superintended directly by the mistress. Of course she may not go to the market nor to the shops, but she inspects the food when brought to the house by the vendor or the cook.