CAPTIVITY PREFERRED

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12609, 20 November 1926, Page 10

CAPTIVITY PREFERRED

An Englishwoman, Miss Jeppe, has devoted herself to the rescuing of Armenian girls and women who had been secluded" in Arab harems during the troublesome times, writes Constance Clyde. Fourteen hundred young women have thus been set free, about a fourth of these having been eventually restored to their parents. She does not say, however, what lias happened to tlto other three-fourths, and whether, in a world where women are industrially exploited, they may not find their position even worse. As a matter of fact, there is quite a misunderstanding in tho average mind regarding the word harem. It merely means the women’s quarters of a house, and in wartime, the best, and indeed the only, place ' for women is the harem of some family. Turks smile when the average Britisher talks as if the harem were the selamlik. i.e.. that part of the house to which men of all sorts have access. Evidently some of the captives had discovered this, for, as Miss Jeppe states, many of them refused. to leave when the washerwoman, who was her only possible agent, spoke of life outside. Their lot certainly would not be an ideal one, but they would hare the compensation of being respected by those around them, and 6aved certainly from much worse ills.