HAREMS ABOLISHED

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 391, 28 November 1932, Page 7

HAREMS ABOLISHED

COMPLETE EM AN CIP ATION COMING FOR TURKISH, WOMEN. RIYALS OF MAN. London, Saturday. Gone are the days of the seclusion of the Turkish harem, says the Constantinople correspondent of "The . Times." Women police, women har- | risters, and women jndges are the j latest proofs of the emancipation of the women of the East. Where, only a few years ago, the woman of the harem sow only her husband and her relatives, she is now admitted to the Universities on an ' equal footing with men and is eligible I for almost all professions. Such is Turkey under the rule of I Mustapha Kemal, the modern President. Women , to-day mingle freely with men in restaurants, danca halls, and cinemas, and even marry according to their choiee. Divorce is becoming the exception rather than the rule. The "wives" of the harem are exercising an increasingly impurtant influence on the character and minds of the rising generation, though the pea.sant eonservatively refuses to discard his ancient hahits, feeling that the "new women" will not . labour in the fields at his command, or walk while he rides on a donkey. Turkish women are approaching complete emancipation. Beat Western BeautieS. The women of Turkey even acquired a notable victory at the expense of the West when Keriman Hanum, the Turkish, "beauty queen" for 1932 was elected "Miss Universe." When she returned to Turkey Keriman Hanum received an ovation eomparable to the triumph of a victorious general. The reception was not due to national delight at the success of a Turkish girl in an international beauty competition, but to the proof that Turkey has finally discarded the sbackles whieh prevented her from taking her place among the nations.