LADIES OF CONTANTINOPLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 May 1921, Page 9

LADIES OF CONTANTINOPLE.

A NEW SPIRIT. “It is impossible to be in Constantinople for more than a few hours without noticing the entirely new position now occupied by the Moslem woman, who is commencing to assume her position in work, in politics and in society,” writer Mr. H. C. Woods in the Fortnightly. “They now act as hospital nurses, they serve in shops (even the famous Turkish Delight establishment has a woman cashier), hnd they work in the telephone exchange. In (addition, I went to several men’s houses and offices where women brought in the coffee, tea or cigarettes and made uj> the fires, which would have been impossible a few years ago. Such a developntaent means that, over and above its effect upon the lighter side of life, at present amd still more in the future a man is and will be possessed of a friend, a companion and an assistant.

“Even now one meets the Turk walking or driving with hfe lady relations, and already women of the upper class are beginning to do their own housekeeping and to help their husbands to entertain. But, perhaps most important of all, this innovation will have vital results for the future of the race in that the child of to-day’and to-morrow will be brought up, not in the retrograde atmosphere of a closed harem, but under the influence of women who know at least something of the outer world. “This emancipation of women makes itself apparent to the visitor by the fact that meif are now quite widely received in female society and by the modern costumes which are disported in the streets. For instance, I myself went to a fashionable tea-party where my hostess welcomed hen friends of both sexes. Turkish ladies, some alone and some accompanied by their husbands, came and went. Their conversation (all those with whom I spoke talked English and J'rench perfectly) was such as to prove "that they had been educated, not as described in the modern novel, but rather in accordance with the better and truer principles of the twentieth century. “I lunched at the house of a rich, middle-aged widow, who spoke nothing but Turkish, and who received her party, consisting of an English lady, a Turkish Pasha and myself, in her bedroom. Here one was completely in the East, and there was nothing modern in the establishment except the mind and soul of the woman—a mind and soul the like of which may yet be responsible for the regeneration of the Turkish nation.”