SLAVERY AND POLYGAMY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2115, 23 October 1890, Page 3

SLAVERY AND POLYGAMY.

la the Nineteenth Century there is a curious contribution, entitled “ A Yoiee from the Harem,” which, we are told, is a genuine description of it, as it is from the pen of a Turkish lady. She says; What we need the most, what we must strive for with all our force, is the abolition of polygamy, and to that end we must help ourselves by enfranchising our slaves. As long as slavery Continues to exist, polygamy will reign in our harems in its worst form. With slavery non-existent no Turkish girl will agree to occupy the second place in a husband’s home, and we will live without the perpetual jealousies, the thousand worries which are the real cause of our unhappiness. It is not well understood, I think, in Europe that a harem very rarely contains more than one legitimate wife, who is sometimtis a Circassian, but usually a Turkish girl. If a Turkish girl when she marries she comes to her husband’s home with ten or twelve slaves who count as part of her dowry ; whilst, on the other hand, if a slave herself, the husband buys them for her, which comes at the end to th© same thing. For however civilised our husbands isftay b,e, there is too much of the Turkish nature latent in them to keep them from casting longing looks in the direction of those girls, and none of them are too shy or too backward to reject his advances. Evidently they know that it is the only chance of gaining a high position

n society, and they can hardly feel for a mistress who has never felt for them. They usually do attain their wishes, the mistress remaining powerless to prevent it, as her husband has the law on his side. If she is an energetic woman she sometimes sells the slaves —whieh, by the bye, she cannot do now—or she goes back to her father’s house; in either ease, however, she is usually defeated, as the husband soon begins again with another slave, and the father, who himself has five or six wives, cannot but give reason to the son-in-law. In the course of time the slave being an odalisque, and having children nearly as old as those of her mistress, becomes as powerful in the household as the original lady, but still it must be well understood that her contract is not written, and that she is still considered a slave, Of course it would be impossible for a Turkish girl to accept such a position, whilst, on the other hand, no man would care to marry two wives; and thus in striking slavery we strike polygamy at its very roots, and it is obviously for our good to do it.