[Sidenote: Practice in modern times.
The Malays of Penang.
Lane's testimony concerning Egypt.
The princess of Bhopal's account of Mecca.]
Descending now to modern times, we still find that this sexual license
is taken advantage of more or less in different countries and conditions
of society. The following examples are simply meant as showing to what
excess it is possible for the believer to carry these indulgences,
_under the sanction of his religion_. Of the Malays in Penang it was
written not very long ago: "Young men of thirty to thirty-five years of
age may be met with who have had from fifteen to twenty wives, and
children by several of them. These women have been divorced, married
others, and had children by them." Regarding Egypt, Lane tells us: "I
have heard of men who have been in the habit of marrying a new wife
almost every month."[64] Burkhardt speaks of an Arab forty-five years
old who had had fifty wives, "so that he must have divorced two wives
and married two fresh ones on the average every year." And not to go
further than the sacred city of Mecca, the late reigning princess of
Bhopal, in central India, herself an orthodox follower of the Prophet,
after making the pilgrimage of the holy places, writes thus:
Women frequently contract as many as ten marriages, and those who
have only been married twice are few in number.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118