If a woman sees her
husband growing old, or if she happen to admire any one else, she
goes to the Shereef (the spiritual and civil head of the holy
city), and after having settled the matter with him she puts away
her husband and takes to herself another, who is, perhaps,
good-looking and rich. In this way a marriage seldom lasts more
than a year or two.
And of slave-girls the same high and impartial authority, still writing
of the holy city and of her fellow-Moslems, tells us:
Some of the women (African and Georgian girls) are taken in
marriage; and after that, on being sold again, they receive from
their masters a divorce, and are sold in their houses--that is to
say, they are sent to the purchaser from their master's house on
receipt of payment, and are not exposed for sale in the
slave-market. They are only _married_ when purchased for the first
time.... When the poorer people buy (female) slaves they keep them
for themselves, and change them every year as one would replace old
things by new; but the women who have children are not sold.[65]
[Sidenote: Islam sanctions a license between the sexes which
Christianity forbids.
Pages:
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119