While the husband
possesses the power of a divorce--absolute, immediate, unquestioned--no
privilege of a corresponding nature has been reserved for the wife. She
hangs on, however unwilling, neglected, or superseded, the perpetual
slave of her lord, if such be his will. When actually divorced she can,
indeed, claim her dower--her _hire_, as it is called in the too plain
language of the Koran; but the knowledge that the wife can make this
claim is at the best a miserable security against capricious taste; and
in the case of bondmaids even that imperfect check is wanting. The power
of divorce is not the only power that may be exercised by the tyrannical
husband. Authority to _confine_ and to _beat_ his wives is distinctly
vested in his discretion.[72] "Thus restrained, secluded, degraded, the
mere minister of enjoyment, liable at the caprice or passion of the
moment to be turned adrift, it would be hard to say that the position of
a wife was improved by the code of Mohammed."[73] Even if the privilege
of divorce and marital tyranny be not exercised, the knowledge of its
existence as a potential right must tend to abate the self-respect, and
in like degree to weaken the influence of the sex, impairing thus the
ameliorating and civilizing power which she was meant to exercise upon
mankind.
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