October 1887 — Association for the Advancement of Women, Fifteenth Annual Congress, New York City

It is generally believed that civilisation, amalgamation of races and change of language, deliver mankind from the thraldom of materialsurroundings and natural tendencies; but in the history of the Nation of the Nile we see how climate and geographical configuration have persistently declared themselves in successive generations, and how, when the incidental and extraneous influences that had seemed to changethe prototype, have been withdrawn, it rose again in all its distinctiveness and individuality. It is inevitable that a people depending on themeasured rise and fall of a river, for the means of life, and even for life itself, should, in a good degree, be the slaves of natural law, and so themore easily subjugated to the will of the human despot who may obtain lordship over their fountain of existence. In these few words I find an explanation for the perpetual servitude of the Egyptian.

It is a fashion, both new and old, to do a wrong, and declare it to be a necessity, and that, in the Egypt of today, exorbitant tribute and forced labor must be extorted from the people to preserve the country, is a tyrant’s plea for injustice as old as historic humanity. On Egypt’s eldest temple walls, pylons, pillars and memorial tablets it is recorded in sharply cut hieroglyphics and speaking tableaux, that invasion, slaughter and oppression, the acts of divinely-parented kings and rulers, were done to promote the welfare of the people and to please the Gods. Our modern philanthropists, who for the past five years have been grinding the tillers of the soil, and the peaceful owners of flocks and lands, for the one purpose of giving them a good government, are in no wise original in their special philanthropy. In this philanthropic movement the men who provide literal bread for the people, have suffered most from the excessive taxation and compelled service, which the agents of that going-to-be-good government have imposed upon them; for not more than one-sixth part of the land is now in the hands of Egyptian farmers, which was owned by them before the armed Christians came to save them, and thousands of natives are now employed at ten cents per day, on the lands of which they then were masters. Through the terrible taxation, limited only by production, and the forced military service, limited only by death, the condition of the women and children has become yet more hopelessly degraded. Wherever there has been a reduction of public or charitable appropriations, the needed economy has at once been applied to the women’s share; many schools for girls have been closed to eke out the scrimped allowance for the boys . The Khedive Ismaël established at Cairo a school for the daughters of noble families in a noble building surrounded by handsome grounds. It is now occupied by the English Minister of Public Works.

The evidences and testimony that I had while in Egypt of the deplorable condition of the women, in religion, in the family, and under the law, the inadequate means that are being employed to remove the causes of their degradation, compel me to present to you for this hour a sombre picture, one not at all in keeping with the marvellous colouring of Egyptian nature, and the wonderful picturesqueness of the women, as they take their place in the unique and fascinating panorama that unrolls itself before the delighted voyager on the Nile. But I have no choice; I must paint the portrait as I saw it, and it may be, in the discussion that will follow my paper, that other testimony may lighten my dark shading, and promise good result from the benevolent enterprizes already organized to upraise our wretched sisterhood.

WOMEN IN RELIGION.

From the earliest recorded time, the Egyptians have had a formal religion which established a sensual heaven for believers. But while they yet worshipped their sectional Gods, they recognized women as worthy of high and sacred offices. Hieroglyphic inscriptions register that in the early dynasties women were Goddesses, Queens, Priestesses, upholders of the gods, guardians of portions of the temples, and sacred places, and that they were respected and revered equally with gods, priests, scribes, architects, and warriors. Women of the families of kings, nobles and chiefs, have honorable mention, and their portraits and cartouches are everywhere, on temple wall and pillar, on stele and obelisk. It seems moreover, quite certain that ordinary women joined in the temple service and paid religious tribute. An inscription found but four years ago, on a pillar of a vanished temple, records the taxes paid by women on entering the temple after marriage and child-birth, and so small are the amounts, that Egyptologists think it sure all women had access to the temples and rendered tribute according to their means. The worship of Osiris, Isis, Horus, Amon-ra, Maut, Khonsoo, under many different local names, but always Father, Mother, Son, was performed and perpetuated by men and women bearing like titles and rendering equally sacred and important service. All this is now changed; the pendulum of the religious clock swings far away to the other side.

In Egypt there are two religious sects, Copts and Muslims. At Alexandria and Cairo there are congregations of the Greek and Armenian Church, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and it may be others; these are the churches of foreigners, and are scarcely found out of the two great cities. The number of Copts is estimated by themselves at 700,000, by others at 300,000. Claiming to be the oldest Christian church, established by the Evangelist Mark himself, whose body was enshrined in Alexandria until translated by the Venetians, they refused to accept the doctrine of the double nature of Christ, and were condemned as heretics by the Council of Chalcedon. Thus the persecutions they had suffered under Decius and Valerianus, culminating in the destruction of their beautiful cities, and the massacre of thousands by Diocletian, whose cruel edict was even more destructive than his fire and sword, were continued by the Christian Emperors of Constantinople. Under Mahommedan rule they were long encouraged to embrace Islam by degradation and the branding-iron, but during the present century they have for the most part been relieved from civil, if not from social oppression. These ages of persecution, and wicked hatred have left their impress on Coptic character. They are tenacious, timid, cowardly, suspicious, deceitful, and sullen, with remarkable individual exceptions.

COPTIC WOMEN.

The officers of the Coptic Church are a patriarch, bishops, priests, and deacons. These offices women may not fill. There are orders of monks, and there have been sisterhoods of celibates. The officers may not marry after entering upon the office, and must have married a maiden. The Coptic language is not now written or spoken, and is understood by very few of those who recite, or attend the service of the church. Coptic women attend church, confess, and receive the sacrament, but they are not expected to pray as often as the men. Their style of dress and their customs are the same as those of Muslim women, and they generally wear black in the streets. Baby-girls are baptized eighty days after birth, boys after forty only. The churches are divided; the women’s part is the lower, separated from the men’s by a high lattice. Women should not be present when the prayers are said for a male invalid of the family over ten years old, or when he receives the sacrament, except by special request.

As among the Muslim women, much piety is unbecoming and quite ridiculous out of the cloister. I have often remarked the little respect Coptic women show for the service of the church. At intervals they repeat short prayers, but during the larger part of the ceremony they chat and laugh with their friends. There is not either order or decorum required of men or women during the service. The women stare through the half-open veil, whisper or talk audibly, crowd the strangers, and conduct themselves much as they do in the shops and bazaars.

Neither are the churches nor the women cleanly. The oldest churches have small openings in the lattice, looking towards the chancel, where lamps may be placed during evening service, and these have left their greasy black signatures for unmolested ages. Not seldom you may see worn-out utensils of the church service lying about in the corners. Above Cairo it is often unhealthful to attend church among these untidy and disorderly women and children; the rancid buffalo butter and the castor oil with which they moisten their hair, are not the agreeable perfume one would choose for the confined air. They never change their clothing or make preparation in any way for the sabbath or the church. The wives and families of wealthy, educated Copts seldom attend church except during fasts and festivals; they are agreeable in dress and manner. I am told that their prayers are mere forms recited, but that the real prayer of the woman, is to be the wife of a rich man and the mother of sons. They do not understand the creed of their church, and feel no moral responsibility; and, again with their Muslim sisters, do not count any wrong-doing sin, if it be not discovered. They have no education of the conscience, and are reputed to be too often ingenious in intrigue and falsehood.

A very intelligent Coptic gentleman of Cairo, who gave us much opportunity to meet the better class of his people, and witness some of their important ceremonies, said to us that he wished to enter the priesthood in order that he might use the influence of the office for the advancement of women in morality and cleanliness, and, he added with sad voice, most of our priests are too indifferent to this. A few days after in speaking of a Coptic lady we had known in Paris, he remarked with much severity of tone, that she was the only Coptic woman that had been taken to Paris by her husband, and allowed to wear the European dress in the street. We did not further grieve him by telling him that the sister of the lady had also seen the wicked city in the same dress. The incident revealed that even he was scarcely prepared for the important work he coveted.

LEVANTINE WOMEN.

The Levantine women are mostly Christians and claimed by the Catholics. They have many of the superstitions of the Muslim women, but they have a favourable recognition in the Church and its service. They attend mass, pray for the dead, and confess to the priest. They are somewhat educated and are naturally intelligent and shrewd in their own affairs. The widow who does not desire the aid of the priest in disposing and arranging her affairs, after the death of her husband, omits confession. They believe in the magical effects of lying to turn away evil influences. They are indolent and early become very fat; many in Cairo and Alexandria have never seen the city gates or the port. They too are reputed to indulge in serious intrigues, and social crimes. They have not the faith in destiny which enervates the best Muslims, but are courageous in danger. They are not frank in their hatreds or dislikes. They associate with the Copts far more than with Muslims, and are over-fond of festivities.

MUSLIM WOMEN.

I have never seen a Muslim woman praying in a mosque except at the Howling Dervishes, when three women in an upper balcony accompanied the brethren in a part of the exercises, by pantomime, and they were insane and put there to be cured by the devotions. Nor have I seen a Muslim woman or girl praying anywhere. But there are mosques in Cairo that are named for women and some that have been built by them, or for them with their money. I know at least six bearing women’s names; that of Sitt Zeyneb, the grand-daughter of the Prophet, has a clock tower and much decoration, and none but women can enter the bronze enclosure which contains the brocade-draped tomb. The mosque of Sitt Sofeeya, built by her eunuch, has a fine minaret and decorations; those of Ayesha and Fatmeh, are of peculiar sanctity. Our wise and instructive Alee, a tall, gaunt Nubian, a rigid Muslim, crammed with histories, legends and much experience, the best authority on our dahabeeyeh, and whom we mercilessly question on the social and domestic life of the women, related to us with many particulars, that his wife and other Muslim women, went twice a year, after a bath, to a side room in the mosque of Fatmeh and Ayesha, to pray, and be advised by a khateeb. This exhortation was praise to Allah, injunction to serve the husband, warning against evil spirits and infidelity, exhortation to teach the sons the things they should know while in the hareem, rhapsodical expressions of God, and blessing asked for the pilgrims and the family of the Prophet. Nothing for daily use is contained in the prayers and not anything for special afflictions, sickness or calamity. They turn to reputed living saints for their miracles, incantations and blessings, rather than to physician or to prayer. They believe in medicine, if one of their wonder-workers give it to them, but are afraid of the doctor and refuse to show their faces when he is called, which may be one cause of there being so few physicians above Cairo. The women believe in Ginns, beings, not mortal, who seek mortal mates. Charms and talismans and the envious eye are also part of their religion, and the Koran has special directions upon all these, how to be used and how to be avoided.

The Prophet did not forbid women to attend the prayers in a Mosque, but said it was better that they pray in private. In Cairo women and boys under seven years are not allowed to pray with the congregation in the Mosque, or be present in time of prayer, for the Prophet has said: — “Sitting an hour with the distaff is better for “women than a year of worship”, and “for every piece” of cloth woven of the thread spun by woman, she shall “receive the reward of the martyr”. Nevertheless he did assign to her a place in the rear of the Mosque where she may pray looking from afar over the men in front, toward the niche of Mecca. Ancient and modern Mahommedans agree that “the presence of women inspires “another devotion than that appropriate to a place set “apart for the worship of God.” Very few of the women pray. Il they prefer to work, the Prophet has excused them from prayer, and from taxing their untutored memories with the ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah.

The Koran does not exclude woman from Paradise, but the invitation is not cordial, and there is little promised to her there. The meanest man is to have eighty thousand servants, and can select seventy-two wives from the countless company of heavenly maidens who will have large black eyes, and be of a height equal to his own, that of a tall palm tree, about sixty feet; the man expects to enjoy himself according to his size. If this big, much-married husband wishes the company of his little earth-wife, she can come in after the Paradise girls.

The mother who loses children in infancy, is honored and has a promise of immortality, if she be a believer; for the child will have the gates of heaven opened to her when the husband is ready to enter. Apostacy, even in women, is a heinous sin, by the Koran to be punished with death, and in these later years the Koran has been obeyed in the most brutal way, and without the interference of the law. Women may go on pilgrimage to Mecca, with their husbands and families, but the blessing is greater if the husband go without women and the wife with her son; the pilgrim, and indeed any Muslim, must purify himself after he has been in the society of women, before he can pray. This is by express command of the Prophet who says: — “Women are pollution.” Our kind old consular agent at Luxor, Alee Moorad, was to go to Mecca this month; his son Ahmed will go with his mother next year. When a fowl, or sheep, or any domestic animal is killed, there is a short prayer uttered, which is in substance: — “If any evil be” coming to me, or any harm be wished me, may I cut “them off with this knife.” Many such forms are observed which are counted to be religious duties and ceremonies, as among the Jews, but they should be performed by males.

WOMAN IN SOCIETY.

Levantine, Armenian, Syrian, and some of the Coptic women, receive male visitors with the men of the family, and they shop, ride and visit, and eat with male relatives and intimate friends. At a Coptic wedding which I attended in Cairo, there were many of these foreign women present, but not one Coptic woman, except a young girl of the family of the bridegroom. The families of both bride and groom were wealthy and important, and the affair was grand and expensive; but it was for men and foreign women. The young girl of the family did the arduous duties of hostess charmingly, with the support of another, a schoolmate of her own age. In visiting the native consuls, governors, village sheykhs and other public men, I have never seen the women of the hareem, except by special invitation from the master of the house. But one meets in Cairo native women of all classes, in the shops, in the bazaars, in the gardens, on donkeys and in carriages, and their evident intention is to enjoy themselves. I know the wife of a pacha, a Copt, who receives gentlemen with ladies, but never alone. Among the noble families there is much visiting and gossiping and display of jewelry, and too much freedom in conversation. It is in Egypt now as it was in the past ages; in society, lively, interesting conversation becomes the cream of the entertainment; the native women I have seen, are aimable and engaging, and seemed keenly to enjoy the visit of the stranger. But from entertainments where men are present, virtuous women are excluded.

The ancient Egyptians were far advanced in their recognition of woman’s place in society; there are numerous old bas-reliefs representing the master and mistress of the home receiving their guests together, seated side by side, the dancers, singers and musicians presenting themselves to the couple and making their salutations. Greece was in this far behind Egypt, as the words of Cornelius Nepos prove. He, the Roman, says to the Greeks:  — “What ” mistress of a house can here be shown, that has not the “chief part in the house, and what man is there of us” who is ashamed to bring his wife to an entertainment?” Then Greek women appeared at none but family entertainments; they were relegated to the upper and most retired part of the house. Centuries of foreign rule have degraded the old Egyptian custom to the Greek level. Among the poor, the filling of water jars, gossip on the street, squatting outside the mud enclosure of the home, with dirty children, chickens and sheep, bathing in the Nile and washing clothing and domestic animals; these are the chief opportunities for woman’s social enjoyment. And the keenness with which they relish this part of their daily life, tells the story of its poverty. Morning and evening, along the banks of the river we met the irregular procession of women and young girls, reproducing the ancient pictures, with their water jars gracefully and jauntily poised on their veiled heads. Often a baby sat astride its mother’s shoulder sucking a bit of sugar cane, the emblem of a sweet content. A near view inspired sympathy, for some of the figures in the moving picture carried jars which, filled, were too heavy for the delicate necks of the carriers. But the straight slender girl, or elder woman, smiled upon us as she lifted it to its place, and easily bore it away. Many a hasty sketch was made of these nymphs of the water jars, and their matchless grace of motion made us ashamed of our awkward gait. Later in the day they came with the family work, and much visiting and amusement made the tasks light and the hours short. Then it was that our few Arabic sentences, expressing our admiration for their ornaments, or their small animals, or other pleasant nothings, opened their hearts to us, and lively conversation, with delicately turned compliments and ill concealed curiosity, revealed to us what years of reading could not. The various articles of our dress, and their price, were a constant interest to them, and the timid boldness of the young girls, was bewitching. They stood before us and quietly exhibited their anklets, bracelets, amulets, necklaces, ear, nose and finger rings, and they eagerly looked under our gloves and cloaks for our ornaments, and were disappointed if they found none. The bank of the Nile is their reception room and recreation ground. Their knowledge of our family affairs was surprising. They knew who of us were married and what was our relationship, where we had been, what we had seen, what antiquities we had bought, where we were going and how long we were to stay, and always what we paid for chickens. In all upper Egypt I saw but one woman on a donkey, and not one on a camel; everywhere the man rode, sometimes with a child before him, while the woman walked, often carrying a baby. In the streets of the cities it is not good usage for the man to recognize his wife, or any female member of the family old enough to be veiled, as his recognition would betray her to his male friends.

WOMAN IN THE FAMILY.

One word of the hareem itself, the home of the family. The house of a well-to-do man is large, and the rooms many, with ample courts and halls. In those I have visited, the reception room for the men was furnished with European furniture and usually with big, awkward bentwood rocking chairs; articles of the toilette, closet, and office, were lying about the room and the long curtains were frequently tied up in knots. The apartments of the women were furnished with eastern rugs, low, inlaid tables, divans, cushions, shelves and cornices in meshrebeeyeh work, with French ornaments in china and glass. There are no bed-rooms, during the day the mattress, if there be any, is rolled up and placed against the wall; it is put down at night wherever desired, on the house top, in the court, or on the floor of the sitting room. Most of the people do not undress at night, even among the rich.

The poor have no change of garment for the night. All classes bathe, in the house, at the public baths, or in the Nile. In good houses the food is served in courses to the women in their apartments, on small, low tables placed beside the divans, and without knife or fork; a spoon is often used though solid food is eaten with the fingers.

In upper Egypt, the homes of the ordinary people, from our standpoint, are utterly comfortless. Many of them are but partially covered, and do not contain a dozen articles of housekeeping. They are dark, unclean sheds. In the stone and brick houses of the villages, owned by men who possess lands and flocks, the women’s rooms are devoid of comfort, ornament and neatness. Visiting collections of antiquities with the master of a house, I have passed the chambers of the women, and seen women, children, slaves, sheep, fowls and cats scattered through the disorderly rooms. Many villages are built of the Nile mud, which readily hardens in that dry climate. The house floors are also of mud, but firm and covered in spots with palm matting. The wives and daughters in poor families, do not eat with the men. The wife usually cooks the food for the husband, serves him and afterwards eats what remains. Even where there are house slaves, the wife very often waits upon the husband and sons at the mid-day meal. From the pylons of Edfoo, I have looked down into a hundred homes and seen the working of the domestic machinery, invented ages ago, each home the representative of the whole village, men, women, children and animals, in the same little enclosure, without the simplest provision for cleanliness or privacy. Popular writers on modern Egyptians represent the hareem as the abode of indolence, intrigue, immorality and crime, and to a large extent have made their representation from the hareems of the cities and of the titled classes. Emeline Lott, Mr. Lane, Mrs. Poole, sister of Mr. Lane, Mr. Bayle St. John, and others whose names are familiar, have written only on the upper class of hareems. Miss Lott, who was governess to the son of the late Khedive, Ismaël Pacha, filled her volume with the discomfort, selfishness, treachery, intrigue and crime she discovered in the viceregal hareem, though one is astonished to find on the title page that the book is dedicated to this very viceroy whom she found so mercenary and immoral. No doubt the habit of idleness is confirmed in the older women of a rich hareem. When an Egyptian woman is twenty-five years old, she receives the reverence of her children as a middle-aged matron, and she curls herself up on the divan, gossips, smokes her cigarettes, and thinks herself occupied. The healthy girl of 12 or 14 years who may not leave the hareem until a year after her marriage, finds confinement irksome, but habit and custom are tyrants; she must obey, and the child woman after twelve months of inaction and appearing to be, what she is not, a matron, comes to accept bathing, combing her hair and plaiting it with oil, brightening her jewelry, smoking and gossiping, with a little carriage-riding and embroidery, as the natural circle of her woman’s life. During the year of seclusion the new wife may receive visits and sit in the court and on the terrace, and is excused from prayers or pretentions to piety, as that does not increase her charms for her husband.

In houses which do not afford eunuchs, when the husband is to enter with a man, not a relation, he warns the women to conceal themselves, by clapping his hands, and on opening the door shouts to them if in sight, to veil themselves. If a guest arrives in the absence of the husband, he is entertained in the name of the wife, though she may not see him. While the man is saying his morning prayers, the wife makes his coffee, fills his pipe, gives it to him when his devotions are ended, and turns the water over his hands before he eats. I am told of Muslims who sometimes eat with their families, but it is not the custom among those I know.

At the dinners given by native consuls and official men, to which foreign ladies are invited with their husbands and male friends, the women of the family do not appear; but they entertain in the hareem with great pleasure and hospitality.

It is customary for the mother of the husband to reside with the wife some time after marriage, that the honour of the man may be preserved and the wife taught by example the duties she owes the husband; but it often happens that the demure mother-in-law teaches the wife many tricks of deception and cunning. Male slaves must not enter the women’s rooms, and the women may not unveil to any man who is not within the degree of consanguinity within which they are forbidden to marry; yet pretty women let the veil fall by accident when there is an opportunity for their faces to be admired, and their eyes invite regard. Woman’s highest honor comes to her through motherhood; to have sons, exalts her to “freedom from the pains of hell,” and the care of her children is her most noble duty. But she may not, by the Koran, be the teacher of the boys after they are two years old. The instructions of the Prophet are very plain to the father; he must teach his son manners, morals, business, all that he need to know of himself, prayers when he is seven years old, and whip him if he does not pray at ten. Needle work is taught the girls of good families, and the spindle to the poor. The mother should instruct the daughter in gait, carriage, and feminine allurements by which she may please her husband. In the early part of the century young women often learned to play the lute, but that has now been relegated to the service of professionals, and the young have no musical instrument.

ENTERTAINMENTS.

The entertainments of women are: marriages, births, and the Festival of Spring; both Copts and Muslims have a week of festivities at Easter. The women keep their holidays by themselves; they dance and sing, or hire singers and musicians, and eat and drink with each other, and though they do not admit men to partake of their festivities with them, they are permitted to sit in the court or garden, and hear the music. The Egyptian woman is a tender and affectionate mother, and while she does not keep her children clean, or provide changes of clothing for them, she clings to them through her whole life, and receives the divorced daughter, and often her children, into her home and heart. Seven days after the birth of a child, the home is filled with female visitors, and the baby is taken in a sieve and carried about the house. Drums, cymbals, and singing women tell the world that joy has come to the household. The father, in male fashion, entertains his friends with dancing girls and other pious pleasures.

Christians and Muslims regard it as disreputable for a man not to marry at a suitable age, and a girl must be a wife and mother, to be respected and fulfill her destiny. It is desirable for first cousins to marry, but when that is impossible, parents select for their children from friendly circles. For a well-ordered marriage the man may not have seen the face of the woman since she came to marriageable age. Before the girl has reached womanhood, her parents can betroth her without her consent; after that she must give her consent. The husband’s father must support the new family, until the son is able to separate himself from the father. A marriage is not valid until the bride has unveiled to the husband. It is imperative to give the bride a dower, and over this dower there is often much bargaining. The husband’s father pays the bride’s father a part of the dower in hand, and the rest is to be paid to the wife in case of divorce. Often the rich husband gives the dower either in money or clothes to the bride. There are various deceptions practiced by the bride and her friends on the husband; one is to make her appear very tall and of grand proportions, which the bridal swaddling clothes render easy.

I shall never forget the blindfolded bundle of bright pink satin, jewels, lace, and tarlatan, trundled into a crowded room, by five priests, and deposited on a chair, beside a fine-looking, well-dressed man, who seemed to realize the ridiculous appearance of the gaudy mass beside him. Over the face and head of the bride, and on her chest, were several thicknesses of lace and muslin, covered with diamonds and other jewels, plates of gold, and heavy ornaments of strange designs. There was little indication of lovely woman in that consignment. The sprightly girl who entertained us, said that the bride had on very high shoes to make her tall. On paying our respects to the new mothers-in-law, whom we found in the hareem on divans, smoking, the bride’s mother expressed great delight at the height of one of my daughters, and inquired of us if her daughter did not look as tall as mine. Whereupon our wicked little girl gave us a sly glance.

After the ceremony follow days of feasting, dancing and music for the men in house and tents. The child-bride exhilarated, or frightened by the company and confusion, is led away to the hareem and prepared for the formalities of the coming days. If the bride has property, when she marries, it remains hers inviolable, as well as what she may inherit after marriage. I must not ignore that the hareem has a mixed reputation and that many men are bad husbands. As everywhere else, irresponsible power is often cruel. Public opinion sustains wife-beating for disobedience, and wife-murder on suspicion of infidelity.

The ceremonies of death and burial are alike for men and women. In the hour of death the face is turned towards Mecca or Jerusalem, and when the final moment comes, the women of the hareem, in regular succession, send forth shrill falsetto cries that rend the air and make the nerves quiver. This cry brings to the home the women of the village, who join in the lament for the dead. All are dressed in soiled, dark blue robes and have faces, hands, breasts, and even the walls of the house, daubed with indigo. They unbraid their hair, and often pluck it out, and lash themselves into a frenzy. Among the rich, the clothing of the dead is strewn about the room, and the dishes and ornaments broken with great noise. Before the chill of death has fallen upon the inanimate form, it must be carried to the tomb. The mourners follow the bier which is covered with a cashmere shawl, and carried on the shoulders of men. All are in soiled garments, with coarse cloth on the head. The night following the burial, the men pass the hours with friends, smoking and drinking coffee, calm and resigned to destiny; the women spend the night in wailing and shrieking. On certain days a mother bewails her dead through the years, and on the festivals for the dead, families take their provisions and shawls and spend the night at the graves of their relations. After the death of the husband the widow must remain in the house a year, with all the coverings of the furniture wrong side out, and the mirrors and ornaments covered. She does not offer refreshments to visitors, and the pipes are without their mouthpieces, and she must have at stated times professional wailers to perform in the house. The women beautify themselves by tattooing the face and breast; Coptic women have a cross or star tattooed on the arm. Lips are stained a dark purple, and the finger nails and palms of the hands are colored orange with henna. Women of every class put a black rim under the eye, made with kohl, which is not injurious and besides lending size and force to the eye, gives it shade from light.

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION.

There are in Egypt governmental schools, colleges and universities for boys, Coptic schools, and schools of religious and benevolent societies. At Cairo and Alexandria they are large and well situated. The sons and daughters of poor foreigners attend them, and make creditable progress. The short time girls may attend school, does not permit them to get much beyond reading and sewing. The large, free university of El Azhar, at Cairo, has a women’s department of midwifery attached to the medical school, not because the State desires to educate women, but because the religion of the country excludes male physicians from the hareems, except in unusual cases. In some of the larger towns along the river, small schools for boys are taught by Greek priests and Catholic monks. Comparatively few girls attend school; there is a deep seated prejudice against their reading and understanding numbers, and it is considered immoral for them to sit under a roof with strange boys, though they may play with them out of doors. If the girl can read, she will not wish to bring the water, drive the buffalo to the river, grind the doorra; she will not work; she will be like the boy. These reasons were many times given us by men and boys who were opposed to education for girls.

We were much interested in the mission schools. The American mission in its eleven schools and colleges, teaches an average attendance of 1,350 pupils, at an annual cost of $8,000; in its six girl schools, with an average attendance of 630, the cost of instruction is but $2,600, or about $4 per girl. Of the 1,400 girls enrolled, 10 study physiology, 112 Arabic, 116 geography, 111 French, 248 arithmetic and 278 the American language. More than 50 other independent schools scattered all over Egypt, have grown up under the encouragement of the mission and are taught by graduates of its schools. In these an average attendance of more than 2,000 scholars, 300 being girls, are taught at a yearly cost of $6,000. At Syoot our consular agent, Mr. Khayatt, an Egyptian, besides supporting a school of 200 girls and boys, gives liberally to the college and schools of the American mission. Miss Thompson, the superintendent teacher of the mission schools of Cairo for girls, has given us another evidence of womanly energy and unselfish capacity. Miss Whately has for several years carried on a girl’s school and earned the encomiums of her English patrons. At the school in Luxor, we found girls in the first class reading Peter Parley; one of them has recently married the native teacher. I made every effort possible to learn the comparative condition of women and girls, and my questions to priests, consuls, town officers and teachers as to the place they assigned to my side of humanity, gave much amusement to my sons and daughters.

Among those who are doing good to the people and educating the children, I make most honourable mention of Père Samuel, a Neapolitan priest who has spent more than fifty years in Upper Egypt. He has given of his time and means to the sick and needy of every class and sect, without stint or reward. On our return voyage we anchored at the village of Negadeh and spent an afternoon with the old man in his church and garden. We found the church clean and cool. More than forty years ago he built it, a worthy work of architecture and finish. A Belgian lady has given him a parlor organ, and he is organist and choir as well as priest. There are fine bits of old temples built into the doors and pillars, which he shows with pride. He said that women came to church and were more than half his congregation. He led us to his school of seventy little and better-sized boys, and three little girls. The boys were writing on tin slates; some of the texts were in Coptic. The Père told us that he read the service in Latin, Arabic, and Coptic, and was teaching the Copt boys the language of their service, that they might pray intelligently. Mr. Wilbour asked if he had ever converted Muslims; he was quite radiant as he replied: “I have baptized 42 Muslims in my 50 years of service.” He said that before the British occupation he had a school of 50 girls, but donations failed after that began; he had to give it up with much regret, and feared that he could never re-open it. He resignedly added:  “But that must always be, the girls after the boys.” Our sailors who knew him, spoke of him as a saint who in times of epidemics, went fearlessly among the dying and dead, and did his duty by all in suffering. Grand old man, when the work falls from his willing hands, who shall take it up?

We visited Muslim schools without satisfaction, except to our curiosity. Let me tell you what I saw in one at Luxor. The school was found under a cornstalk shed, open on one side. When we entered, a lively boy ran to an elevated divan at one end of the shed, and shouted up the master, who was lying on the divan with a pillow under his head. He sat up, and looked at us with soft dreamy eyes, but did not recognize our salutation, though twice repeated. Not a ray of intelligence passed over his handsome face; we were embarrassed, and eighty little faces turned toward us in sympathy. My daughter beckoned to the lively lad, who came to us, and asked that the boys might repeat a prayer from the Koran. The monitor gave the command to the school, and the slates were laid down and the recitation began in a low voice, which grew louder and louder every moment till the little half-naked brown bodies rocked to and fro as though intoxicated. When the recitation was over, we walked about and looked at the slates, at the babies crowded up into a dirty corner, made our obeisance to the statue of the Sleepy God on the divan, and as we went out, he fell back upon his pillow.

In most of the Coptic and Muslim schools, children learn a little arithmetic, reading and writing, and some passages of the Scriptures or the Koran. Many slaves attend the religious and mission schools, and are often far better educated than their masters, who take great pride in their learning. Copts are as frequently sent to the mission schools as to their own, and are very clever and intelligent. At Cairo there is a boarding-school for girls, conducted by nuns, where many girls spend a year, or attend as day scholars. In the families of the rich, a foreign governess is employed, who teaches French and needle-work; but girls are seldom taught to write, as they might make an improper use of the knowledge. Teachers agree that girls do not keep up their reading after they leave school; the books loaned them are often returned with the leaves uncut. But there have been and are some well-educated Muslim women in the higher classes; they are counted particularly dangerous and their example pernicious.

WOMAN UNDER THE LAW.

This division will include that which custom has legalized without enactments, as well as that found in the written code. The four sects of Mahommedans receive their code of law as well as of morals from the Koran. So strongly rooted is this faith, that even as the English have found it unwise to change from the Mahommedan law in India, the framers of the code adopted for the native courts just established in Egypt, have but copied the Koran in all that relates to marriage, polygamy, divorce and concubinage. A Muslim may have at one time four wives, and the Book says: “If you cannot act equitably by them,” take from those whom your right hand has acquired,” meaning slaves. This advice of the Prophet, his companions very largely honored, and left their examples recorded for the benefit of the latter-day saints. Mahommedans believe that woman is created for man’s pleasure and comfort, and that though she is crafty and dangerous, she must be made to serve him with as little bother as possible, during the time he desires her. She will not follow him to Paradise unless he wishes her presence, and he religiously expects to have better society. The Koran has a full recognition of slavery, and supposes it to be a perpetual institution of the country. A slave may not marry her master, while a slave, but the mother of her master’s child is usually emancipated, and the child is a legitimate heir. When a girl is old enough to marry, she can of her own free will marry any man by consenting and receiving a part of her dower; but the consent of the girl who is not old enough to marry, is not required, her nearest male relative can dispose of her by receiving her dower. The dower among the poor is small, but there must be something paid by the husband or his father to the nearest male relative of the child.

A wife may be divorced twice and return to her husband, but if he divorce her a third time, and with a triple divorce declared, and send her away, he cannot live with her again until she has been one month married to another man. After the third divorce, the husband must pay the part of the dower which was set aside for the wife before marriage, and he must support her out of his house during the three months in which she may not marry again. If the wife be separated from the man, and not divorced, she receives a weekly allowance from him. A divorced woman may, after divorce, retain her son, under two years of age, and custom gives the child to the mother till it is seven years old; then the father must claim the son. When a man forfeits an engagement to marry, he must pay the woman half her dower, and she is free to marry at once. When a wife is disobedient, the husband may beat her; if she persist in disobedience, he may take her with two witnesses, not his relations, to the court, and declare against her, and if she does not promise to be obedient thereafter, is not obliged to feed, lodge or clothe her, but need not divorce her; and if he suspects that she desires to be divorced in order to remarry, he surely will not. If she confesses her wrong, and promise obedience, he must at once divorce her, or take her home. If a wife does not wish to live with her husband, she enters a complaint against him at the court, stating that her family will support her, and makes a demand for separation. If the women of the same hareem, or of different ones, quarrel and are complained of to the court, their husbands are punished by the court; but we may be sure that their vicarious correction does not save the poor women from chastisement . The husband divorces the wife, but the wife cannot divorce the husband. If the Muslim cannot marry a wife of his own faith, or is deeply in love, he may marry a Jewess or a Christian, but the children must follow the faith of the father. A Muslim woman may not marry a man out of the faith, unless compelled by force, and a man may not live with either Jewess or Christian to whom he is not married. A master or mistress cannot marry a slave. Copts do not divorce except for unfaithfulness on the part of the wife; the woman cannot divorce the husband. If a Coptic wife commits a great crime, her husband may separate himself from her; neither can marry another, but they may remarry after the law has been satisfied.

Slavery and the bastinado yet exist in Egypt. The existing law does not recognize primogeniture, and generally gives the woman heir half what it gives the male heir of the same relationship. After debts and legacies are paid, one eighth belongs to the wives, if there be children; one fourth if there be none. A husband inherits half of his wife’s property if she have no children; if she has children he inherits one fourth. If a man has only a sister by the same father and mother, she inherits half his property, while the only brother inherits the whole of a sister’s. The mother, in certain cases, inherits equally with the father. In the division of a man’s property there is no difference made between the children of the legal wives and of the slaves and the adopted children. The illegitimate child inherits only from the mother.

For the murder of a man under palliating circumstances, twice as much blood-money is demanded as for the murder of a woman. The killing of a robber has no penalty. A woman convicted of murder should be drowned in the Nile; the fine for wounding a woman is half that for wounding a man. The Koran commands that the unfaithful wife be put to death, and this is done secretly, in spite of the efforts to prevent the irresponsible from usurping the prerogative of the law. A man taken for the army is deemed dead to his family. For many years, mothers have maimed their sons that they might be exempt from military service, and often when the mother failed to do this for her son, he has maimed himself. It is useless to appeal to a man’s patriotism, when he must fight for the overthrow of his faith, and the spoliation of his people; no wonder that when the conscripting officers enter a village, the men flee to the tombs and holes in the rocks, to escape their fate. Starvation drives them back again; they are seized, chained neck to neck, and packed upon the transports. And it has not yet occurred to the most Christian nation which inaugurated the last philanthropic war, to change the conditions of military servitude, so as to give the Egyptian women protection against desertion, when it has haled the husband and father from home and family. The wife is left to struggle with increased taxation, fines, mortgages and ignorance. During the years of this afflictive visitation, sickening scenes are perpetual on the banks of the Nile, men forced away, women, with smeared faces, following in crowds, wailing and crying as for the dead, and dancing the funeral dance. And as each conscript walks the long plank from the shore, the women send forth curses on the despoiler, and stretch out their arms in hopeless agony to the poor victim who is to render unwilling service to the captors of his country, the foes of his faith. These sad sights, the constant passing of transports with sick soldiers down the river, and the general unrest of invasion, have for five years prevented intelligent travelers and invalids from visiting Upper Egypt, and destroyed the long-known luxurious peace and healthful repose of the Nile voyage.

THEIR FUTURE.

Among the rejected Gospels of the New Testament is the Gospel to the Egyptians, in which it is related that Salome asked our Lord how long death should prevail, and the Christ answered: “As long as ye women are mothers.” These words have been quoted to support celibacy; but it is through this strongest element in the Egyptian that Egypt’s deliverance must come. The mother loves her child, and her love is perpetual, and it has enabled her, under the oppression of these last years, to overcome her indolence and sustain herself and her children, and hold her possessions. And other women, without  possessions, have sold in the market, tilled the fields, made trinkets, carried water and driven donkeys for the stranger, that they and their army-orphaned children might live. The class of women known as dancing girls are the pest of the villages, and the beauty that we have read of does not appear; they have not even that excuse for being. But the slave women from the Soudan and Abyssinia are the live, industrial female power of Upper Egypt. Their strong, well-shapen bodies and amiable intelligence, promise a coming race that may equal the Memlooks in daring.

But to what source can we look for any speedy elevation of Egyptian women, with a religion which teaches them they depend on the wish of man for immortality, that the envious eye of a neighbor may destroy their children, that their guardian-angel may play them ridiculous tricks, cause them illness and even death, that to be the mother of many children is their justification for existing, that the marital chastisement, authorized by the Prophet, is the best proof of the husband’s love, that the daughter is purer and more to be desired in marriage, if she cannot read or write, that if she must go to school, she may not remain after she is ten or twelve years old, that she who has never been seen by her husband is the truly virtuous girl, and that it is the mother’s duty to marry her daughter, even if she does not desire to be a wife?

Verily, a wide sea lies between the old, beautiful Land of the Sunrise and the new, fresh Land of the Sunset.

 Source: Association for the Advancement of Women, Fifteenth Annual Congress, New York, October 1887 (Paris: 1887), pp. 5-31.