ominal Christian families where there certainly was great
unhappiness. But one must not, in comparing the two, lose sight of the
bitterest, darkest side. No Christian woman has to contend with the fact
that if her husband wearies of her, or some carelessness displeases him,
he is perfectly at liberty to cast her off as he would toss aside an old
shoe. In fact he would use the same expression in speaking of his shoe,
of a dog, some loathsome object, the birth of a daughter or of his
wife,--an expression of apology for referring to such contaminating
subjects. Nor does a Christian woman fear that as the years pass and her
beauty fades, or her husband prospers, that one day he will cause
preparations to be made and bring a new wife home. The Mohammedans have
a proverb that a man's heart is as hard as a blow from the elbow, and
that his love lasts not more than two months.

A Mohammedan friend was telling me of a woman she knew and was fond of.
"She was a good wife and mother," she said, "and she was very happy with
her two children, a boy and a girl; her husband seemed to love her, for
she is not old, and it was a great surprise to her when he told her one
day that he was going to marry another wife, for she had forgotten that
it might be. He said he would take a separate room for the new wife. She
said nothing--what could she say? But he deceived her, for he only took
the room for the new wife for one week, and then he brought her to live
with the first wife. And now she weeps all the time, and oh! how unhappy
they all are! I tell her not to weep, for her husband will weary of her
and divorce her." A shadow crossed the face of my friend as she spoke,
and I could see she was thinking of her own case, and fearing the fear
of all Mohammedan women. "Why did that man take another wife when he was
happy and had children?" I asked, for I knew that where there are no
children a man feels justified in divorcing his wife, or taking a
second, third, or fourth. "He wanted more children. Two were not
enough."

Can there be any real happiness for a Mohammedan woman? She gets little
comfort from her religion, although if she is a perfectly obedient wife,
attends faithfully to her religious duties, and does not weep if her
child dies, she has a hope that she may be one of seventy houris who
will have the privilege of attending upon her lord and master in his
sensual paradise. The idea of these two horrors, divorce and other wives
to sha