ing
children. The father was wont to boast that he a Mohammedan could verify
the fact that such a thing as a perfect home could exist under Islamic
conditions. But temptation came his way. He divorced his beautiful
unoffending wife to marry the temptress, who though rich and of a high
family (which was her recommendation and considered sufficient excuse
for his base action), was ignorant and ugly, the only thing which seemed
to give him any pangs of regret.

There was a man who was fairly well-to-do and was considered by his
neighbors as being very respectable. The first wife was a very nice
woman but had no son, so her husband divorced her and married a second.
Still there was no son, so he married a third. It was believed he did
not really divorce the second wife, but pretended to do so to please the
third, who would not consent to being one of two wives. After a while a
son was born to the third, and so his first wife was brought back to the
house as nurse to the child. She was the most ladylike of the three
wives, but she had to carry the baby and walk behind the mother like a
servant. When the baby died the parents quarrelled. Number three left
the house and went into the country. The husband at once brought back
number two, whereupon number three returned in a rage and number two
was turned out of the house. On the next quarrel with number three the
man married a fourth time--a girl younger than his daughter by his first
wife. About this time he met the Bible woman in the street and asked her
why she did not visit his house as usual. She replied, "I do not come
because I never know which lady to ask for."

The house of Ali might be supposed to be rather a religious one, for the
mother of the family has performed the pilgrimage to Mecca and one of
the sons is a howling dervish. Here we were introduced to a young bride,
wife of a brother of the dervish. Calling again a few months later we
found another bride, the one we had seen on our former visit having been
divorced. The third time we went the first wife was there again and the
second had been divorced. The woman had been married to another man and
divorced by him during the short time of separation from the first
husband, and when the latter wished to have her back her parents could
not agree about allowing the marriage and quarrelled so much that they
divorced each other! The time occupied by these proceedings was between
a year and eighteen months. Here were