gentle affection
and love seemed to exist between Mohammedan sisters. These passions are
also trained into them, for they constantly hear their parents spoken
against and see the jealousy that exists between their mothers and the
wives who have supplanted them.

The children of divorced parents, being neglected and not having any
settled home, generally grow up in ignorance, because they do not stay
long enough in one place to go to school regularly. A school was
established in a Mohammedan quarter of a large city with a view to
reaching the people in that district, but they were of a class whose
social system was in such a constant state of upheaval by divorcing and
marrying new wives that it was quite impossible to keep the children in
school long enough at a time to make any impression upon them. When
asked why a certain Zeinab had not put in her appearance, "Oh, she has
gone to see her mother who lives across the canal."--"Where is
Tantaweyah to-day?"--"Gone to stay with her father awhile in another
village."--"What can be the matter with Kaleela?" the teacher asks. She
knew Kaleela loved school and would not stay away without an excuse, and
she knew that her father wanted her to stay in school, but she had a
suspicion that the new wife at home had been the means of putting a stop
to Kaleela's schooldays. Her suspicion was true, for the new wife's new
baby required a nurse.

The institution of polygamy like that of divorce is a natural
consequence of the strict seclusion of woman, for it would be unfair to
a man to be put under the necessity of taking a wife he had never seen
without allowing him some license should he be disappointed in her. In
fact, polygamy was the original institution, a relic of the ancient and
more barbarous times, Jewish as well as Heathen. By making polygamy a
religious institution, the Prophet preserved a relic of barbarism.

Yet even among Mohammedans polygamy is a dying institution. Its
death-blow has been struck because educated Moslems are beginning to be
ashamed of it and doctors of Mohammedan law are beginning to interpret
the law to mean that Mohammed allowed a man to have four wives on the
condition that he could treat all alike; and since human nature makes
that condition next to an impossibility therefore Mohammed meant for a
man to have only one wife! Many educated Mohammedans in Egypt are taking
this position. Among the middle classes the difficulty of supporting
more than on