d a man to divorce any wife at pleasure by
simply pronouncing the words "thou art expelled." In modern Egypt,
says Lane (I., 247-51), there are many men who have had twenty,
thirty, or more wives, and women who have had a dozen or more
husbands. Some take a new wife every month. Thus the Egyptians are
matrimonially on a level with the savage and barbarian North American
Indians, Tasmanians, Samoans, Dyaks, Malayans, Tartars, many negro
tribes, Arabs, etc.

ARABIAN LOVE

Arabia is commonly supposed to be the country in which chivalry
originated. This belief seems to rest on the fact that the Arabs
spared women in war. But the Australians did the same, and where women
are saved only to be used as slaves or concubines we cannot speak of
chivalry. The Arabs treated their own women well only when they were
able to capture or buy slaves to do the hard work for them; in other
cases their wives were their slaves. To this day, when the family
moves, the husband rides on the camel while the wife trudges along on
foot, loaded down with kitchen utensils, bedding, and her child on
top. If a woman happens to ride on a camel she must get off and walk
if she meets a man, by way of showing her respect for the superior
sex. (Niebuhr, 50.) The birth of a daughter is regarded as a calamity,
mitigated only by the fact that she will bring in some money as a
bride. Marriage is often little more than a farce. Burckhardt knew
Bedouins who, before they were fifty years old, had been married to
more than fifty different women. Chavanne, in his book on the Sahara
(397-401), gives a pathetic picture of the fate of the Arab girls:

"Usually wedded very young (the marriage of a youth of
fourteen to a girl of eleven is nothing unusual), the
girl finds in most cases, after five or six years, that
her conjugal career is at an end. The husband tires of
her and sends her back, without cogent reasons, to her
parents. If there are no parents to return to, she
abandons herself, in many cases, to the vice of
prostitution."

If not discarded, her fate is none the less deplorable. "While young
she receives much attention, but when her charms begin to fade she
becomes the servant of her husband and of his new wife."

Chavanne gives a glowing description of the ravishing but short-lived
beauty of the Arab girl; also a specimen of the amorous songs
addressed to her while she is young and pretty. She is compared to a