Egyptian woman

“ One hears that Cairo is full of intrigue, in spite of locked doors and eunuchs. The large towns are worse than the country; but I have heard it said that woman is the evil and plague of Egypt—though I don't know how the country could go on without her. Sweeping generalizations are dangerous, but it is said that the sole education of most Egyptian women is in arts to stimulate the passion of men. In the idleness of the most luxurious harem, in the grim poverty of the lowest cabin, woman is simply an animal. ”

“ Quoting again from Birch, "The Egyptian woman appears always as the equal and companion of her father, brethren, and husband. She was never secluded in a harem, sat at meals with them, had equal rights before the law, served in the priesthood, and even mounted the throne." ”

“ The possibilities of the Egyptian women are great either for good or for evil.
It is said that Ismail Pasha, the grandfather of the present Khedive, who in his day ruled Egypt with a tyrant's hand, was himself ruled by a woman. His mother, a woman of strong character, was the power behind the throne. Much has been said about the downtrodden condition of Egyptian women, and none too much. Islam puts its heel on the neck of woman. It debases and despises her. But there is another side to the picture. Woman was born an invincible spirit, which even the yoke of Islam has not been able to crush. ”

“ THE MODERN EGYPTIAN WOMAN The conservative woman of Egypt prides herself that she never leaves her home. I know several ladies well advanced in years who say they have never been outside their homes since they were brought there as brides. ”

“ To be virtuous and diligent in her affairs becomes easy to a woman, for she sees that it increases his happiness whose dearest possession she boasts of being, and who belongs to her alone. The women only do that which pleases us! but the Egyptian men understand the art of making us pleased with that which is really good, and with that alone. On the shores of the Nile, Phocylides of Miletus and Hipponax of Ephesus would never have dared to sing their libels on women, nor could the fable of Pandora have been possibly invented here! ”

“ The position of woman was far better in Egypt than in Palestine. Before the pyramids were built, the sacred songs of Isis were sung by women, and women with pure hands had offered sacrifices to the gods. Before Moses was born, women had sat upon the Egyptian throne. Upon ancient tombs the husband and wife are represented as seated in the same chair. In Persia women were priests, and in some of the oldest civilizations ‘they were reverenced on earth, and worshiped afterward as goddesses in heaven.’ At the advent of Christianity, in all Pagan countries women officiated at the sacred altars. ”

“ It is frequently said that the test of a nation's civilization is the position accorded to woman. Applying this test to Egypt, her civilization would rank well with nations of modern times as well as with those contemporaneous with her. From the earliest times of which we have record, Egyptian women were the companions and trusted counsellors of their husbands. During the New Empire it was the boast of one of the Ramessides that any woman might go alone and unveiled as far in any direction as she wished, confident that she would not be accosted nor disturbed. ”

“ The women of Babylonia and Assyria enjoyed a measure of freedom that was exceptional for the Orient, and yet the Egyptian woman was more independent still. Indeed, the respect that was paid to womankind by the Egyptians is one of the fairest elements in the civilization of the valley of the Nile. Motherhood also was highly respected. But one illustration, referred to by Lenormant, will suffice to prove this statement. A woman while enceinte, condemned to death for murder or any other crime, could not be executed till after the birth of the child ”

“ There is no evidence that the ancient Egyptian woman was more difficult to comprehend than the Egyptian man. They were both doubtless wily as highly civilized people are apt to be; the "serpent of old Nile" was in them both. Is it in fact till we come to mediaeval times, and the chivalric age, that women are set up as being more incomprehensible than men? ”

“ This opinion is most common in the country-towns and villages; and the relations of my mother are thus characterized, so that a woman of them, when her husband dies while she is young, or divorces her while she is young, passes her life, however long it may be, in widowhood, and never marries a second time.”—But with respect to the majority of the Egyptian women, it must, I fear, be allowed, that they are very licentious. ”

“ The matriarchal tendencies of the Egyptian Government also account for the fact that children,110 as a rule, were not only allowed to live but were better treated than they were among other peoples. Even the first Egyptians, although semi-savages like those inhabiting Africa and America, were different in their attitude toward women to such an extent that the Greeks were led into believing that in Egypt the woman was supreme. ”

“ There was such a contrast between the Egyptian and the old Greek conception of woman that the Greek ofttimes jeered at the Egyptian submission to feminine domination. In Alexandria under the Ptolemies, accordingly, owing to Macedonian respect for woman and the old Egyptian idea of feminine worth and capacity, the gentler sex experienced conditions altogether different from those in ancient Athens and enjoyed a freedom similar to that of modern times. ”

“ To visit her in her home, to see her in the midst of her little sons and daughters, to join with the family in the evening meal which has been prepared by her own hands, to hear her talk of her work among the women in her husband's large congregation makes one reverently breathe a prayer of thanksgiving to God that He has let us have a glimpse of the possibilities of Egyptian womanhood.
All up and down the valley of the Nile can be found women from this representative two hundred in different stations of life; and each one filling in a womanly way her position. ”

“ Much can be said about the down-trodden condition of Egyptian women. "As a babe she is unwelcome; as a child untaught; as a wife unloved; as a mother, unhonored; in old age, uncared for; and when her miserable, dark, and dreary life is ended, she is unmourned by those she has served." Heaven is a forlorn hope, not because she is denied any of its privileges, but because of the incapability of providing her with enjoyments similar to those promised to the other sex. ”

“ The custom then is copied from the Egyptians, and they have preserved it, tho’ the Egyptian reason does no longer hold.
Some historians say, the Egyptian women anciently enjoyed a full liberty of intercourse with the males, which was not the case in the generality of eastern nations; and we must, therefore, think it was derived from Abyssinia; for there the women live, as it were, in common, and their enjoyments and gratification have no other bounds but their own will. They, however, pretend to have a principle, that, if they marry, they should be wives of one husband ”

“ The women of Egypt are as much slaves as ever were the negroes of our South. They are petted and fattened and given a home, but they must look at life through barriers—barriers across their boxes at the opera, and barriers across the windows of their broughams when they drive abroad, and barriers across their very faces. As long as one-half of the Egyptian people are enslaved and held in bondage and classed as animals without souls, so long will an Army of Occupation ride over the land, and insult by its presence the khedival power. ”

“ Never before have we been encouraged to air our views. Those of us with political opinions have been snubbed; and we who are interested in Woman Suffrage have been assured that we'll find nothing to please us in the land of Veiled Women. At last I am given a chance to state without being interrupted that Egypt was once the most enlightened country in her treatment of women. Long before the time of the Greeks, and even before the Shepherd Kings Mr. Watts has told us so much about, using his Old Testament as if it were a Baedeker, the women of Ancient Egypt had rights according to their class. ”

“ The girl is kept strictly harim even in the school, and the teachers are women, who guard carefully from men’s eyes the girls who are entrusted to them for the day.
Besides visiting with their friends or relatives, the Egyptian women go to weddings, where they look upon the dancing and hear the singing from their places behind the screens, or they make pilgrimages to the tombs of saints or holy men, where they pray for the health of their children; or, if they have not been so fortunate as to have children, they pray for that blessing. ”

“ What has been said about the strict seclusion of Egyptian women refers chiefly to the middle and upper classes, for the poorest women, those of the peasant class, have the greatest freedom. They go about unveiled and manifest a character of marked independence and self-reliance, but they are ignorant beyond description, such a thing as books and schoolroom being unknown quantities to them, and their lot is a life of drudgery. ”

“ One looks up in passing at those overhanging balconies, imagining the fate of the harem-secluded women behind them, occasionally catching stolen glances from curious eyes peering between the lattices. What a life is theirs! Education is unknown among the Egyptian women. They have no mental resort. Life, intellectually, is to them a blank. There was a mingled atmospheric flavor impregnating everything with an incense-like odor, thoroughly Oriental. One half expected to meet Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, as we still look for Antonio and the Jew on the Rialto at Venice. ”

“ Since the ancient Egyptian women were allowed in all other respects such a remarkable degree of equality with the men, it is reasonable to conjecture that they shared with them in literary acquirements.
Modern Egypt presents quite a different picture. The population is a mixture of Egyptians, Persians, Syrians, Greeks, Arabs, and Turks. The men are ignorant, and the women servile. ”

“ In Egypt the position of women stood highest at the end, but it seems to have been high throughout the whole of the long course of Egyptian history, and continuously improving, while the fact that little regard was paid to prenuptial chastity and that marriage contracts placed no stress on virginity indicate the absence of the conception of women as property. More than three thousand five hundred years ago men and women were recognized as equal in Egypt. ”

“ That the Egyptian women enjoyed a degree of freedom and importance very uncommon in that age of the world, is beyond a doubt. That they were not confined to their own apartments is evident from the fact that Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the river with her maidens to bathe. ”

“ A little embroidery, a few musical toys of Geneva manufacture, a daily drive on the Shubra road, pipes, cigarettes, sweetmeats, jewelry and gossip, fill up the aimless days of most Egyptian ladies of rank. There are, however, some who take an active interest in politics; and in Cairo and Alexandria the opera-boxes of the khedive and the great pashas are nightly occupied by ladies. But it is not by the daily life of the wives of princes and nobles, but by the life of the lesser gentry and upper middle-class, that a domestic system should be judged. ”

“ The story of Cleopatra, the beguiler of Mark Antony, is too well known to need repeating here. The women of Egypt of the Macedonian and Roman periods, let it suffice to say, were a power in the affairs of those marvellous days.
The moral code of the Egyptians, theoretically speaking, was relatively high, though it cannot be said that the women well known in Egyptian history or presented in romance bore an exceptionally elevated character. But the best women of ancient days were not usually those whose names were furthest known or most widely heralded. ”

“ Often she rules with a hand of iron, probably to make up for her own hard life in her younger days, intermixed with an honest desire to preserve and promote the honor and dignity of her house. For the honor, dignity, and aristocracy of a family are often estimated according to the rigor of the seclusion of its women-folk.
Thousands of Egyptian women never step over their own thresholds and many of them never make complaint, only saying, "Oh, you know our men love us very much; that is the reason they imprison us. They do it to protect us." ”

“ In the Egyptian females, the forms of womanhood begin to develop themselves about the ninth or tenth year: at the age of fifteen or sixteen they generally attain their highest degree of perfection. With regard to their complexions, the same remarks apply to them as to the men, with only this difference, that their faces, being generally veiled when they go abroad, are not quite so much tanned as those of the men. ”

“ Many people who know only the outside of Egyptian life, when they hear that the women have jewelry and beautiful dresses and servants to look after every want, say they are happy and contented in their seclusion, but those who visit them in their homes and talk with them in their own language know how they writhe under it, how they weary of the idleness and monotony forced upon them. ”

“ Political women have played a great rôle in Egypt from Hatshepsut and Cleopatra to the Christian wife of Aziz, the princess royal who engineered the downfall of Hakim, and the black mother who dominated Mustansir; and it was a woman who was the first queen of the Mamluks. Sheger-ed-durr ("Tree of Pearls") , widow of Salih, the last reigning Ayyubid of Egypt, was the brain of the army which broke the chivalry of France. ”