188 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



one, is but a small set-off to the soul-deadening effects 

 of a system which degrades not one class of women, 

 but the whole sex, and which reacts with fatal effect 

 upon their enslavers, 



Mahomedanism has probably done more than any 

 other religion to retard the progress of mankind ; and 

 that because to polygamy it has added the no less 

 pernicious institution of the veil. In the 24th Sura 

 of the Koran women are enjoined to conceal their 

 charms from all men save their husbands, fathers, 

 sons, nephews, and slaves. No injunction could be 

 more innocent in appearance than this. Yet through- 

 out a quarter of the population of the globe its effect 

 has been to prevent the growth of all that we know 

 by the name of home-life, to destroy the germ of all 

 art, all poetry, all romance, nay, all literature beyond 

 the most primitive. Except among the lowest classes, 

 no Mahomedan sees a woman unveiled outside his 

 harem, not even the wife of his dearest friend, the 

 nearest approach to domestic intercourse of the 

 European kind being that a guest should be regaled 

 at dinner with a dish prepared by the wife of his host 

 with her own hands. It follows that marriages are 

 made without any regard to the disposition of the 

 parties. They are arranged by go-betweens, the 



