POLYGAMY 189 



cardinal point of the negotiation being the dowry. 

 If this is settled, the rest follows as a matter of course. 

 Parents give their daughters in marriage without their 

 consent, and the " husband can scarcely ever obtain 

 even a surreptitious glance at the features of his 

 bride until he finds her in his absolute possession."^ 

 Divorce being optional, the dowry is the Moslem 

 wife's sole guarantee of the stability of the marriage, 

 since she is entitled to take away with her from her 

 husband's house whatever property she may have 

 brought into it. A widow or a divorced woman 

 enters into a new engagement without any ceremony 

 at all. 



For economical reasons a man may not be able to 

 keep more than one wife, but the laxity of the relation is 

 such that he can change her almost every month. It 

 is a common experience in Mahomedan countries to 

 meet men who in the course of ten years have married 

 as many as twenty or thirty women, and women not 

 far advanced in life who have been wives to a dozen 

 or more men successively.^ The lower classes neces- 

 sarily dispense with many of the formalities observed 

 by their betters ; but among them also marriages are 

 viewed as a matter of business, good-looking girls 



^ Lane's Modern Egyptians. ^ Ibid. 



