586 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



I learned from him that the Bedouins of Yemen have 

 various traditional usages which they know to be in 

 consistent with Mohammedan orthodoxy, and are there 

 fore careful to conceal from the Turks. But there is 

 one custom among the Aseer which, shocking as it appears 

 to outsiders, is openly avowed and defended from the 

 Koran. The Aseer Arabs are accustomed to contract 

 marriages of a temporary character by verbal agreement. 

 The so-called marriage may endure but a day. It is, in 

 fact, no more than a nominal contract to avoid the name 

 of immorality. With this it naturally goes that no 

 weight is laid on the chastity of unmarried women. A 

 man who contracts such a temporary marriage as I have 

 described may already have a regular wife. In that 

 case, he visits the new wife in her own home instead of 

 bringing her to the house where a mistress is already 

 installed. The Waly tells me further that not only in 

 Yemen, but among some of the tribes of the Syrian 

 desert, the wife claims the right to leave her husband 

 at will and take another spouse, and also that it is a 

 recognised practice for husbands among some of the 

 latter tribes he specially named the Aneze for hus 

 bands to make an exchange of wives. All these are 

 obvious remains of early polyandria, and confirm the 

 observation that the introduction of Islam was marked 

 by great social reforms, of which we know but little, but 

 which, in all probability, were at least as momentous as 

 the innovations in religion which are generally regarded 

 as forming the essence of Mohammedanism. I find, 

 on turning up the traditions of the Prophet in Bokhary 

 and Mowatta, that the system of temporary marriages 

 which still lingers among the Aseer was well known in 

 Mohammed s time, and abolished by him after consider 

 able hesitation. There seems to have been a good deal 

 of discussion on the subject even after the Prophet s 

 death, as at one time he had conceded the practice to 

 his followers. 



