THE EMANCIPATION OF MOHAMMEDAN WOMEN 



61 



The ferry-boats touch at this landing 

 every few minutes, where a gaunt figure 

 in woman's draperies marches up and 

 down the landing, carrying a club as the 

 sign of her office. Her duty is to mar- 

 shal the women in and out from the 

 women's waiting-room to the cabins of 

 the steamer, for which office she is paid 

 about $20 a month. 



Mohammedan women have also made 

 some progress in legal lines. The courts 

 of Constantinople have always been 

 closed to women as visitors. I know of 

 one foreign woman who tried to visit 

 them, and who was put out gently but 

 firmly from one after another ; yet veiled 

 Mohammedan women were always seen 

 congregating about the courts, and the 

 question naturally arose, "What were 

 they doing there?" Investigation 

 showed that a Mohammedan woman 

 could enter any court, even the criminal, 

 in three different capacities — as a pris- 

 oner, as a witness, or even to plead her 

 own cause. It has not been an unusual 

 thing for clever Mohammedan women, 

 when obliged to go to law over property 

 matters, to carefully study up their own 

 cases. They would consult attorneys 

 beforehand and find out all the legal in- 

 tricacies which might influence their par- 

 ticular case, and afterwards appear in 

 court and plead it with great eloquence. 



There is another profession which 

 Mohammedan women have entered with 

 success, viz., the profession of teaching. 

 Schools for girls have been very ele- 

 mentary and badly organized in the past, 

 yet two grades have existed almost 

 everywhere in the Turkish Empire, with 

 the exception of Hejaz and Yemen. 

 There is one normal school in Constanti- 

 nople, called the "Home of the Lady 

 Teachers," which has sent out annually 

 a class of from sixty to one hundred 

 graduates. The law has for some years 

 required that every teacher should pos- 

 sess a diploma from this normal school. 

 Their salaries have ranged from ten to 

 twenty-five dollars a month, according 

 to the grade of the school. 



It is interesting to note that in en- 

 gaging teachers, or even in accepting 



students for the normal school, no atten- 

 tion is paid to the fact as to whether 

 they are married or not. Marriage does 

 not disqualify a Turkish woman from 

 pursuing any profession ; and there has 

 been one instance at least, and probably 

 many others, where a Turkish woman 

 has taught school and supported her hus- 

 band. 



SOCIAL, FREEDOM FOR THE WOMEN 



Their past experience has been slowly 

 preparing the Turkish women for the 

 larger opportunities that the constitution 

 gives them. On the morning of the 24th 

 of July all classes of the Turkish Em- 

 pire entered into a new life, but the 

 greatest change of all took place in the 

 harems. Women everywhere threw off 

 their veils. A prominent woman in Sa- 

 lonica openly assisted her husband in the 

 political celebration. 



One woman went so far as to have her 

 picture published in a Paris paper. At 

 this the members of the Reactionary 

 Party rose up in common protest and 

 said, "If this is to be the result of free- 

 dom, that our women display their faces 

 to the public with such brazen immod- 

 esty, we do not wish a constitution." 



The Turkish women are true patriots, 

 and when they saw that the question of 

 freedom for women appeared to have 

 such deep significance to the nation, not 

 only from a political and social, but also 

 from a moral point of view, they said 

 with one accord, "Of what consequence 

 is so small a matter as a veil ! We will 

 continue to wear our veils, and will seek 

 the larger opportunities that the new 

 constitution gives us." Turkish women 

 everywhere have accordingly resumed 

 their veils ; but it is a very different 

 thing to wear a veil voluntarily than 

 being obliged to do so, and eventually 

 they will probably appear in the streets 

 without them. 



The moral freedom that the revolu- 

 tion has brought to Turkish women is 

 showing itself in many different lines. 

 The freedom of the press has been of- 

 fered to women. They are writing for 

 the papers openly and without fear of 



