CIRCASSIAN WOMEN. 
143 
The women, who are so often the only spoil sought after by 
the marauding tribes about Circassia, are brought up in simple 
and domestic habits by their mothers ; a mode of education that 
must make the act of being torn from their parents and country 
doubly distressing to the youthful victims. They are taught by 
their mothers, not merely the use of the needle in decorative 
works, but to make their own clothes, and those of the men of 
their family. Soon after a female infant is born, her waist is en¬ 
circled by a leathern bandage, sewn tight, and which only gives 
way afterwards to the natural growth of the child. It is then 
replaced by another ; and so on, till the shape is completely 
formed, according to the taste of the country. The first night of 
her nuptials, the husband cuts the cincture with his poignard ; a 
custom something dangerous, and certainly terrific, to the blush¬ 
ing bride. After marriage the women are kept very close, not 
even their husbands’ own relations being suffered to visit them ; 
but, what seems an extraordinary inconsistency, a man has no 
objection to allow that privilege to a stranger, whom he permits 
to enter the sacred precincts of his home, without himself to be 
a guard over its decorum. For it is a rule with the Circassians, 
never to be seen by a third person in the presence of their wives ; 
and they observe it strictly to their latest years. 
On the morning of the celebration of a marriage, the bride 
presents her intended husband with a coat of mail, helmet, and 
all other articles necessary to a full equipment for war. Her 
father, on the same day, gives her a small portion of her dowry ; 
while he, at the same time, receives from his son-in-law an ex¬ 
change of genealogies; a punctilio, on which they all pique 
themselves with as great a nicety, as on any point of personal 
honour; every man being more or less esteemed, according to 
