[P.22]Than In Most Eastern Nations With Whom I Am Acquainted.

The Arabs, like the Egyptians, all marry.

Yet, as usual, they are hard and facetious upon that ill-treated subject—matrimony. It has exercised the brain of their wits and sages, who have not failed to indite notable things concerning it. Saith “Harikar al-Hakim” [(]Dominie Do-All) to his nephew Nadan (Sir Witless), whom he would dissuade from taking to himself a wife, “Marriage is joy for a month and sorrow for a life, and the paying of settlements and the breaking of back (i.e. under the load of misery), and the listening to a woman's tongue!” And again we have in verse:—

“They said ‘marry!’ I replied, ‘far be it from me To take to my bosom a sackful of snakes. I am free—why then become a slave? May Allah never bless womankind!’”

And the following lines are generally quoted, as affording a kind of bird’s-eye view of female existence:—

“From 10 (years of age) unto 20, A repose to the eyes of beholders.[FN#35] From 20 unto 30, Still fair and full of flesh. From 30 unto 40, A mother of many boys and girls. From 40 unto 50, An old woman of the deceitful. From 50 unto 60, Slay her with a knife. From 60 unto 70, The curse of Allah upon them, one and all!”

Another popular couplet makes a most unsupported assertion:—

“They declare womankind to be heaven to man, I say, ‘Allah, give me Jahannam, and not this heaven.’”

Yet the fair sex has the laugh on its side, for these railers at Al-Madinah as at other places, invariably marry.

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