Show DIVORCE IS TURKEY The Only Formality Is the Return of tIle Brides Dowry Divorce in Turkey Is obtained with a facility which would surprise even our transatlantic cousins As easily as Abraham cast forth Hagar the bondwoman bond-woman and her child so also can the Turk open the door of his harem and send out into the world the woman who no longer pleases him He has but to give her back her dower and personal effects In the upper classes nowever certain legal formalities are gone through and indeed as the lady is usually protected by her parents divorce is comparatively speaking rare There are instances however in Constantinople of ladies in the highest official circles who are not yet very far advanced in years who have been divorced twice thrice and even ten times Among the lower orders divorce di-vorce may be described as a farce Many girls who are not yet twenty years of age have been divorced and remarried a dozen times The surprises of divorce are among the most amusing features of Turkish social life A very great personage second only to the sultan in rank unless un-less indeed it be the Sheik UI Islam married some few years ago when his position was very inferior to what it is at present a highly educated lady of good connection and fortune but according ac-cording to his excellencys version of the story of ungovernable temper Within the year they were divorced and remarried The lady soon found her new husband disagreeable and was once more divorced It must be remembered that if a Turk can divorce his wife she can only divorce him at his pleasure by making herself as unpleasant un-pleasant to him as possible In former times he tied her up in a sack and had her dropped into the Bosphorus Today To-day he divorces her o To return to the lady in question The next time she was heard of toy her friends was as a teacher in the Mohammedan I Mo-hammedan high school for girls at Scutarl A few years back she was selected as governess for the children of the Khediva and is now her highness o high-ness private secretary in which o quality she accompanied her imperial mistress to Constantinople last year and actually found herself seated at a state banquet at Yildiz Kiosk next to the third wife of her first husband hus-band who quietly asked her who she was Tableau The ease with which a divorce can be obtained in Turkey leads to many abuses and creates a state of affairs not unlike our prostitution prosti-tution Fortnightly Review |