Algeria from Within/Chapter 12

By bracketing these two subjects together I do not wish it to be supposed that in Algeria the two are synonymous, though curiously enough there is none of that sordid atmosphere which is associated with women of easy morals in Europe. It is generally believed that the Arab man is a brute who uses women only for his pleasure, and that the Arab woman is a piece of furniture and accepts the situation. It is another legend.

There are few men in the world who are such ardent lovers as the Arabs, and few women who know as well the art of holding a man and making him dance to her tune. The Arab goes quite mad when he is in love, and forsakes his home and his people to lead the life of a lone savage. In the meanwhile the object of his adoration is laughing at him coldly, without the smallest emotion and without any encouragement. The lover can continue performing the utmost follies—the woman won't flinch if she doesn’t love him.

The moment she does it is quite a different matter. Her love dominates all, and she becomes the adorer of her man. And yet in the midst of all this adoration. her woman’s instinct never leaves her, and if she feels that the man is taking her as a habit she just slips off and leaves him to wonder if he is standing on his head or on his heels. Many succeed by this method in keeping their husbands for ever. If a man has a mistress ​she will in no way mix up in his family life, but at the same time she will be respected by him and by his friends as if she were his wife, provided she remains shut up. Generally speaking, however, this is rare, and a man's mistress either lives in the reserved quarter or keeps open house at her lover's expense. Under these circumstances, though she may have a few women friends, they are not of the best class, and even the men who visit her house will only do so under cover of darkness.

The reader will at once ask:

"With polygamy, why is there any necessity for mistresses?"

I suppose it is the spirit of adventure, the desire for forbidden fruit, which characterizes all intrigues of this kind, but it is also the attitude of the woman who does not want to bind herself and prefers her free life until the day she is too old to enjoy it. Arab women are very capricious, and they love to have the man dancing attendance on them, bringing them presents, and never really the master of his own reason.

This atmosphere can only be created in an irregular situation, for once she is his wife she has certain obligations and his authority counts. Arab women are more than capricious, they are heartless as long as they do not love. Certain European women are too, but never to the extent of the Arabs. They will keep some infatuated man hanging about them with just the hope of favors for months, even for years. If they see that he is taking a pull at himself they will give him just sufficient encouragement to haul him back, and then drop him again into the depths of despair. And if the poor chap goes mad or ruins himself it is treated as a triumph—another conquest.

But once in love the Arab woman is quite a ​different being, and her devotion is without end. I have known a woman who had riches, houses, position, adulation by men of note, everything a lovely woman could desire, give up everything she had for a man she loved and live with him in a state of complete poverty, with just enough but no more. Before that man came into her life all were fair play to her, and her moral scruples did not exist. After she had met that man all the millions in the world would not take her from his side.

Women all the world through are capricious, and swayed by their whims, and it is by these traits that the skilful ones cause men to make fools of themselves. The art is dying out in England, and is on the wane in France, but in Algeria it is at its height, and sorry is the lot of the unwary one who inadvertently falls in love with an Arab girl who does not return his love.

Though the same characteristics apply to the women of the reserved quarter, it is not quite the same thing.

First of all, a few words about this part of the Arab town. It is, of course, a creation of the French, as it is against all the laws of the Koran for a man to live with any woman who is not married to him legally or who is not a recognized concubine. In fact, it is to avoid this that polygamy was instituted. However, with the French conquest French civilization had to come too, and the Quartier was created, primarily for the troops.

It is usually walled in, and entered by a single door which is guarded by a sentry. Inside there is quite a little city—shops, cafés, miniature squares, where the dancing takes place in the summer. The women have their little apartments, where they receive their friends to drink tea and give little dinner parties. It ​is an atmosphere of frank gaiety quite impossible to realize without seeing it. Some of them have their babies with them, others live with their mothers. The majority of the inmates are of the tribe of the Ouled Naïl, but there are, of course, many girls from the local tribes too, the great difference being that those who come from the Ouled Naïl are not in any way lowering their prestige by living this life. They have come with the full consent of their parents, and one day they may leave and honorably marry. It depends a great deal on the dowry. In the old days the girls always tried to collect gold pieces, which they strung into necklaces, and one saw a woman all dressed up and her neck weighed down with hundred-franc and twenty-franc pieces. Now that gold is no longer current in France the women convert all the notes they have into bits of gold, which they have beaten into bracelets and earrings and tiaras. Some of them manage to buy hoarded collections of gold pieces to make into necklaces, while others have inherited them from their mothers.

However, the main point is to have the dowry in gold actually on the person, so that there is no danger of its depreciating in value, and when the girls leave the quarter to go to some private party in order to dance, they are accompanied by a constable and by a soldier with a rifle. The result of this system of buying gold has, of course, made the girls very rich. Paper currency has depreciated, so that a hundred-franc piece sells for a high price, and the money, though not fructifying in actual interest, is a capital ever increasing in value.

Of course these jewels are not common only to the girls of the Quarter; all Arab women strive to have as much jewelry as possible, but naturally they have other expenses to consider, whereas a girl of the

​

An Arab Type

Arab Women Veiled

​Quarter invests all she has in jewels, and keeps only a small proportion of her earnings to buy her frocks.

The frocks of the Arab women of all classes are the same, and they are disappointing. In fact, they are almost grotesque, and do not in the least show off the wearer to her advantage. For daily use they employ calico or print, tied round the waist with a ribbon, while on the head there is a colored scarf. When they are all dressed up for a party their outer garment is of silk or of taffeta, sometimes of velvet, sewed about with ribbons and embroidery, and of all shades of brilliant colors. The hair is long and smeared in unguents, and plaited round the head, about which they wear two scarfs bound one above the other, also of very striking hues. Those who have golden tiaras fix them in front of the scarf head-dress, with golden chains hanging down from the sides, passing under the chin and up the other side. Round the neck are the necklaces of gold pieces, in the center of the breast a round golden brooch, and about the waist a silver or golden belt. Their arms are covered with bracelets, which are rarely beautiful because they are too heavy; the same apples to the anklets. What strikes one first as a jarring contrast are the feet.

In the first place, Arab women's ankles are rather thick, but, instead of wearing attractive Arab slippers associated with the illustrations of the Arabian Nights, they buy themselves cheap French shoes and encase their fat legs in cotton or woolen stockings, which have no connection at all with the color-scheme of the dress. They also spoil their figures by wearing layers of coarse underclothing. A group of Arab girls a few yards away, about to dance, is a picturesque spectacle, but their individual appearance in those gaudy clothes is not attractive. And yet some of the girls when young are lovely, their big black eyes especially, and ​their mouths full of fun and inconsequent gaiety. With the exception of the hair they keep themselves clean, and they attend the Turkish bath regularly. It is most amusing to stroll into the cafés of the Quarter at night and sit down on one of the benches among the Arabs under the flickering light of the oil-lamp or the hiss of the acetylene, and watch the girls in their semi-party dresses dancing slowly up and down the center. The raita squeals and the tam-tam beats in regular cadence while the dance proceeds.

There are all kinds of different steps and figures, and though the danse du ventre, which is a hideous muscular distortion of the abdomen, is always carried through, there are many other dances which are pleasing to the eye, and the movements of the hands remind one of the wings of a butterfly. Moreover, simple as these dances may seem, there is a tremendous amount of technique about them, and the poise of the body, and the movements of the feet, quite apart from the hands, take long years to learn. A little girl will begin her apprenticeship at the age of twelve, and at seventeen she will be proficient. Some of the dancers become famous, and are as well known among the Arabs as European stars.

There are also some Arab women who sing and play the mandolin. Their voices are, on the whole, rather harsh, except in the sad ballads of the South, which drone out into the plaintive notes so hard to copy.

Since the introduction of the gramophone into Arab life the girls who are known to be appreciated are paid large sums to make records, and the result is deplorable, as the harshness of the voice is only accentuated by the needle.

The saddest part about Arab women is the rapidity with which they grow old, or, rather, mature. They ​ attain the status of womanhood between the ages of twelve and fourteen, and between fifteen and twenty they are at their best. After that they suddenly seem to fade, and all at once look near to thirty-five. But there it stops, and they don’t get any older for ten or fifteen years; then another sudden leap forward and a woman of fifty is a wrinkled old lady. Such is the Arab woman of to-day, and such she will remain until civilization finds its way in and destroys all the good traditions of the past. The task will be a hard one, but the action of Mustapha Kemal in Turkey, though it has probably shocked the Arabs, has given them much to think about. However, for the time being the life goes on as it has done for the past twelve hundred years, and long may it do so.

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