Freedom for Women

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Dec 23, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 21.

Freedom for Women.

Thus set free from austere and absurd restrictions, the joy of these veiled women of the East knows no bounds. In open carriages, with their long concealed faces open to the pure air and sunlight of freedom, they ride through the principal thoroughfares of Constantinople, with large, red ribbons upon their breasts, bearing the inscription, 'Long live Liberty, Justice, and the Constitution.'

One despatch says that the women claim 'equality of rights between men and women,' and that they are organizing a society to attain this end, believing that the constitution will secure to them a broader field of action and usefulness. A correspondent writes from Constantinople:

'The Ottoman women are such enthusiastic constitutionists that if necessity required, they seemingly would themselves defend the constitution from attack by its enemies. The terrible seclusion of the harem has come to an end. For them there has begun the beautiful life of which they have dreamed for ages while shut up behind their enclosures, the life which affords the privilege of walking about freely with the hated veil removed and the face uncovered, the life of the theater, the life of society, of the ball, of the afternoon social. They now look you in the face. They do not drop their eyes to earth on meeting another than the lord of the harem. As I passed up the palace approaches, from which the public have been excluded for ages, I saw inmates of the harem, with white hands, fair, uncovered faces, and sparkling, black eyes, gazing with curiosity and amazement upon the multitudes that surged along to and from the palace. I met some on the street, who fearlessly greeted Christians as they passed by, which, if they had dared do in days gone by, they would have been adjudged guilty of treason.'

It is announced from Constantinople that the sultan has abolished the custom of adding a maiden to his harem at the yearly anniversary of Mohammed's Annunciation, as not being required by the Koran.

So another dark corner of earth is being opened to the bright healing rays of liberty. Shall we not hope that in hopeless Turkey there may be enjoyed, at least for a little season, the priceless blessings of freedom, and that the winds of war may be stayed a little longer, until the matchless opportunities of eternal life through Christ may be set before those who have so long sat in darkness and in the shadow of death?