Evening Capital

The Women of Arabia.

A letter from Arabia says: All the bravest men steal their wives, but there are some who do not. Their method is a little different. Of a calm moonlight night—and a moonlight in the tropics is far more beautiful than here—you may see an Arab sitting before the tent of his inamorata picking a stringed instrument something like our banjo and singing a song of his own composition. This is his courtship. They are the most musical people in the world. The courtship only lasts a week or two. If the girl is obstinate he goes elsewhere and seeks to win another girl by his songs and music. Sometimes the fathers make the match, but always the girl is the obedient slave. Her religion, her people, her national instincts, the traditions of her ancestors, all teach her to be the slave of her husband. The power of life and death is in his hands, and she bows before his opinions with the most implicit obedience. It is only when the fair-faced Frank comes, with his glib talk of woman's highest duties and grander sphere, with his winning manner, with his marked respect, so flattering to a woman's soul, that she leaves her husband, forsakes the teachings of her childhood, gives up home and friends, and risks death itself to repose in his arms.