Although this practice doubtless would not be encouraged by the Daughters of the Revolution or the suffragettes, nevertheless, every one will admit that it has its advantages. I have read the wise comments of a certain Baron Haxthausen, a learned German who spent some time in that country forty or fifty years ago and saw many things to approve. The herr professor must have had some painful matrimonial experience, for he commended this custom as tending to increase the peace of a family as well as conjugal devotion. He is very positive that its adoption in other countries would reduce the business of the divorce courts and promote the peace and happiness of mankind.
"Imagine five or six women living together in the same house, " he says, "and a new member added to the company with the pride and vanity which are usually felt by a bride. Should we not anticipate continued dissension which the authority in the head of the family is unable to prevent? Much unhappiness and quarrelling arise from the use of women's tongues, and what is so certain a cure as silence? It is only in the rarest cases that a bride submits gracefully to the opinion and the authority of her mother-in-law. She usually enters the family with a disposition to assert her independence, and if her freedom of speech is restrained, this cannot be done to an extent that will be offensive. Indeed, I cannot imagine a more wholesome custom than that which restrains the conversational powers of a young woman entering a new family. '*
It must be distinctly understood that the above opinions are in quotation marks, and those who do not agree with them are not compelled to act upon the recommendations. And, notwithstanding these precautions, you will remember that the prison at Rizeh is full of murderers. How many of them are women and how many are brides is not stated.
These people are called Lazis, and this part of Armenia is known as Lazistan. They belong to the Georgian race and came there from Georgia, which lies a little farther along, [west of the Caucasus Mountains, in order to escape persecution from their neighbours because they accepted the Mohammedan faith. It sounds refreshing to hear that a Mohammedan has been persecuted on religious grounds.
It is the first case of the kind I have ever known, and the Lazis showed their good sense by coming over into a Mohammedan country after accepting that religion. And they are said to be very fanatical about it, as converts often are, and will stab a man for a difference of opinion on theology, as soon as cut his throat for his purse. At the same time, they are the most highly skilled gardeners in all the Ottoman Empire and are conspicuous, under ordinary circumstances, for their quiet, orderly behaviour, for their industry, honesty, and fair dealing. We can testify to the last fact, because we always made a bargain with the boatmen who took us ashore from the steamer at every port we stopped, and those at Rizeh are the only ones that did not demand more money than they had agreed to accept.
With all these virtues, they have been known to dodge their religious obligations. During the Mohammedan Lent, which is called Ramazan, every faithful member of that faith is bound to abstain from all kinds of nourishment, stimulants, and pleasures between sunrise and sunset; but the Lazis continue to smoke all day long on the pretext that tobacco was unknown to the prophet Mohammed, and therefore its use could not have been forbidden by him.
And so far as persecution is concerned, they have proven very handy when a massacre has been ordered, and no pious Moslem ever cut the throat of a Christian or burned his home with so much zeal as they have shown on several occasions. Nearly all of the Armenian population has been driven back into the country by the fanatical outbreaks of the Lazis, and the Greeks, who were the original settlers and civilizers of that coast, have been driven across to the Russian side of the Black Sea, where they can worship in their own way without being interfered with. But the whole world will be glad to learn that it is believed that religious persecution is at an end in Armenia. No people have ever suffered so much or have ever shown greater loyalty and tenacity to the faith which they profess.