The worst feature of their system is the forced celibacy of
their daughters; they are never married into any but Sharif families;
consequently they often die in spinsterhood.
The effects of this custom
are most pernicious, for though celibacy exists in the East it is by no
means synonymous with chastity. Here it springs from a morbid sense of
honour, and arose, it is popularly said, from an affront taken by a
Sharif against his daughter’s husband. But all Arabs condemn the practice.
[FN#7] I use this word as popular abuse has fixed it. Every Orientalist
knows that Badawin (Bedouin) is the plural form of Badawi, an “ism
al-nisbah,” or adjective derived from Badu, a Desert. “Some words
notoriously corrupt,” says Gibbon, “are fixed, and as it were naturalised,
in the vulgar tongue.” The word “Badawi” is not insulting, like “Turk” applied to
an Osmanli, or “Fellah” to the Egyptian. But you affront the wild man by
mistaking his clan for a lower one. “Ya Hitaymi,” for instance, addressed
to a Harb Badawi, makes him finger his dagger.
[FN#8] This coarseness is not a little increased by a truly Badawi
habit of washing the locks with—[Arabic]. It is not considered wholly
impure, and is also used for the eyes, upon which its ammonia would act
as a rude stimulant. The only cosmetic is clarified butter freely
applied to the body as well as to the hair.
[FN#9] “Kurun” ([Arabic]) properly means “horns.” The Sharifs generally wear
their hair in “Haffah” ([Arabic]), long locks hanging down both sides of
the neck and shaved away about a finger’s breadth round the forehead and
behind the neck.
[FN#10] This traveller describes the modern Mesopotamian and Northern
race, which, as its bushy beard—unusual feature in pure Arab blood—denotes,
is mixed with central Asian.
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