the Arabs had previously recognised, though true, is immaterial. For, in the first place, he restricted polygamy indeed in others, but not in his own case; and thus left upon the minds of his followers the inevitable impression that an unrestricted polygamy was the higher state of the two. In the second place, while he restricted the number of lawful wives, he did not restrict the number of slave-concubines. In the third place, his restriction was practically of little value, because very few men could afford to keep more than four wives. And, lastly, as to the principle, he left it precisely where it was, for as Mr. Freeman justly observes: This is one of the cases in which the first step is everything. The difference between one wife and two is everything; that between four and and five thousand is comparatively nothing."

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And if the principle be defended as at least relatively good, nothing is to be urged against this as matter of fact; although the circumstance has been overlooked, that already very many thousands of Christian Arabs had found it quite possible to live in monogamy. But that polygamy is not incompatible with a sound, if not perfectly developed, morality, and with the highest tone of feeling, no one who has read 1 Lectures, p. 69.

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the history of Israel will be disposed to deny. That it may suit a race in a certain stage of its development, and may in that stage lead to purer living and surer moral growth than its prohibition would, may be granted. But necessarily the religion which incorporates in its code of morals such allowances, stamps itself as something short of the final religion.

But the allowance of polygamy is by no means so destructive of social progress as the facility of divorce allowed by Mohammedan law. Syed Ameer Ali informs us that in India "ninety-five Moslems out of every hundred are perfect monogamists;" that "plurality of wives has come to be regarded as an evil, and as something opposed to the teaching of the Prophet;" but the principle of monogamy requires, not only that a man should have but one wife at a time, but that marriage be indissoluble save by death or infidelity. It is nothing to the purpose to aver that such and such a proportion of Mohammedans have actually only one wife, if their law allows them to change that wife as often as they please; and if, in point of fact, they largely avail themselves of that liberty. Lane tells us that polygamy is exceptional in Egypt, but he adds that "there are certainly not many persons in Cairo who have not diSyed Ali's Crit. Exam. pp. 227 and 246.

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vorced one wife if they have been long married," and that there are many who in the course of ten years have married as many as twenty, thirty, or more wives." No doubt this is not considered respectable, and no honourable man would so indulge his caprice; but, unfortunately, the law is made, not for the honourable, but for the dishonourable, and the law allows divorce on the easiest of terms. It is a principle of Mohammedan law that "a husband may divorce. his wife without any misbehaviour on her part, or without assigning any cause." The husband has only to say, "I divorce thee," or "thou art divorced; "3 and without any legal procedure or appearance in a court of law, the wife is no longer a wife; whereas the woman can only divorce her husband before a court of law, and by proving ill-treatment or other reasonable ground.

Mohammed himself probably intended to improve the position of women. Possibly, like Milton, he doubted not "but with one gentle stroking to wipe away ten thousand tears out

1 Lane's Modern Egypt. i. 227, 231. Burckhardt (Notes on Bedouins, i. 110) says: "Most Arabs are contented with a single wife, but for this monogamy they make amends by indulging in variety."

2 Tagore Law Lectures for 1873, p. 389.

3. Or any one of twenty other expressions which may be found in the Hidaya, or in the Tagore Law Lectures.

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of the life of man." There is no reason to disbelieve the traditions which represent him as expressing indignation at men who dismissed their wives for slight offences. He himself, although on one occasion he might almost have been expected to use his legal right of divorce, did not do so. And there is a look of genuineness about the saying attributed to him: "God has not created anything on earth which He likes better than the emancipating of slaves, nor has He created anything which He dislikes more than divorce." And in accordance with this feeling he did lay on the license of his followers certain restrictions, which have, however, proved altogether insufficient to make the law anything else than a mere abomination. The first restriction was to the effect that divorce was revocable until it had been pronounced three times. "Three successive declarations at a month's interval were necessary

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Quoted from the Mishkat by Syed Ali, p. 239. Syed Ahmed (p. 14 of Essay on question whether Islam has been beneficial) says: Our Prophet constantly pointed out to his followers how opposed divorce was to the best interests of society; he always expatiated on the evils which flowed from it, and ever exhorted his disciples to treat women with respect and kindness, and to bear patiently their violence and ill-temper; and he always spoke of those who availed themselves of divorce in a severe and disparaging manner."

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in order to make it irrevocable." This was.

intended to protect women, not to say the husbands themselves, against the consequences of an ill-considered, passionate utterance of the fatal words. But it is notorious that all the benefit of this restriction is cancelled by Mohammedan law, which considers that the treble divorce uttered in one breath is as irrevocable as when it is uttered at three distinct times.2 The second feature of the law of divorce which is claimed by Mohammedan apologists as a restriction, is the provision that when a woman has been irrevocably divorced she cannot ever be taken back by her husband, unless in the meantime she has been married to another man. The Mosaic law pronounced this to be “abomination before the Lord."3 And it is possible that Mohammed, knowing how abhorrent it is to the Oriental that his wife be even seen by another man, considered that by issuing this enactment he was availing himself of the strongest possible deterrent from divorce. If so, he miscalculated the effect of his law, which has in point of fact degraded Moslem women to a deplorable extent. The third restriction is

Sedillot, quoted by Syed Ali; see also Mill's History of Muhammedanism, p. 341.

2 See the Hidayah or Tagore Law Lectures as above. 3 Deut. xxiv. 24.

4 See Lane's Modern Egypt. i. 230; and the Arabic