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Specimens Of African Love, a non-fiction book by Henry Theophilus Finck |
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Touareg Chivalry |
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_ A guileless reader of Chavanne's book on the Sahara is apt to get the impression that there is, after all, an oasis in the desert of African lovelessness and contempt for women. Touareg women, we are told therein, are allowed to dispose of their hands and to eat with the men, certain dishes being reserved for them, others (including tea and coffee) for the men. In the evening the women assemble and improvise songs while the men sit around in their best attire. The women write mottoes on the men's shields, and the men carve their chosen one's name in the rocks and sing her praises. The situation has been compared to mediaeval chivalry. But when we examine it more critically than the biassed Chavanne did, we find, using his own data, more of Africa than appeared to be there at first sight. The woman, we are informed, owes the husband obedience, and he can divorce her at pleasure. When a woman talks to a man she veils her face "as a sign of respect." And when the men travel, they are accompanied by those of their female slaves who are young and pretty. Their morals are farther characterized by the fact that descent is in the female line, which is usually due to uncertain paternity. The women are ugly and masculine, and Chavanne does not mention a single fact or act which proves that they experience supersensual, altruistic love. So far as the position of Touareg women is superior to that of other Africans, it is due to the fact that slaves are kept to do the hard work and to certain European and Christian influences and the institution of theoretical monogamy. Possibly the germs of a better sort of love may exist among them, as they may among the Bedouins; they must make a beginning somewhere. _ |
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