the husband must resign himself to it, or repudiate the glutton.[1]
The husband owes, besides, to his wife or wives water to drink, water for ablutions and purifications, oil to eat, oil to burn, oil for cosmetic unctions, wood for cooking and for the oven, salt, vinegar, meat every other day or otherwise, according to the custom in various countries. He must supply them with a mat or a bed—that is to say, a mattress—and a cover to put on the mat. These duties have correlative rights. The husband has the right to forbid his wife to eat garlic, or to eat or drink any other thing which may leave a disagreeable odour. He may interdict any occupation likely to weaken her, or impair her beauty.[2] Finally, if she refuses her conjugal obligations without reasonable motives, the husband can at will deprive her of salt, pepper, vinegar, etc.[3] The sum total of these restrictions renders an Arab woman's position a very subordinate one, both before and after marriage. But the fate of the Kabyle woman is much more miserable.
We are always hearing it repeated in France that the Kabyle man is monogamous, and consequently not so different from ourselves in this respect as the Arab; but among the Kabyles, as among the Arabs, it is polygamy which is legal; and if the greater number of the Kabyles are monogamous in practice, it is chiefly from economy.
In spite of their republican customs, of their respect for individual liberty, of the rights they accord to the mother, and of certain safeguards with which they protect the women in time of war, contrary also to the liberal tendencies of the Berbers in relation to women, the Kabyles of Algeria treat their married women and their daughters as actual slaves, and they are in this respect inferior to the Arabs themselves.[4] In all matters that refer to sexual relations the Kabyle customs are ferocious. Outside of marriage all union of the sexes is severely interdicted in Kabyle, and the married woman has no personality; she is literally a thing possessed.[5]
