on the imagination of the Indian woman I met in Delhi some years ago who said she would have liked nothing more than to be one of the harem of the Emperor Akbar. This woman was not a Muslim, had no idea of a harem, and even with her folly would have been dismayed to find that the harem of an African ruler (no doubt in this woman’s mind some notches down from the real thing) was in the main a place of homeless derelicts—slaves and concubines (many of them gifts from other African rulers), discarded older wives, eunuchs (bought from Egypt)—people who had outlived their usefulness, had no talent, no family, no outside life.
Old age and idleness gave them the freedom to go outside (the eunuchs always in their uniform), and they used this limited freedom to do little errands in the town for people in the harem. Apart from this there was nothing for them to do. They were waiting now only for death, were fed like dogs, and slept on the floor of the harem in such corners as they could find.
This was the picture that was given me later, by a woman whose mother had spent some unhappy years in the harem of a small northern Nigerian chief.
Polygamy, the way of life of the harem, had its own rules. The most important of these was the separation of women from their children. This happened when the children were born. The children were given out to other women and were brought to the natural mother only to be fed or suckled. While this was happening the natural mother covered her face with a cloth; the child was not to get to know her or think of her as a source of special affection. When a child was six or seven it could be told who its natural mother was. That caused no disturbance; the child did not lose its affection for its foster mother.
These complicated rules—like a little religion within the larger religion—were intended to break down any idea of the “nuclear” family and to inculcate the idea of a broader family unit within the walled harem. Polygamy as the sound Islamic way had its champions and theoreticians, and they could be well educated. For these people the nuclear-family idea was the origin of the selfishness and breakdown of other societies.
Laila was the romantic name of this woman’s mother. And perhaps it was one of the things that had helped to give her some idea of the life she wanted for herself. She had grown up with television; she read the Mills and Boon novels, and believed in love. Her family were big landowners, rich enough and secure enough to have some idea of the modern world. They had sent Laila to a convent school in the cool plateau of Jos for a couple of years. There she caught the eye of the ruler or caught the eye of one of his matchmakers. Her family were delighted, and so was Laila. She knew, of course, that Muslim men could have four wives, and a ruler any number of concubines. But her education, her secure family background, and her imagination had made her believe that when she married she would enter the realm of love and somehow be exempt from the common destiny of women around her.
She became pregnant. She had a daughter. She called the little girl Mona. They, the ruler’s court, wanted to take the child away and give it to a foster mother. She refused, and her passion was so great that the court, fearing that she might do something to her child, let the matter drop. One of her servants brought back the story that some people were calling her the white woman. She thought this funny, and it seemed to her that she had won. But what she next heard wasn’t funny at all. She heard that her husband was paying betrothal visits to the parents of the young girl whom he wanted to make his second wife—visits just like those he had made to Laila’s parents.
Laila felt herself sinking. Her husband tried to calm her; he told her that nothing would change the love he felt for her. This other marriage was something he had to do as an Islamic ruler; it was expected of him. His father had about thirty children. He couldn’t be more precise about the number of children because it was unlucky for a man to count his