Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918: Sexuality, Religion and Work

439 Pages·1992·42.45 MB·English

by  Billie Melman (auth.)

WOMEN'S ORIENTS: ENGLISH WOMEN AND THE
MIDDLE EAST, 1718-1918
Also by Billie Melman
*WOMEN AND THE POPULAR IMAGINATION IN THE
TWENTIES, FLAPPERS AND NYMPHS
*Also published by Macmillan
Women's Orients:
English W olllen and
the Middle East,
1718-1918
Sexuality, Religion and Work
BILLIE MELMAN
M
MACMILLAN
g') Billie Melman 1992
Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 1992
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First published 1992
Published by
MACMILLAN ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
Copy-edited and typeset by Craharne & Crahame Editorial, Brighton
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Melman, Billie, 1952-
Women's orienl~: English Women and the Middle East, 1718-
1918 : Sexuality, religion and work.
1. Western Civilization. Influence of Asian civilization,
history
I. Title
909.09812
ISBN 978-1-349-10159-7 ISBN 978-1-349-10157-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-10157-3
to my parents Glila and Samuel Rosenzweig
Contents
List of Plates xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
List of Figures and Tables XV
Note on Transcription xvi
Preface xvii
Introduction 1
Lady Stanhope's Second Burial 1
Boundaries and Definitions 2
A Note on the Historiography 4
The Scope of Women's Writing 7
A General Map: Women's Travel in the
Mediterranean 8
From the peregrinatio par Christo to Curiositas:
Three Modes of Modem Travel 14
On Method and Structure 18
PART I ORIENTALISM, TRAVEL AND GENDER
1 A Prosopography of Travel, 1763-1914 25
Strategies and Method 25
Mapping the Field: Printed Books, 1763-1914 31
Patterns of Travel and Work 33
Some Eastern Careers: Literary Travellers 48
Working in God's Vineyard: Evangelical Careers 53
PART II THE WOMEN'S HAREM: AUTONOMY,
SEXUALITY AND SOLIDARITY
2 Harem Literature, 1763-1914: Tradition and Innovation 59
Western Images of the Harem 59
Three Literary Authorities: Elements of Contiguity 63
The Criticism on Travellers 73
Vll
Contents
Vlll
3 The Eighteenth-Century Harem (1717-89): Lady
Montagu, Lady Craven and the Genealogy of
Comparative 'Morals' 77
'Noveltie' and Tradition 77
Liberty behind the Veil 85
4 Exorcising Sheherezad: The Victorians and the Harem 99
Changes in Sensibilities 99
Rhetoric and Representation, A Preliminary Note 101
Degrees of Freedom: From 'Liberty' to 'Autonomy' 103
Physiognomy, Character, Dress and Undress 112
'The Eternal or Unsatiating Banquet': Eating, Food
and Table Manners 122
Hygiene and Morality 130
5 The Haremlik as a Bourgeois Home: Autonomy,
Community and Solidarity 137
The Rhetoric of Domesticity: Attitudes to Seclusion,
Polygamy and Concubinage 137
The Private as Public: Organisation of Space in
the Haremlik 148
Women at Work: The Haremlik as a Work-place 159
PART III EVANGELISING THE ORIENT: WOMEN'S
WORK AND THE EVOLUTION OF
EVANGELICAL ETHNOGRAPHY
6 Evangelical Travel and the Evangelical
Construction of Gender 165
7 The Women of Christ Church: Work, Literature and
Community in Nineteenth-Century Jerusalem 175
Women's Work 175
The Women of Christ Church, by Jaffa Gate 179
8 'Domestic Life in Palestine': Evangelical
Ethnography, Faith and Prejudice 191
Some Characteristics 191
Christian and Muslim Women 194
Christian and Jewish Women: 'Mothers' and
'Daughters' 199
Contents ix
9 Feminising the Landscape 210
Reference Texts 210
Evangelical Feminine Geography 218
Ruth and Naomi: Figures in a Landscape 224
PART IV A SECULAR GEOGRAPHY OF THE ORIENT:
AUTHORITY, GENDER AND TRAVEL
10 Harriet Martineau's Anti-Pilgrimage: Autobiography,
History and Landscape 235
Eastern Life and Martineau's Western Life:
the Journey as Bildung 235
'A Useful Auxiliary', the Allegiance to Tradition 239
Ideology and Landscape 243
11 Queen Hatasu's Beard: Amelia Edwards, the
Scientific Journey and the Emergence of the
First Female 'Orientalists' 254
New Careers and New Attitudes: the Birth of
Modem Archaeology 254
The Modem Explorer: Egyptology as Exploration
Queen Hatasu's Beard: Ancient History
and Women's History 264
The Non-Metaphoric Nile Journey 269
12 An 'Orientalist' Couple: Anne Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen
Blunt and the Pilgrimage to Najd 276
Writing Couples, a Preliminary Note 276
The Co-Written Travel Account 279
Authority, Authorship and Censorship 282
The Unromantic Traveller: Representations of
the Desert 287
Ethnography and Empathy: Humanising the
Arabs 296
Conclusion 306
Appendix A: Biographies of Travellers and Travel
Writers 318
X Contents
Appendix B: Evangelical Travel and Work in Mid
Nineteenth-Century Palestine 336
Notes 340
Bibliography 376
Index 398