What can you expect of the women, if the teachers are thus warped with hypocrisy and falsehood.  They receive you politely.  Dr. De Forest used to say, that there is not a boor in the Druze nation.  But their very politeness confounds you.  The old Druze women are masters of a pious religious phraseology.  “We are all sinners.”  “The Lord’s will be done.”  “Praise to His name.”  “He only can command.”  “The Lord be merciful to us.”  “He orders all things,” and yet they will lie and deceive, and if not of the initiated class, they will swear in the most fearful manner.  The Okkal cannot swear, smoke or drink, but they tell a story of a village where the people were all Okkal, and things having reached a high pitch of excitement, they sent for a body of Jehal or the non-initiated to come over and swear on the subject, that their pure minds might be relieved!  When they talk in the most affectingly pious manner, and really surpass you in religious sentiment, you hardly know what to do.  Tell them God knows the heart.  They reply, “He alone is the All-knowing, the Searcher of the hearts of men.”  You shrink from telling them in plain language that they are hypocrites and liars.  You can tell them of the personal love of a personal Saviour, and this simple story will affect and has affected the minds of some of them more than all logic and eloquent refutation of their foggy and mysterious doctrinal system.

They respect us and treat us politely for political reasons.  During the massacres of 1860, I rode from Abeih to Beirut in the midst of burning villages, and armed bodies of Druzes passed us shouting the war song “Ma hala ya ma hala kotal en Nosara,” “How sweet, oh how sweet, to kill the Christians,” and yet as they passed us they stopped and most politely paid their salams, saying, “Naharkum Saieed,” “May your day be blessed,” “Allah yahtikum el afiyeh,” “God give you health!”

When a Druze Sheikh wishes to marry, he asks consent of the father without having seen the daughter.  If the father consents, he informs her, and if she consents, the suitor sends his affianced presents of clothes and jewelry, which remain in her hands as a pledge of his fidelity.  She is pictured to him as the paragon of beauty and excellence, but he is never allowed to see her, speak to her, or write to her, should she know how to write.  His mother or aunt may see her or bring reports, but he does not see her until the wedding contract is signed and the bride is brought to his house.

The following is the marriage ceremony of the Druzes.  It is read by the Kadi or Sheikh, and in accordance to the Druze doctrine that they must outwardly conform to the religion of the governing power, it is a purely Mohammedan ordinance.