He then returns to the grand reception-room, takes his seat at the head of the divan amid the throng of Sheikhs and other invited guests.  He maintains an imperturbable silence, his mind being supposed to be absorbed by one engrossing object.  It may be delight.  It may be bitter disappointment.  It is generally past midnight when the party breaks up and the family retires.

A plurality of wives is absolutely forbidden.  If a Druze wishes to divorce his wife, he has merely to say, “You had better go back to your father,” or she, the woman, wishes to leave her husband, she says, “I wish to go back to my father,” and if her husband says, “Very well, go,” the divorce in either case holds good, and the separation is irrevocable.  Both parties are free to re-marry.  Childlessness is a common cause of divorce.

The birth of a son is the occasion of great rejoicing and presents to the family.  But the birth of a daughter is considered a misfortune, and of course not the slightest notice is taken of so inauspicious an event.  This holds true among all the sects and peoples of Syria, and nothing but a Christian training and the inculcation of the pure principles of gospel morality can remove this deeply seated prejudice.  The people say the reason of their dislike of daughters is that while a son builds up the house, and brings in a wife from without and perpetuates the family name, the daughter pulls down the house, loses her name, and is lost to the family.

The wealthier and more aristocratic Druze sitts or ladies are taught to read by the Fakih or teacher, but the masses of the women are in brutish ignorance.  You enter a Druze house.  The woman waits upon you and brings coffee, but you see only one eye, the rest of the head and face being closely veiled.  In an aristocratic house, you would never be allowed to see the lady, and if she goes abroad, it is only at night, and with attendants on every side to keep off the profane gaze of strangers.  If a physician is called to attend a sick Druze woman, he cannot see her face nor her tongue, unless she choose to thrust it through a hole in her veil.  In many cases they suffer a woman to die sooner than have her face seen by a physician.

The Druzes marry but one wife at a time, and yet divorce is so common and so heartlessly practiced by the men, that the poor women live in constant fear of being driven from their homes.

In Abeih, we were startled one evening by the cry “Rouse ye men of self respect!  Come and help us!” It was a dark, rainy night, and the earthen roof of a Druze house had fallen in, burying a young man, his wife and his mother, under the mass of earth, stones and timber.  They all escaped death, but were seriously injured, the poor young wife suffering the most of all, having fallen with her left arm in a bed of burning coals, and having been compelled to lie there half an hour, so that when dug out, her hand was burned to a cinder!  For several days the husband refused to send for a doctor, but at length his wife Hala was sent to the College Hospital (of the Prussian Knights of St. John) in Beirut where Dr. Post amputated the hand below the elbow.