Volume 3

160


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Page 3.160

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Bearded Sheik of a Palestine Village
Bride Invested with Modesty and Bridegroom with Authority

BEARDED SHEIK OF A PALESTINE VILLAGE

BRIDE INVESTED WITH MODESTY AND BRIDEGROOM WITH AUTHORITY

There is a strong Arab element in Palestine, and in the days before the railway the sheiks would often levy tribute from travellers as a protection against robbery — from their own followers — and the perils of the road in general In Palestine the ardours of courtship are often dispensed with. Those with beautiful daughters put them upon the marriage market — at a price; while girls of plain visage must be provided with a dowry by way of compensation, if haply, lacking beauty, they may still appeal to avarice. Here the bridegroom holds a scimitar symbolical of the right to wifely obedience