The Caliph Omar said that "women are worthless creatures and soil men's reputations." In Sura iv.

it is written: "Men are superior to women, on account of the qualities With which God has gifted the one above the other, And on account of the outlay they make, from their substance for them.
Virtuous women are obedient....
But chide those for whose refractoriness Ye have cause to fear ...

_and scourge them_." The interpretation of this last injunction being left to the individual believer, it is carried out with terrible severity.

The scourging and beating of wives is one of the worst features of Moslem domestic life.
It is a degraded and degrading practice, and having the sanction of the Koran, will be indulged in without rebuke as long as Islamism as a system and a faith prevails in the world.

Happily for the poor women, the husbands do not generally beat them so as to imperil their lives, in case their own relatives reside in the vicinity, lest the excruciating screams of the suffering should reach the ears of her parents and bring the husband into disgrace.