[Sidenote: Yet the veil necessary under existing circumstances.] At the same time I am not prepared to say that in view of the laxity of the conjugal relations inherent in the institutions of Islam some such social check as that of the veil (apart from the power to confine and castigate) is not needed for the repression of license and the maintenance of outward decency. There is too much reason to apprehend that free social intercourse might otherwise be dangerous to morality under the code of Mohammed, and with the example before men and women of the early worthies of Islam. So long as the sentiments and habits of the Moslem world remain as they are some remedial or preventive measure of the kind seems indispensable. But the peculiarity of the Mussulman polity, as we have seen, is such that the sexual laws and institutions which call for restrictions of the kind as founded on the Koran are incapable of change; they must co-exist with the faith itself, and last while it lasts. So long, then, as this polity prevails the depression of woman, as well as her exclusion from the social circle, must injure the health and vitality of the body politic, impair its purity and grace, paralyze vigor, retard progress in the direction of freedom, philanthropy, and moral elevation, and generally perpetuate the normal state of Mohammedan peoples, as one of semi-barbarism.
[Sidenote: Recapitulation.] _First._ That Islam was propagated mainly by the sword. With the tide of conquest the religion went forward; where conquest was arrested made no advance beyond; and at the withdrawal of the Moslem arms the faith also commonly retired.
_Second._ The inducements, whether material or spiritual, to embrace Islam have proved insufficient of themselves (speaking broadly) to spread the faith, in the absence of the sword, and without the influence of the political or secular arm.
_Third._ The ordinances of Islam, those especially having respect to the female sex, have induced an inherent weakness, which depresses the social system and retards its progress.
[Sidenote: Contrast with Christianity.] If the reader should have followed me in the argument by which these conclusions have been reached the contrast with the Christian faith has no doubt been suggesting itself at each successive step.