'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎237v] (479/862)

350 PEOPLE
summer nights. At Basra the local style of house with outside
windows and balconies above ground-level makes a pleasant
habitation. . .
The extent to which the Moslem way of life has been europeanized
varies greatly between the large and the small towns. Even in
Baghdad where European influences are strongest they do not yet
predominate even in externals such as dress or food. But a semi-
European style of serving meals is common, as are European beds,
tables, and chairs. Khans are being rebuilt as hotels, and an interest
is being taken in outdoor games and physical training; in northern
Iraq a native form of hockey is played, and even football is coming
into fashion in the villages of the Mosul plain.
There is great enthusiasm among the young Baghdadi effendis for
everything modern, from aircraft to high schools and typewriters.
But the influence of the family is very strong against innovation, and
particularly against the education of women. The veiling and
seclusion of women are almost universal in towns, and the school
mistress or typist with bobbed hair and modern dress is a great
rarity, and needs much strength of character to maintain herself.
Women do not object to this seclusion, which is a sign of the respect
felt for them by their husbands or parents. The strongest influence
retarding the modernization of Iraq is this family influence. The
individual dares not rebel against his family, and the family will not
put into practice the excellent reforms of ordinary life in matters of
sanitation and cleanliness which are constantly being urged in the
Parliament and the coffee-houses. The tradition that it is the duty
of the man who secures office or power to use it for the advancement
of his own relations is equally pernicious. Another feature of effendi
life is persistent indebtedness. The debt laws play into the usurers
hands by enabling them to recover from the income of their debtors.
Hence most young officials, who incur debts first from the extrava
gance forced upon them by family tradition at the time of their
marriage, are never allowed by the usurers to escape from it. It is
probable that in another generation these conservative influences will
have been greatly weakened, and great changes may take place in the
social life of at least Baghdad.
In the smaller towns there is no great difference between town and
country way of life in material things, except for the greater wealth
of the town population and its higher standard of living. There is
more vice and drunkenness in towns than is ever found in t e
countryside, but the Kurdish towns are much stricter than the Arab