In the Arab tradition, imitated by other Muslim cultures, the harîm حريم (cf. haram) is the part of the household forbidden to male strangers.
In Western languages such as English, this term refers collectively to the wives in a polygynous household as well as the "no-males allowed" area, or in more modern usage to a number of women followers or admirers of a man.
Word history
The word has been recorded in the English language since 1634, via the Turkish harem, from the Arabic haram (wives and concubines), originally entailing "women's quarters," literally: "something forbidden or kept safe," from the root harama: "he guarded, forbade." The triconsonantal h-r-m is common to Arabic words entailing forbidden.
History
Contrary to the common belief, a harem is not necessarily a part of a palace and its inhabitants do not necessarily consist solely of women with whom the head of the household has a sexual relation (a maximum of four wives, staff and sometimes concubines).
For example the Ottoman harem, the harem of the Turkish Great Sultan's Topkapi seraglio (closed palace) in the imperial capital Istanbul, typically housed several hundred women including wives (only four could be legal under Islam), the sultan's mother, daughters and other female relatives, as well as eunuchs and slave girls to serve the aforementioned women. During the later periods, the sons of the Sultan also lived in the Harem until they were sixteen, when it might be considered appropriate for them to appear in the public and administrative areas of the palace. The Topkapi Harem was, in some senses, merely the private living quarters of the Sultan and his family, within the palace complex.
Harems existed in Ancient Persia as early as the Achaemenid dynasty and lasted well into the Qajar dynasty. The women of the royal harem played important though underreported roles in Iranian history, especially during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution.
Harem is also the usual English translation of the Chinese language term hougong, 後宮—literally meaning "the palaces behind." Hougong are large palaces for the Chinese emperor's consorts, concubines, female attendants and eunuchs. The women who lived in an emperor's hougong sometimes numbered in the thousands.
The institution of the harem exerted a certain fascination on the European imagination, especially during the Age of Romanticism (see also Orientalism), due in part to the writings of the adventurer Richard Francis Burton. Much of this is recorded in art from that period, usually portraying groups of nude attractive women lounging by spas and pools, congregating together leisurely. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Although there is little doubt that a harem generally consisted of attractive women, the western stereotype of an oriental harem is a romanticized spicy cliché and likely based on little fact.
Other use
In zoology, harem means the females in a group of animals living together, which only mate with the single of in any case less numerous adult males, a prerogative he must defend against external challengers.
See also
Sources and references
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