As with the condescension to Justine's Catholicism (I:5:6, I:7:21), this ostensible
religious bias needs to be placed within the conventions of English publishing and
religious attitudes. It is unlikely that Mary Shelley herself subscribes to them.
Indeed, if in this chapter one reads in the attitudes of Turks to women some sense
of reflection on contemporary English attitudes, then, Mary Shelley would appear to
be playing something of her mother's game. And the mother-daughter relationship here
certainly testifies to that which Mary Shelley derived from the frequent perusal of
her mother's writings, an inculcation of ideals of independence on which, like, Safie
she was not afraid to act.