Harem former times, some harems were guarded by eunuchs (castrated men) who were allowed inside. Similar institutions have been common in other Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations, especially among royal and upper-class families and the term is sometimes used in non-Islamic contexts. The structure of the harem and the extent of monogamy or polygamy has varied depending on the family's personalities, socio-economic status, and local customs. Although the institution has experienced a sharp decline in the modern era, seclusion of women is still practiced in some parts of the world, such as rural Afghanistan and conservative states of the Gulf region.
What a piece of work is a man they are essentially "dust". Hamlet is expressing his melancholy to his old friends over the difference between the best that men aspire to be, and how they actually behave; the great divide that depresses him. The speech was fully omitted from Nicholas Ling's 1603 First Quarto, which reads simply: This version has been argued to have been a bad quarto, a tourbook copy, or an initial draft. By the 1604 Second Quarto, the speech is essentially present but punctuated differently: Then, by the 1623 First Folio, it appeared as: J. Dover Wilson, in his notes in the "New Shakespeare" edition,