The story, though it may have changed form and color somewhat by
transmission, is not an improbable one which tells of King Varahran's
anger at his queen. One day, seated with her in an open pavilion
overlooking the plain, he saw two wild asses approaching. With his bow
the strong man, skilled in the chase, transfixed both of the animals
with one well-aimed shot. Turning to his spouse to receive the applause
he thought due him, the wife replied: "Practice makes perfect." Angered
at the lightness with which his skilful feat was received, he ordered
her to be executed, but quickly repented, and simply divorced her from
the palace. In quiet moments, he repented of his haste. For years, he
had no trace of the former queen, but when hunting one day he beheld a
scene which quickly excited his curiosity and admiration. It was a woman
carrying upon her shoulders a cow, with which, indeed, she easily walked
up and down the stairs of the country house. On asking her concerning
the remarkable feat, she replied, as she dropped her veil: "Practice
makes perfect." The king recognized his wife, now no longer young, but
still possessing physical charms, and invited her to take her place
again in the palace. The woman had commenced to carry the cow when it
was but a tiny calf, and had shrewdly planned the feat in the hope that
some day she might win back her husband's respect. It has been suggested
that cows are small in Persia, as is indeed the case, but more probably
some small animal, such as a goat or a gazelle, first figured in the
story.
Persian kings of the house of Sassan intermarried frequently with
Turkish women, and one of the best known of this dynasty, Hormisda, had
a Turkish mother. It was he who won the mortal enmity of one of Persia's
greatest generals by sending to the veteran a distaff, together with a
woman's costume, suggesting that he give up the art of war for that of
spinning. The suggestion cost the king his sceptre. The soldiery,
however, raised to the throne his son, the many-sided Chosroes Parveez,
whose name stands out prominently not only as a foster-father of the
arts among the people, but as preeminent in a long line of Persian kings
because of his unswerving love for his wife Shirin all through his long
and, in some respects, most honorable reign. His harem, however, was one
of the most extensive in all Persian annals.
Modern Persia has, of course, lost much of the grandeur of the days of
Mandane or of the mother of Xerxes. Persia, being an inland as well as a
mountainous country, with scarcely any railway facilities in the entire
country, and no navigable waterways, has been very little influenced by
modern ideas or customs. As there are many tribes and nationalities in
the land, and many different religions as well, many differences are
found in manners, customs, and even in language. Each nationality and
each sect continues distinct from the other. Broad differences have
engendered social distinctions and sometimes enmity and strife.
No single statement as to the relation of the sexes in Persia will apply
to all the peoples of the country. The large majority of the people
being Mohammedans, the customs are very similar to those of all other
countries where Islam rules. Among the Nestorian Christians and the
Catholic Christians women are unveiled and free to come and go. Among
the so-called "Fire Worshippers" of the Monsul mountains, men and women
associate in their great feasts, and the sexes dance and sing together.
The laws of the people fix the number of wives at not more than six,
and, of course, the girl may not choose her husband; but is sold by her
parents, though she may remain single by paying through hard labor a sum
to the father for the privilege of remaining under the parental roof.
Among the Parsees, the modern followers of Zoroaster, who number about
twenty-five thousand, woman is given a better opportunity for education
than among the Mohammedans. Obedience to her husband is, of course, her
first duty; and married life is looked upon as specially blessed, and
rich Parsees are known to aid in a pecuniary way those who are
marriageable, but lack the material means to make them happy. Polygamy
is prohibited among the Parsees, except that after nine years of
sterility, a wife may expect another woman to share the home of her
husband. Divorces are forbidden, and wives have comparative freedom. The
wealthier Persians, generally found in the towns, reside in large
dwellings having several apartments. The masses of the people, however,
live poorly in mud houses or huts from thirty to forty feet square, with
one room and a single door.
Woman's work in Persia, as generally in the East, is multiform as well
as menial. The women, of course, do the baking. They use yeast in the
making of their bread. Having kneaded the dough, they set it aside to
rise, after which they divide the mass into small parts, and with a
rolling-pin they roll these pieces of dough very thin, and sometimes to
the size of two feet in length by a foot in width, and then stick them
to the side of the oven. The latter is a cylindrical hole in the ground,
lined with clay and located near the centre of the house. It is about
four feet deep, and approximately two and a half feet in diameter. The
women make fire in this oven but once a day. The wife bakes once or
twice a week, if the family be small, but if large, every day or every
other day. This oven, whose top is even with the floor, is also the
place around which in cool weather the family gather upon mats to keep
themselves warm. The fuel is not wood, which is very scarce, but manure.
At first both the smoke and the odor are very perceptible, but when once
the fire is burning freely, the impurities of the fuel are drawn up
through an opening in the roof, a window, just above the oven. Out of
this window, which remains open day and night, the smoke is supposed to
go, as indeed it will, if ample time be given. The Persian housewife is
thus enabled to keep her house ventilated, but its walls and ceilings
soon become very black with soot. In rainy weather the good housewife
must place a pan or other receptacle immediately under the window--for
this opening in the ceiling is both the avenue for light and for
ventilation, hence must not be closed. If a woman wishes to know her
neighbor's business, she will creep upon the top of her neighbor's
roof--for houses are very often close together, and eavesdrop through
the open window.
Weaving is done both by women and by men. The weaving and spinning
apparatus, as well as the crude cotton-gins, are in the same room where
the family eats, sleeps, cooks, and converses. As a rule, the men weave
the light goods, such as cotton fabrics, while the women make the
carpets, rugs, and the like. The women are the spinsters, and, with
untiring energy, they rise early and spin all day. It is said that a
woman of ordinary skill can spin a pound of cotton a day, provided she
works very hard. For this she receives, if done for another, about
twenty cents.
The women do the milking. In fact, it is regarded as beneath the dignity
of a man to milk, if not as a positive disgrace. The women milk cows,
buffaloes, sheep, and goats. Butter is made from buffalo milk, which is
given by the animals in large quantities and is exceedingly white. Since
clabber is more highly prized than fresh milk, the housewife, as soon as
she has finished her morning's milking,--they milk twice a day,--heats
the fresh milk almost to boiling, allows it to cool a little, and then
adds a table-spoonful of sour milk. Speedily the whole begins to
coagulate, and the next morning, with the addition of syrup, it forms
the customary breakfast. The good housewife finds it indispensable to
keep a little sour milk at hand in order to hasten the coagulation.
Women residing in towns do their churning in earthen vessels or
pitchers, called _meta_, always using sour milk. Among the nomadic
people of the country sheepskins are used for this purpose. These
sheepskin churns are filled, and suspended by means of cords from a
wooden frame. The churn is thus shaken back and forth by the women till
the butter comes. If butter in excess of the immediate need is
produced,--and the poorer classes use it sparingly,--it is converted
into oil, which keeps its quality for a year or two and is much used for
cooking.
The women are also the millers, braying the corn in mortars in
primitive fashion, or beating it to meal upon a flat stone with a stone
hammer, or, in some advanced households, grinding it in hand mills. It
requires two or three women to use a hand mill, which consists of two
huge round stones, one revolving upon the other. Two or more women will
take hold of a handle attached to the upper stone and turn, while
another pours the grain, from an earthen jar, through a hole in the
upper millstone. As only a little wheat can be ground at a time, it
requires much patience, and the men generally give over the labor to the
women.
Harvesting is also done by the women. The season between June and August
of each year is therefore peculiarly severe upon them. Their domestic
duties must be finished soon after sunrise; then, with their sickles,
they start out from the villages to the harvest fields, a mile or two
distant. One may often see the baby in its tiny cradle flung across the
shoulder of the mother on her way to the day's labor. She puts the
cradle down in the shade in view of the reapers, and performs her daily
task in the broiling sun. While the women reap, the men gather the
bundles and bind them for the threshing floor. At the close of the day,
homeward they trudge, tired and soiled by the day's work; the mothers
carrying their little ones back to their homes, where the domestic
duties of evening are to be performed before comes the opportunity for
rest. When grain harvest is over, the vineyards are to be gleaned, and
the women are to do most of the work of picking the ripe, luscious
branches of grapes, filling the huge baskets and carrying them to the
place where the fruit is to be spread out to be dried. In fifteen or
twenty days the grapes have become raisins, and they are again taken up
and piled away, ready for the market. Wine and molasses are also made
from grapes, the work being largely the task of the women.
Just as Persia has its Ruths gleaning in the fields, so also Rebekah
with her water pot may be seen daily. In lieu of modern buckets, the
Persians are content to have their women take large earthen jars,
morning and night, to the public wells, springs, or streams outside the
village. There the women fill their pots, lift them first to the hips,
then to the back or shoulder, and trudge home with their burden,
chatting happily as they go, and becoming straight and strong by the
muscular exercise involved. Eight or ten trips may be necessary before
each woman has filled all her jars, and so procured the necessary amount
of water for the daily use.
There is a saying in Persia: "When cousins marry they are never happy."
And yet, as a rule, marriages are within the religious sects. If a
Christian--Christians in Persia are of the ancient Nestorian
faith--should marry a Mohammedan woman, he would be compelled to
renounce his religion for the Mohammedan, as the ruling class would not
allow it to be otherwise. Christian parents, on the other hand, would
not give their consent to the union of their daughter with a worshipper
of Islam. Occasionally, however, attractive Nestorian girls are captured
and carried off, and compelled to accept the Mohammedan religion, and
married to a Persian or a Turk. Generally, girls marry within their own
villages, since each neighborhood is, as a rule, a community
uninfluenced and unvisited by people from other communities. Persia is
no exception to the ordinary Oriental rule, that marriage contracts are
made by the parents--the children accepting with unquestioning obedience
the conditions that have been prepared for them.
A young man, being where isolation of the sexes does not prevail, may,
however, and often does, show unmistakably his preference for the girl
of his liking; and since the communities are often small, isolated
marriages of those who have known and loved one another from infancy are
not infrequent. The wise parent finds out if the two young people are
really in love, though both will often vehemently deny what is plainly
true, and tries to arrange matters in accordance with the eternal
fitness of things. The girl in question, however, is never consulted in
the matter. All girls are supposed to marry, and a youth who remains
long single is considered of all creatures the most miserable. As is
general throughout the East, Persian girls are ready for conjugal life
at twelve years of age, certainly at the age of fifteen. Betrothal often
takes place as early as infancy. Parents will sometimes undertake to
cement, or at least to express, their strong friendship by engaging
their infants, one to another. These two, growing up with the
understanding that they are finally to be husband and wife, often become
ardent lovers, and the match is a happy one.
When a young man has become of age, which in many cases is very early in
life, especially among the rich classes, the parents will send two or
three male friends to act as mediators, who will go to the house of the
girl in question and ask her parents for her hand. After some
deliberation, with apparently great reluctance, the request is granted.
To seal the contract, one of the mediators rises and kisses the hand of
the father. The contracting parties return to their homes and report
their success to the parents of the young man. In accordance with the
affirmative report, his parents, within a few days, meet the parents of
the girl and conclude the arrangements for the wedding.
The first in the order of preparation is the buying of the wedding
clothes for the bride; for these the father of the prospective
bridegroom pays. The father must make presents to the members of the
girl's family and to her friends. The chief officers of the town must
also be remembered. After this the parties make ready for the marriage.
While the bride is engaged in preparing for the wedding, there are
feasts and revels at the houses of both the bride and the groom.
Provision for these sumptuous feasts is made by the groom's father. This
feasting lasts from three to six days. The predominating features in it
are music and dancing, in a style peculiar to Persian life and custom.
Mirthful song is provided by professional singers, to the great delight
of those present. After two or three days of incessant preparation on
the part of the girl, and of festivity on the part of the ever mirthful
guests, the men and the boys, following a leader, go to bring the bride
home. As soon as the gay company has arrived, a feast is in readiness
for them. A dance in the house or in the yard follows. Meantime, the
bride is being prepared to take her journey to her future home. At last
it is announced that she is ready, and the musicians play a doleful
tune, while the girl kisses her parents good-bye; and bidding adieu to
all the friends of her childhood, she is soon mounted on the horse which
is to carry her. At that moment the musicians change their mournful tune
to one more lively, and off the whole company marches with the bride to
her destination. At the arrival of the bride, which is reported by a
young man, all the people of the community emerge from their huts and
come out to witness the festive scene. After some ceremony, the bride
dismounts before the house of the most prominent man in the town, into
which she is escorted, and there she is received and entertained with
honor.
That night again the town in general enjoys hilarious feasting and
mirth, especially in the house of the groom. The next day the musicians
go to the different parts of the town where the guests are being
entertained, and summon them to the enjoyment of another feast. As soon
as this is over, they accompany the groom, led by the music and dancers,
to the place where the bride is being entertained; and thence, if they
be Catholic Christians, they at once proceed to the church, where the
priest performs the marriage rite. The husband and wife are now ready to
be escorted to their future home, which is the birthplace of the groom.
The rest of that day is spent in conversation and feasting. The female
friends of the groom look, for the first time, upon the unveiled bride;
and they examine the embroidered work, which the girl has made with her
own hands, and which constitutes a part of the bridal equipment. The day
being over, the friends depart and the bride and groom are launched on
their new life.
The women of the Persian seraglio are more closely confined, if
possible, than the women of the Hindoo or of the Turkish harems. In
ancient days it was customary to put the women who entered the royal
harem under a strict regimen or course of preparation. A glimpse of this
purifying process is given in the Hebrew Book of Esther, the author of
which shows minute acquaintance with Persian life and customs. "Now when
every maid's turn was come, ... after that she had been twelve months,
according to the manner of the women (for so were the days of their
purification accomplished, to wit: six months with oil of myrrh, and six
months with sweet odors, and with other things for the purifying of the
women), then thus came every maiden unto the king; whatsoever she
desired was given her to go with her out of the house of the women unto
the king's house."
The custom of strict seclusion and oversight of the women, introduced
by the ancient kings to guard better a pure lineage and to exhibit
greater state, has had large influence in Persia, except among the
nomadic peoples. The arrangements of the house for obtaining privacy for
women are usually the same throughout the land. The first apartment of
the house is for the use of men; the second or interior apartment,
called the "anteroom," is for the women, and no men are allowed to
intrude into the "harem" or "forbidden place"; else the voice of the
eunuchs, or guardians, will be quickly heard crying out: "Women--away,"
and every face in the harem will be at once veiled from the sight of the
intruder.
"I am a woman" is frequently given and regarded as an ample reason why a
modern Persian girl need not learn to read. Every city or town has its
school for boys, but there are no schools for girls (unless they be
mission schools), since it is commonly believed that it is a prudent
policy to keep the female sex satisfied with their present position in
the economy of life. The wealthier parents may, however, sometimes
employ private tutors for their girls. The deep-seated line that marks a
woman as different from a man appears even in the method of capital
punishment meted out to women. While a man who is to be executed will
have his jugular vein cut, be nailed to a wall, or be blown from a
cannon's mouth, a woman will be sentenced to have her head shaved, her
face blackened, to take a bareback ride upon a donkey along the public
highway, and finally to be beaten to death in a bag. Or she may be
stripped of all clothing and placed in a bag full of cats, which will
soon scratch or bite the unfortunate victim to death.
Domestic peace does not always hover like a white dove over Persian
homes. Even among the Nestorians, the ancient Christian sect, it is very
common for the husband to assert his lordship over his spouse by giving
her an occasional flogging. The women expect this as one of the
conditions of their position. The failure of this method of emphasizing
the husband's authority, however, would appear from the testimony that
"the number of women who revere their husbands is as small as the list
of husbands who do not beat their wives."
In this land of the ancient Magi it is not strange that there should be
many superstitions connected with marriages and engagements. Sometimes
it is manifest that the husband does not love his wife. If this be the
case, the wife or her mother may consult a magician. He will write for
her a charm. This is to be sewed into some designated part of her daily
apparel; a like charm is prepared for direct effect upon the husband,
and this must be secretly sewed into his clothing. The hoped-for result
of these charms is the renewal of conjugal affection. Another charm,
which is highly regarded, directs the wife to cut off a few hairs from
both her own and her husband's head, to burn them together and from
their ashes make a potion which the husband is to be caused,
clandestinely, to drink. Some magicians will direct that the love
prescription be placed under the hinge of the door of the house, so that
as the door is constantly opened and shut, the husband's love will as
constantly grow toward his spouse. Sterility is uniformly regarded as a
misfortune, if not a curse. Incantations and charms are frequently
employed to induce fecundity. The Persian women and Orientals generally
have innumerable superstitions. For example, when a hen is heard to
crow, it is regarded either as a good or a bad omen. To ascertain
exactly which it may be, the crowing hen is blindfolded and carried to
the top of the flat roof. She is then dropped through the open window
into the centre of the room below. If the hen turns toward the corner of
the house, it is considered a good omen, and all is well. If on the
other hand, she starts toward the door, it is regarded as portending
evil, and the hen is killed at once. This odd custom suggests another,
somewhat similar, once in vogue in Persia. Suppose a woman has lost a
piece of money, and she suspects that some disloyal neighbor, she does
not know whom, has taken it. To prevent a public trial and to spare the
innocent the disgrace that may come upon those wrongly suspected, all
the neighbors agree that at a certain time every man and woman of the
vicinage shall go, one after the other, to the dwelling from which the
money was stolen, and in passing, each person shall throw a handful of
dirt into the window of the person whose money has been lost. One goes
and returns to his own house, and then another, till all have thrown in
a handful. When the last one has deposited the dirt he has brought, the
owner goes in and finds in the midst of the total deposit the lost
treasure; for the guilty party, fearing that he will at length be
detected and suffer punishment, and knowing that he cannot be detected
if he throws the money down into the house along with his handful of
dirt, avails himself of this means of escape from the charge which he
fears.
There are no women who have a harder, and apparently a happier, life
than do the women of the Kurds. The men of the tribe deny that women are
possessed of souls. A woman must not, therefore, be present where a man
is at prayer. If she should touch him while performing this hallowed
duty, it is thought that she might get the benefit of the prayer.
Indeed, it is believed that if she touch him, she obtains his soul.
Should a woman be seen approaching, the man at prayer may rise, go out
from the prayer circle, take his gun and shoot the woman, and then
piously return to his devotions.
The Kurdish women are very dark in complexion and picturesque in their
apparel. They use paints and other cosmetics in abundance, to please the
eye of their husbands. Their day of toil is a long one, for, after
finishing their household duties, they are expected to hasten to the
fields to tend the flocks, or to gather fuel for the winter. At night
they return with large packs upon their shoulders, enough for two
donkeys to carry. They may be seen spinning and singing on their way to
and fro, as though their lot were the happiest in the world. Little
thinking of the ordinary ailments of women, they trudge along over the
fields or the mountain heights; and frequently a Kurdish woman may be
seen returning home in the evening, happy, with her huge bundle of
sticks for the fire, and with the infant to which she has given birth
during the day! A Kurd usually thinks more of his steed than of his
wife, who may sometimes be compelled to vacate her place in the dwelling
to make room for the horse.