WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
marriage. There is no true intimacy between husband and wife. As in India, husbands and wives do not eat together, and in the streets the men walk in front of the woman. I have already alluded to the Hindu origin of the latter custom. It is doubtful whether it can be accepted as an indication of the inferiority of women. The authors refer to the dominance of mothers in the home-life, and corroborate the statements that I have quoted concerning the respect shown by sons. Mothers are the chief counsellors of their children, even in manhood.
The Shah exercises the privilege of claiming any woman upon whom he casts an approving eye. Monarchs have caused all the women, married and single, in a village, to assemble in the streets in long lines, and they have selected some of the more attractive for the royal anderun. The women are never unwilling; on the contrary, no greater honour can be paid to them than to grace the palace. No objection is raised by the husbands, who often receive a solatium or royal favour.[1]
One of the Shahs had a thousand children. Occasionally a European woman elects to enter a Persian seraglio. The writers whom I have quoted above give an instance of an English girl who became the wife of a Kurdish chief.
- ↑ Eustache de Lory and Douglas Sladen. Op. cit.
239
