VII.—THE BEAUTIFUL PARDAH.
It is quite necessary to give a few words of introduction to the following little story, as without it the meaning and drift of it would be quite unintelligible to many British readers. Not all are aware that it is the custom of Mohammedans of the upper classes to seclude their women from sight; so that to allow the face to be seen by any man except a husband or very near relative is accounted a shame and disgrace. This custom is called “pardah,” and it has spread beyond the Mohammedans to some of the Hindus, &c. A. L. O. E. has seen an old lady start from her seat as if in great alarm, and hide herself behind a chair, because an aged gentleman had chanced to come in sight. Sometimes sufferers are shut out from receiving medical aid on account of pardah. At this moment pardah is one of the greatest obstacles to baptism being received by one whom we believe to be quite convinced of the truth of Christianity, and whose husband is a noble-hearted Christian. Sometimes pardah is actually kept up by native converts; and this is a grievous hindrance to them, and besets their path with needless difficulties. There is in our mission church a little pardah room, indeed, in which women can, if they wish it, hear unseen; but how can a woman in pardah ever share the Holy Communion—how can she be actively useful amongst the heathen around her! Pardah is the napkin under which a few native converts would hide their talent, and one cannot but regard it rather as a kind of fashion, a piece of Oriental worldliness, than a token of superior delicacy of mind. A woman actually in the act of hiding her face will sometimes shock our feelings of refinement in some other way.
Another little explanation is necessary. The word “pardah”[56] has two meanings: one the state of seclusion which has been described; the other, the curtain which is the emblem of seclusion. Any curtain in an English lady’s dwelling is a pardah, though she is never “in pardah” herself.
Waziren, a merchant’s wife, came to visit Maryam, the wife of a moonshee. Both of the women had been baptized as Christians, but the heart of Waziren still clung to many of the customs of her people; she retained prejudices in which she had been brought up from her childhood. Waziren never came to church, lest she should break pardah; and would have thought it unseemly to meet at a meal even the dearest friend of her husband. Waziren cared not to learn to read; her only pleasure was in her jewels, and in gossip, in which her favourite topic always was the faults of her neighbours. It was for the sake of talking over news that Waziren now took her seat on the charpai (low bed) of Maryam.
“Are the tidings true,” asked Waziren, “that your next-door neighbour, Shadi Shah, arrived last night from England, a week before he was expected?”
“It is quite true,” Maryam replied. “It was a great joy to Fatima to see her husband again after a six months’ absence.”
“A great joy, was it?” said Waziren sneeringly; and she smiled an unpleasant smile. “I should have thought that Fatima would have cared little if the absence of her husband had been one of six years, instead of six months.”
Maryam looked almost angry, for she saw that evil thoughts were in the mind of her neighbour. “Fatima is a good and faithful wife,” she replied. “Had Shadi Shah remained away for six years, he would, on his return, have found her just the same as if he had never left her. Do you not know, O Waziren! that Fatima has kept in strict pardah all the time of her husband’s absence?”
“In pardah!” exclaimed the astonished Waziren. “Now, for once, O Maryam! I have found you uttering words of untruth! I happen to know that Fatima has been to church every week since her husband’s departure. I am sure that she on foot has visited friends; nay, I have even heard that she has taught in a school!” Waziren looked duly indignant and shocked at such a breach of Oriental customs, though quite aware that Maryam did all the things which she professed to think so strange.
“Fatima has done all this,” replied Maryam, smiling; “and yet she has kept strict pardah.”
“You amaze me!” cried the merchant’s wife.
“Perhaps you have never heard that in Fatima’s house there is a very fine pardah, beautiful and perfect, though of great antiquity,” said Maryam. “This pardah is more valuable than any shawl or Cashmere, or piece of golden embroidery, crusted all over with jewels!”
“I think that you must have lost your wits!” exclaimed Waziren, more and more astonished. “I know no woman with fewer jewels than Fatima. I am sure that she cannot love her stingy husband. If she has such a splendid pardah, she never had it from him. Pray, have you ever seen this wonderful pardah?”
“Yes; and I have one just like it,” replied Maryam, laying her hand on a book beside her, which Waziren, though she could not read it, knew to be the Bible.
“You talk in riddles!” cried the merchant’s wife.
Maryam opened the Holy Book. First, she found out in the Old Testament the seventh commandment; and then she turned over to the New Testament and read aloud: I will therefore that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works (1 Tim. ii. 9, 10). Then from another place the Christian woman read: Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they may be won by the conversation of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear (1 Peter iii. 1). And then again Maryam found that place where that word is written alike for men and women: Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord (Heb. xii. 14). “Behold,” cried Maryam, closing the Bible, “here is the pardah treasured in the house and heart of Fatima; and as long as she keeps within it, the Christian wife requires no other!”