London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

Of Prostitution in Persia.

In Persia the Oriental idea of the female sex is completely developed. Women are there the property of men and their enjoyment of life is circumscribed to suit the pleasure of their masters; among the wandering tribes, indeed, they go unveiled, and breathe the air of partial freedom; but among the fixed inhabitants of cities and villages, their lot is one of seclusion and servitude. Subservient as they are to the will and caprice of the supreme sex, the estimation in which they are held is extremely low. The lower classes consider them, indeed, valuable in proportion to the amount of household labour they perform; the higher classes look on them as the means of sensual gratification. We find, it is true, in Persian romance and poetry, eulogiums on the beauty of their women, and songs of devotion to them; but they are the objects of barter, and are consequently in a despised condition.

There is actually no station assigned to women in Persia; they are recognised only as ministers to the wants or pleasures of the male sex. They are what their husbands choose to make them. Instances occur where a favourite wife or concubine is ruler of the house, or a mother exercises strong influence over her son, but these are rare examples; women, in total seclusion, are submissive slaves. The wives of the Shah, especially, vegetate within the walls of a splendid prison; occasionally one of them is permitted to walk abroad, but then all must fly from the route she takes, and no one dare look upon her on pain of death. She is paraded in stately procession, and eunuchs run in front to clear the way, firing guns loaded with ball to frighten any bold adventurer who may be reckless enough to remain on the line of the cortege. This isolation of the sex pervades all the wealthier orders of Persian society; even brothers are not allowed to see their sisters after a certain age.

Polygamy is practised in Persia. The palace especially has a crowded harem; numbers of female officers and attendants wait on the Shah. The wives and concubines are arranged with the most rigid regard to the rules of precedence; none but those of the highest rank and most distinguished favour dare sit down in the presence of their royal lord; over all the rest the strictest discipline is preserved. The king is said sometimes to have a thousand women in his palace, and much skill is required to preserve decorum among them; some he has given away to his principal officers. The chief of them lives in splendour, wearing garments so thickly embroidered with pearls that they impede her movements; but the others are subject to much rigour, especially under the savage eunuchs whose favourite mode of chastising the female slaves is to strike them on the mouth with the heel of a slipper. However, large numbers of them lead a pleasant, while all enjoy an indolent life, lounging for hours in the warm bath, whence they emerge, with enervated frames, to spend an equal time in the coquetry of the toilette. All the arts which vanity can devise are exhausted to render their persons attractive to the Shah, whose favours are courted as much as his displeasure is feared. In the one case, the fortunate woman is elevated, for a brief period at least, to the very ideal of her hopes, while, in the other, she may be fastened in a sack and hurled from the top of a lofty tower.

The Persians generally believe themselves entitled to unlimited indulgence in the delights of the harem. Their religious law confines them to four wives, but they may have as many concubines or other female companions as they can support. The priests are expected to be the most chaste, but are usually the most licentious; it is remarked as an extraordinary circumstance of one celebrated spiritual leader, that it was affirmed that he never had connection with any other woman than his four legitimate wives.

A Persian is permitted, as well by the enactments of the law as by common usage, to take a female, not within the prohibited degrees of affinity, in three different ways: he may marry, he may purchase, or he may hire her. Persons are frequently betrothed during infancy; but the engagement is not considered binding unless contracted by both the actual parents. The girl, indeed, may, even under these circumstances, refuse her consent, but this privilege is rather nominal than real. If she resolutely refuse, she may be taken back to the recesses of her parent’s harem, and there chastened until she chooses to submit; and it is not long before she is whipped into compliance. The nuptial ceremony must be witnessed by at least two men, or one man and two women. An officer of the law attends to attest the contract. The written document is delivered to the wife, who carefully preserves it, for it is the deed that entitles her to the amount of her dower, which is part of her provision in case of being left a widow, and her sole dependence in case of being divorced. Her right in this respect is strictly guarded by law, and by her male friends, and it is one of which the women of Persia are extremely jealous. The marriage festival is usually very expensive, for the reputation of the husband is supposed to be measured by the splendour of his nuptials.

Though a man may, when he pleases, put away his wife, the expense and scandal attending such a proceeding make it rare. It seldom occurs, indeed, except among the poorer classes, who do not so rigidly seclude their females; among the wealthier and prouder, a man would be ashamed to expose a woman, with whom he had once associated, to be seen by others, unless in the case, of course, of a common woman. Divorce never takes place on account of adultery, which is punished with death. Bad temper and extravagance on the woman’s side, and neglect or cruel usage on the husband’s, may be urged by either as reasons for separation. If the husband sues for a divorce, he pays back the dowry he received with his bride; if the wife commences the proceeding, she loses her claim. In this, as in all other respects, the male sex has the advantage. A man who desires to be relieved of a disagreeable partner, sometimes uses her so cruelly that she is compelled to open the suit, by which means he gets rid of her, but keeps her money.

The Persian may have as many female slaves as he desires or is able to maintain. They earn no advantage of position by becoming his concubines instead of the sweepers of his house. They are still in slavery, and may at any time be sold again if they displease their masters. A woman so cast off is in a bad position, for she must then sink into worse degradation than before. Mohammedan jealousy, however, serves, in some respects, as a kind of protection for the woman; for a man, having once cohabited with her, will seldom allow her to fall into the hands of any other.

One very extraordinary custom prevails in Persia, and seems now peculiar to that country, though it is said to have existed in Arabia at the time of the prophet’s appearance there. Mohammed tolerated it; but his successor, Omar, abolished it, as a species of legal prostitution injurious to the morals of the people. All the Turks and others, therefore, who hold his precepts in veneration, abhor and condemn the practice, but it still obtains. It is that of hiring a companion. A man and a woman agree to cohabit for a certain period—some for a few days, others for 99 years. In the one case it is simply an act of prostitution; in the other it is morally equivalent to marriage, though the woman acquires no right to property of any kind, except the price of her hire. This sum is agreed upon at the first compact; and though the man may discard his companion when he pleases, he must pay her the whole amount promised. If both are willing, the arrangement may be renewed at the expiration of the term, which is generally short. This kind of intercourse usually takes place among persons of very unequal stations. The women are generally of a low class, and are, for the most part, a peculiar sort of prostitutes, if prostitution mean the hiring out of a woman’s person for money. The children springing from such a union are supported by the father. In one circumstance the custom differs from the ordinary prostitution of other countries. When a man has parted from a woman of this class, she is forbidden to form any new connection until a sufficient time has elapsed to prove whether or not she is pregnant from the last. This precaution is to hinder the chance of a man’s being burdened with the support of a child of which he is not actually the father.

The characteristics of women in Persia agree with this picture of their treatment. They are degraded down to the level of their condition. Leaving a few exceptions out of sight, we find the rich and idle vain, sensual, and absorbed by animal desires; the poorer classes, licentious and intriguing.

The peculiar customs of the country cause strange occurrences to take place. A man is sometimes deceived into marrying the wrong woman, under cover of the inviolable drapery which veils her face. He is usually content to stow her away in his harem, and solace himself with a concubine, or the company of prostitutes; for though he may hold that his own wife and daughter would be polluted by the eye of a strange man, and though he may be able to fill his harem with beautiful slaves, the Persian voluptuary is not content. He must associate with the more brilliant and lively beauties, who are ready to receive him in various retired houses of the city. These houses are generally in obscure places, dull and uninviting on the outside, but fitted up in the interior with much elegance and luxury.

Formerly there was a numerous class of public dancing girls in Persia, and the beauty of their persons, and the melody of their voices, were celebrated by the most famous poets of the country. They were wealthy and popular, continuing to figure prominently at the entertainments of the people until the family of Futteh Ali Khan rose to the throne; they were then discouraged by a monarch who crowded his harem with a thousand women, and, in the midst of this multitude of concubines, issued edicts for the suppression of immorality. The dancing girls were prohibited from approaching the court, and compelled to seek a livelihood in the distant provinces of the empire. It is not to be denied that considerable reform has taken place in the manners of the people; but profligacy is still a marked characteristic of the cities in Persia.

Under the Sefi dynasty morals reached the last stage of depravity. The royal treasury was filled with the proceeds of immorality. Public brothels were licensed and became extremely numerous. A large revenue was drawn from them. In Ispahan alone no less than 30,000 prostitutes paid an annual sum to government. The governors of provinces and cities also granted the same privileges for sums of money, and there was scarcely a town of any size in Persia which had not at least one large brothel, crowded with inmates. The prostitutes were all licensed, and known by the appellation of cahbeha, or the worthless. An old traveller, whose authority is accepted by the best writers, describes the system then prevailing; it displays the corruption of manners in the open and systematic character of profligacy. As soon as the merchants’ shops were closed in the cities the brothels were opened; the prostitutes then issued into the streets, dispersed themselves, and repaired to particular localities. There they sat down in rows, closely veiled; behind each company stood an old woman holding an extinguished candle in her hand. When any man approached with a sign that he desired to make a bargain, this harridan lit her taper, and led him down the line of women, removing the veil of each in her turn until he made his choice. The girl was then dispatched with him, under the guidance of a slave, to the house, which usually stood close by the way-side. All payments were made to the old woman or “mother” of the company.

Under the reigning family this open system has been checked, and prostitution, not being licensed, is a more secret system. Nevertheless, there abound in the cities of Persia numerous brothels, to which the men proceed after dark, and where they are entertained as they desire; numbers of women are always ready to hire themselves out to any who desire to associate with them.

The females of the wandering tribes are far more virtuous than those of the cities; they are also more happy and free, for if they share the labours of the men, they share also their pleasures and hopes; far from being secluded, they are allowed to converse even with strangers, and grace the hospitality of the tents with modest but polite attention. The men seldom have more than one wife, and abhor the practice of hiring women, though their priests have made attempts to introduce it among them. Still, even the women of these tribes are below their proper condition, and the men as they become wealthier become more corrupt; when, also, they sojourn for a while in the cities, they speedily contribute to the general profligacy, and often exceed the regular inhabitants in vice. Among those, however, in the nomade state, rape and adultery are rare, and when committed the woman suffers a cruel death at the hands of her nearest kindred. In the cities females are seldom publicly executed, but are put to death in private, or given as slaves to men of infamous occupation[70].