The baths are a great place of amusement for ladies. Here they pass hours and hours, listening to stories of fairies and genii, eating sweetmeats, sharing each other’s pipes, and painting their persons. The Jewesses are the oracles of the seraglio. From them the young beauties purchase all manner of cosmetics, charms, amulets, love-potions, &c.
The endearing duties of a mother become a source of fear and sorrow within the walls of the royal harem; for, in order to prevent quarrels about the succession to the throne, it is customary to put large numbers of children to death, or to deprive them of their eyes. The queen-mother herself superintends these executions, to which she becomes hardened by custom. The Persian mothers possess the only shadow of power which women are allowed to have. They regulate the education and settlement of their children, and it is said a marriage is not concluded, even with the father’s consent, if they oppose it.
Sometimes when one of the king’s women offends him, or his mother, she is married to some menial of the palace, which is considered a very disgraceful punishment. But fortunate is her lot, who is transferred from the royal harem to some favorite grandee. She receives the title of a lawful wife, and is treated like a princess. Notwithstanding the painful sacrifices and perpetual fear belonging to those who form the king’s household, parents are extremely anxious to obtain the splendid bondage for a daughter; for if she happens to be a favorite, the greatest honors and emoluments are heaped on her relations.
Women of the middling class are more occupied than the wives of grandees, and therefore unavoidably have more freedom. They spin, sew, embroider, superintend the house, keep account of expenses, pay the servant’s wages, and see that proper care is taken of the horses. Sir Robert Porter, speaking of this class of Persian females, says, “They do all the laborious part of the household establishment; each having her own especial department, such as baking the bread, cooking the meat, drawing the water, &c. Though the latest espoused is usually spared in these labors, and the best dressed, still the whole party seem to remain in good humor. When their lord shows himself among them, it is like a master coming into a herd of favorite animals. They all rush forward, frisking about him, pleased with a caress, or frisking still if they meet with a pat instead. The four wives of my worthy host retire at sunset, and each taking her infant and cradle to the roof of her division of the house, not forgetting the skin of water she has brought from the well, deposits her babe in safety, and suspends the water-case near her, on a tripod of sticks, in order that the evaporation may cool it for next day’s use. Our communicative host told me that to preserve amity among these women, he was accustomed, like all husbands who valued peace, to divide his time and attention equally and alternately among them. Indeed the law of Mohammed, though it allows four wives, expressly stipulates that the first married shall experience no diminution of wardrobe, or accustomed privileges, in consequence of the introduction of a new bride into the family.
When women of the common classes leave their houses they scrupulously conceal their faces with a veil woven like a fine net, or a cloak with two holes just big enough for their eyes; but the neck is often less carefully covered than the face. Like all oriental women, they are very fond of perfumes and ornaments. Their clothing is usually chosen and purchased for them, as we do for little children.
On the death of a husband, they lay aside all rich and showy apparel, and assume the garb of mourning, which among the Persians is pale brown. For months and months they pay daily visits to the grave, watering it with tears, rending their garments, and tearing their hair. The law allows widows to marry again, but they seldom take a second husband. In many cases, the anniversary of the birthday of the deceased is for years kept as a solemn festival by his family and friends.
Several years ago, a beautiful Circassian accompanied the Persian ambassador to London, where she excited great attention, and was treated with distinguished kindness. Sir Robert Porter met her when she was returning to Persia, mounted on a miserable post-horse. He says, “The poor creature, perceiving that I was a European, rode forward to address me; but in a moment the rough fellow who was her conductor laid his whip over her shoulders, with so terrible an admonition into the bargain, that, closing both her lips and her veil, she travelled on, doubtless with heavy recollections. To interfere in behalf of a woman so situated would cast a sort of contamination on her, and only redouble her stripes.”
Women whose husbands are not rich enough to furnish palanquins, ride astride a horse, muffled in a great sheet, which makes them look like a bag of flour placed upright. Sometimes they are stuffed into panniers slung across a mule or a camel, like poultry on the way to market. If there be but one traveller, some heavy article is put into the opposite basket as a balance.
When the ambassador Meerza Abul Hassan was in England, nothing excited his surprise so much as the fact that women sometimes undertook voyages. “Is it possible!” he exclaimed: “if I were to tell our Persian women that there were English women in ships, they would never believe me. They consider it a great undertaking to go from one town to another; but your women go from one end of the world to the other, and think nothing of it. If it were even known to my family that I was now in a ship, on the high seas, there would be nothing but wailing and lamentation from morning till night.”