“How old are you?” “Have you a mother?” “Why do you not black your eyebrows?” “Are you happy?” “Is your husband kind to you?” “Do you like him?” “How much did your dress cost?” and so on, like a group of children—and when you think they have finished, they will begin again. After a short interval tea is handed round. Tea, did I say? well, it is dignified by that name, but in reality Persian tea is not much more than sweetened water coloured with a drop of tea. To begin with, the cups are very tiny, generally made of glass. They are first filled up with three or four lumps of sugar, then a teaspoonful of tea is poured over these, and water added until the cup is full, and the result is—Persian tea! However, it is rather pleasant to drink, and helps to pass the time. After a short interval more tea is handed round, and then glasses of sherbet, made from juices of different fruits, and then, for a change, coffee is served.
About noon, just as I am afraid we are all feeling very tired and sleepy, a welcome change comes; a stirring and commotion begins in the courtyard, women rush about with enormous trays on their heads and carrying all kinds of dishes: this is but a prelude to dinner being announced. Two large rooms are laid out for dinner; in each room about one hundred guests sit down. I was taken in by the mother of the bridegroom, so we will all pass in under her protection. (The mother of the bride is not in evidence on these occasions, being supposed to be overwhelmed with grief at losing her daughter.) The “table” is the ground, so we must gracefully (?) sit on our heels. On the “table” are over two hundred different dishes—pillaus, chillaus, chicken, kabobs, vegetables, fruits—all laid out in tempting array. The hostess having pronounced the Moslem benediction, “Bismi’llah” (In the name of God), all the guests fall to work in real earnest: very little talking is done, eating being the business of the moment. Spoons and forks were provided for me, but I preferred to do as they did, and so ate with my fingers, though it requires a good deal of practice to do it neatly and gracefully. As a mark of respect and honour, the hostess from time to time breaks off pieces of meat from her portion and places them on my plate, and once as a special mark of favour placed a dainty morsel of chicken in my mouth. I hope my readers have enjoyed their dinner as much as I have, for to my mind a Persian feast is a most delectable entertainment.
After dinner we all washed our hands in a basin brought round for the purpose, the water being poured from an ewer on to our hands by a servant. Then we all retired to our reception-room of the morning, and again tea and sherbet were handed round, and the kalian or water-pipe was much in request, each lady taking a whiff and passing the long tube to her neighbour.
But where is the poor little bride all this time? We have neither seen nor heard her all day long, and yet the feast is supposed to be in her honour. All through the long, hot June day she has been cooped up in a tiny room, and as sunset approaches her friends and relations go to dress her and to decorate her from head to foot with jewellery and finery. Into her hair is woven a quantity of golden thread, so that in the distance it looks like a mass of gold, and must be very heavy on the poor tired little head. She is brought out into a large room, and seated on a chair in the middle of it; then every one goes up to her, and after kissing her, says, “May you be blessed.” The poor little mite (she might be thirteen years old, but hardly looks it) seems absolutely wretched and miserable, and when food is brought to her refuses to eat. Just at sunset she is taken to her husband’s house in a closed carriage, and our hearts must ache as we think of what is in store for her. Even if her husband is kind to her at first, yet she has nothing much to look forward to but misery and degradation, and if by chance she goes to an anderoon already containing two or three wives, then may God take pity on her, for her fate will be a sad one. As soon as a man marries a girl she is absolutely his property, and he may do exactly as he pleases with her; there is no redress for the poor unfortunate girl. If the man is a brute and half kills his wife no one dare say a word to him, or if perchance there is one brave enough, he will only be told that “the girl is his wife, and he can do as he likes with his own,” and so it is no wonder if the shadow of the future lies darkly on the faces of those poor little children, as they leave their mother’s home as brides to go out into the unknown which lies before them.
I remember a poor little girl who was brought to the hospital in Julfa, while we were there. She had been married to a brutal man, when about eleven years old. Being very unhappy with him, she often used to run away and take refuge with her mother, who lived in a village a mile or two away from her husband’s house. On many occasions he had beaten her severely for some childish fault, and each time she had fled to her mother, and stayed with her till her husband came and carried her off again by force. This went on for some time, till the poor child’s life was nothing but wretchedness and misery.
One day she displeased her husband by not cooking the dinner to his liking, and he was so enraged with her that he behaved in the following abominable manner.
First of all he saw that the windows of his house were barricaded and the door locked: then he stripped the trembling, frightened child, and deliberately poured paraffin oil all over her body, and finally set a light to her and left her to her fate, taking care to lock the door after him, as he went out. The neighbours, hearing the girl’s screams, rushed to the house, but the doors being locked and the windows fastened much precious time was wasted. When they finally smashed open the window it was only to find the child a mass of flames. They picked her up and rushed wildly with her into the street, and dropped her into the nearest stream to quench the flames! It was a marvellous thing to think that after all this there was any life left in the poor child. The neighbours took her to her mother, who plastered all her wounds with red earth and left her lying in the corner of the room for some ten days. Then, taking the advice of some friends, they procured a cradle and lifted the poor wee child into it, and hoisted the cradle and its occupant on the back of a donkey, and took her some five days’ journey to Julfa. They had heard of the Mission Hospital through some of their villagers, who had been treated there, and so they brought this little victim of Persian cruelty to the lady doctor, who took her in, dressed her wounds, and laid her in a clean, comfortable bed. All that human love and kindness could do was done to alleviate her sufferings, but nothing could save her life, and after three days she passed away—a martyr indeed to the creed of Islam, which enables and allows men to treat their women as something lower than the beasts of the field.
Ought not the cries of distress and agony from the poor women of Persia so to rouse us, their sisters in England, that we shall determine to do all that lies in our power to lighten their burdens and to bring some rays of light into the dark lives of our Eastern sisters?
One thing which adds greatly to the misery of these women is the ease with which their husbands can divorce them. A wife never knows from day to day whether or no her lord may not divorce her. Often for most trivial matters a man will cast away his wife. This being the case, the woman will lie and deceive her husband in order to escape divorcement. If the wives of Persia could only be raised to the level of true womanhood I believe they would become good wives and mothers, but while they are what they are, how can there be any hope for them? There is nothing but utter darkness till the true Light shines into their lives, and then and then only will the day break for these downtrodden, degraded beings.
The Persian ladies are great beauty specialists, and bestow a good deal of attention upon their complexion and general make-up. They do not believe in beauty unadorned, for even when quite young they use the rouge-pot very freely, and often use it to great advantage too! I have often known a girl who was quite ordinary-looking, sallow and dark in complexion, but when dressed for her wedding I hardly recognised her, so changed was she by all the numerous “aids” to beauty. Her cheeks were now a lovely rose tint, and her eyebrows darkened and lengthened till they almost met in the middle, and the edges of her eyelids were also blackened with “kola,” and really the effect was very good.