Chardin, in his Voyage en Perse, tom. ii. p. 50, says, "The Armenian women, contrary to the Mahometan women, have, even when in the house, the lower part of the face veiled, even including the nose, if they are married. This is in order that their nearest relations and their priests, who have the liberty of visiting them, may see only a part of their face; but the girls wear this veil only to the mouth, for the contrary reason, in order that they may be seen enough to judge of their beauty, and to talk of it.... Girls are not shut up in Persia till they attain the age of six or seven years; before that age they go out of the seraglio, sometimes with their father, so that they may then be seen. I have seen some wonderfully pretty. They show the neck and bosom, and more beautiful cannot be seen."
Hanway gives the following account, Travels in Persia, vol i. 185:—"The women in Ghilan are fair, their eyes and hair black; but here, as in other places, they often use a drug with which they blacken their eyes. In this province their features are small: these, as well as their stature, partaking much of the delicate. But in general the Georgians are most esteemed for the charms of their persons. The females who do not labour in the field, are seldom seen abroad, except in a morning before the sun rises, and then they are covered with veils, which reach down to their feet. When they travel on horseback, every lady of distinction is not only veiled, but has generally a servant; who runs or rides before her to clear the way; and on such occasions the men, even in the market-places, always turn their backs till the women are past, it being thought the highest ill manners to look at them; but this awful respect is a proof of the slavery in which they are doomed to live. The care which they take to conceal their faces, to avoid the imputation of acting indelicately, and contrary to custom, has made so strong an impression on them, that I was told of a woman who being accidentally surprised when bathing, showed her whole person except her face; to hide which all her solicitude was employed."
From Volney, vol. ii. p. 481, we have the following:—"In Asia the women are rigorously secluded from the society of men; constantly shut up in their houses, they have no communication but with their husband, their father, their brother, or at most their cousin german. Carefully veiled in the streets, they dare hardly speak to a man, even on business. Everybody must be strangers to them; it would be indecent to fix your eyes on them; and you must let them pass you as if there were something contagious in their nature. The situation of the women among the Orientals, occasions a great contrast between their manners and ours. Such is their delicacy on this head, that they never speak of them; and it would be esteemed highly indecent to make any inquiries of the men respecting the women of their family. They are unable to conceive how our women go with their faces uncovered; when, in their country, an uplifted veil is the mark of a prostitute, or the signal for a love adventure."
Pitt's account coincides with the above. "At Algiers, if there are two, three, or four families in one house, as many times there happens to be, yet they may live there many years and never see one another's wife." p. 63. "The women wear veils, so that a man's own wife may pass him in the street and he not have the least knowledge of her. They will not stop to speak with men, or even with their own husbands in the street." p. 67.
Niebuhr says, p. 44. "A man never salutes women in public; he would even commit an indecency if he looked at them steadily. An Arab lady who met us in a wide valley of the desert of Mount Sinai, went out of the way, gave her camel to be led by her servant, and walked on foot till we were passed; another, who met us in a narrow way, and who was on foot, sat down, and turned her back towards us."
We see by the above, the importance attached to this part of female dress in the East. The females of the Jewish nation, as referred to above, in the case of Rebekah, wore the veil as a token of modesty, reverence, or subjection to their husbands. Chardin also says, (Voyage en Perse) speaking of a peculiar sort of veil, "Only married women wear it; and it is the mark by which it is known that they are under subjection or power."
I will not enlarge further upon the subject, but leave it to your readers to draw their own conclusions.
JOSEPH TEMPLE E——K.