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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



opinion of his wife or wives, and seldom 

 turns to them for companionship. 



When death approaches, if he has per- 

 formed his daily prayers, kept the Fast 

 of Ramazan, visited the mosque on Fri- 

 day, and given alms to the poor, a Per- 

 sian has no doubts as to his reception in 

 the next world and dies in a happy con- 

 fidence of attaining to the paradise prom- 

 ised by the Prophet to all his faithful 

 followers. 



Rivers of delicious water, milk, and 

 honey flow through beautiful gardens 

 planted with shady trees. These latter 

 thrust their branches laden with luscious 

 foods into the mansions where the faith- 

 ful, arrayed in silk, lie on couches and 

 are tended by houris of surpassing loveli- 

 ness. 



Seventy-two of these angelic beings 

 fall to the lot of the humblest believer, 

 and they sing enchantingly to him, fulfill 

 his least desire, and make him forget the 

 women he has known on earth. 



TH]^ RESTRICTED OPPORTUNITY OF PERSIAN 

 WOMEN 



And now I will ask the reader to turn 

 to the life of the Persian woman and 

 contrast it with that of her lord and 

 master. 



Often she comes into the world un- 

 wanted and meets with no welcome, and 

 through life she is usually neglected and 

 made of little account. Sometimes she is 

 educated with her brothers up to the age 

 of eight, but after that she is separated 

 more or less from them and is relegated 

 to the anderoon. 



In Persia it is rare to find a woman 

 who reads or writes, and a girl will em- 

 ploy her time in embroidery, in making- 

 sweetmeats and sherbets, and in much 

 gossip with her women friends and 

 servants. 



Her indoor dress in summer is a gauze 

 jacket, and very full, short trousers that 

 do not reach to the knee, this latter gar- 

 ment being introduced by Nasr-ed-Din 

 Shah, who was greatly fascinated with 

 the costume of the Paris ballet girls. 



A Persian lady cuts her hair in a 

 straight fringe across the forehead and 



mixes her tresses, if not abundant, with 

 horse-hair; but she always covers her 

 head with the chargat, a handkerchief of 

 fine muslin that she wears by day and 

 night, and which it would be the height 

 of impropriety to remove. 



In appearance she has fine eyes and 

 good features, small hands and feet, and 

 a figure usually too stout for European 

 taste, while, owing to her secluded Hfe, 

 she often looks dull and unintelligent. 

 Her fondness for cosmetics leads her to 

 rouge and powder her face most inartis- 

 tically, and she uses kohl to impart a 

 languishing look to her eyes and to dou- 

 ble the width of her eyebrows, making 

 them sometimes meet at the bridge of 

 her nose. 



When a woman wishes to leave the 

 cmdcroon her dress is a complete disguise. 

 She draws up to her waist a garment, 

 socks and trousers in one, and over this 

 she drapes the chadar, a large black wrap 

 covering her from head to foot. Hiding 

 her features is a white silk or cotton cloth 

 with just a strip of lace-work across the 

 eyes, and death would be the penalty 

 were a man rash enough to raise that 

 face-cloth. Heelless, flapping slippers 

 complete a costume which is almost suf- 

 focating in the summer heat, and which 

 at any time makes its wearer look like a 

 waddling bundle. 



The public bath is the Persian woman's 

 chief dissipation. Here she meets her 

 friends and spends many hours in the 

 hot, steamy atmosphere, while her serv- 

 ants dye her hair with henna and indigo 

 and tint her nails and the tips of her 

 fingers and toes with the scarlet juice of 

 the former plant. 



Perhaps she will go to the mosque on 

 Friday, but if she does so she will be 

 confined in a closely latticed enclosure 

 from which she can see and hear but 

 little of the proceedings. 



HKR FATE DECIDED BY OTHERS 



Of course marriage is the great crisis 

 in a girl's life, but in this, as in every- 

 thing else, she has no choice. Her par- 

 ents often have no idea of consulting the 

 tastes of their daughter, and girls are 



