The Idaho scimitar. [volume] (Boise, Idaho) 1907-1908, 1908-08-08
Women i'm Persia.

Women i'm Persia.
A European in the shah's service said to me one
day. says Marylie Markovtch MADAME, when you
go home, set down as liar any man-no matter of
what nation or what rank how long resident in
Persia-who tells you he has Persian woman
without her veil" This officer the intimate
friend of Persian minister who had but one wife.
Almost daily he paid visit to the minister's house
After seven years of such cordial relations, the
European left Teheran without having made the
acquaintance of his friends wife He had heard her
voice; had seen her pass by, draped in her tchador
yet it would have been impossible for him to recog-
nize her in publc
The Persian henderoun is mistakenly hkened to
the Turkish harem. Both, it is true, represent the
part of the house where the women and their SER
wants live but the idea of polygamy that belongs
with the harem doesn't belong with the henderoun.
If Persian is a polygamist, he has many hen
derouns as wives. But polygamy has been declining
for years, even among the rich If Persian woman
is at once good and clever, she may easily gain a
strong influence over her husband. Last December,
at the time of the coup detat, young Persian of
my acquaintance quartered with several others
in the mosque of Sepa- Salar. One evening, he
ordered to mount guard outside the parliament
house. Next my friend there stood man of the
people, with his rifle at his feet. ct is five days
now he exclaimed, "since I have had any news
from my wife and chdren" That was not a
complaint a cry characterization In reality it
when he thought of the wife and the children
whose future he and his comrades held in their
hands that he best enabled to do his duty.
Woman, unified in her own eyes by the esteem
of man, has sought clearly to understand her
master, who has become her lover she has sought to
aid him with all the power of her heart and all the
energy of her persuasion For education counts for
little in the splendid movement among the women
of Islam With considerable native intelligence
the Persian has remained generally quite
ignorant. To read, to write to cipher bit-that
has been about the extent of her learning.
How, then, have such women suddenly become
able to comprehend a liberal movement and to ap-
plaud and second it Because for several years they
have yearned for share in the national life More
frequent contacts with the occident the return of
young men educated in European universities and the
the woman's interest and awakened their curiosity.
Realizing their own ignorance, many of them asked
to have their daughters to the American school
or to the French school founded by Richard Kahn
Many Persian fathers consented, provided that their
daughters would agree to keep the veil
Nevertheless, of the girls discarded it. She
had no father and lived with her mother upon her
own earnings. Born at Teheran in 1886 and edit
Gated at the American school, Agha Koutchoulou
("the little gentleman') spoke English and PLAYED
he piano, the VIOLIN and the Persian mandolin
Pretty, with the blonde beauty rare in Persia she
'ame and went unveiled through the Streets thus