Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1909-01-06

From the time when the girl is born
she is taught to submit to restraint
The small baby, for the first few
bound tightly down by triangular
pieces of cloth. At a month old it's
arms are set at liberty; at two months
it is permitted to move its legs. The
girls are sometimes sent with their
brothers to a woman mullah (the word
''mullah'' literally means one who
reads) for educational purposes,
though exactly what these imply is
difficult to define, as most of the popu-
lation cannot read or write. Very
early, however, the little maiden is de-
prived of this slight liberty. She is
kept exclusively in the women's apart
ments, and prepared for her future
destiny. Her hair is braided and
threaded with white cotton, in order to
make it grow long by giving it down.
ward tendency. Well-to-do children
have their locks twisted with colored
silk and beads, and certainly the result
seems satisfactory, as the Persian
women possess beautiful hair of such
length that most of them are able to
sit upon it. At 13 or IA the parents of
the child arrange her marriage. The
wedding festivities last six or seven
days, the women assembling at the
house of the bride, and the men at the
house of the bridegroom.
Divorce in Persia is very easy. Any
man can procure it for any reason at
cost of what in our money would be
sixpence or sevenpence. This causes
the lot of the women of the poorer
classes to be one of peculiar hardship,
as there are no factories or any other
means by which they can gain livel1-
hood except under a husbands di-
rection.
If it were not for occasional nuptial
rejoicings among her neighbors, the
high-born lady would have very dull
time. She is only allowed the society
of her own relations, and the feminine
pleasure of calling is hedged round by
many restrictions. Her methods of
entertaining, when she does do it, are
lish sisters.
AS no men, except those of their
own families, are allowed to see the
women, it follows there are women
doctors. These are generally ancient
sibyls, who brew mysterious concoc-
lions from herbs, and understand only
too we'll how to play upon the fancies
and superstitions of their parents.
In Persia two distinct races live
side by side, and the commerce and
industries of the country are mainly
in the hands of the Parsees, who have
their central organization at Bombay.
They are fine race, mentally and
physically, and their religion-the
ancient one of Zoroaster-has not the
same paralyzing effect on the brain as
seems to be exercised by the Mussul-
mans faith. The women are good
looking and energetic, and appear tall
beside the understood Persians. They
work exquisitely with their needles,
and their wide trousers are made Of
strips of different-colored silk.
AS yet western influence has had lit
tie effect on the fundamental princi-
pies which govern the lives of Per
sian women. The teaching of the null
labs of both sexes, who make such an
excellent living by reading the Koran
to ignorant believers, is steadily
against the progressionist movement,
and an old and effete race never takes
so kindly to new ideas as a young
and vigorous one. A few of the women
have, however, contrived to become
both clever and well informed, with
consequences not altogether happy for
themselves. Confined within the mar
row limits of the harem, the developed
mind is apt to render its possessor
irritable and depressed and most of
these pioneers eventually fall victims
to hysteria, a malady absolutely I'M
known to their unintellectual and in
dolent sisters.