One more duty of a father to a son I should here mention: it is to procure for him a wife as soon as he has arrived at a proper age. This age is decided by some to be twenty years, though many young men marry at an earlier period. It is said, "When a son has attained the age of twenty years, his father, if able, should marry him, and then take his hand and say, 'I have disciplined thee and taught thee and married thee: I now seek refuge with God from thy mischief in the present world and the next.'" To enforce this duty, the following tradition is urged: "When a son becomes adult and his father does not marry him and yet is able to do so, if the youth do wrong in consequence, the sin of it is between the two"--or, as in another report,--"on the father."[232] The same is held to be the case with respect to a daughter who has attained the age of twelve years. The female children of the Arabs are seldom taught even to read. Though they are admissible at the daily schools in which the boys are instructed, very few parents allow them the benefit of this privilege; preferring, if they give them any instruction of a literary kind, to employ a sheykhah (or learned woman) to teach them at home. She instructs them in the forms of prayer and teaches them to repeat by heart a few chapters of the Ḳur-án, very rarely the whole book. Parents are indeed recommended to withhold from their daughters some portions of the Ḳur-án; to "teach them the Soorat ed-Noor [or 24th chapter], and keep from them the Soorat Yoosuf [12th chapter]; on account of the story of Zeleekhá and Yoosuf in the latter, and the prohibitions and threats and mention of punishments contained in the former."[233] Needle-work is not so rarely, but yet not generally, taught to Arab girls, the spindle frequently employs those of the poorer classes, and some of them learn to weave. The daughters of persons of the middle and higher ranks are often instructed in the art of embroidery and in other ornamental work, which are taught in schools and in private houses. Singing and playing upon the lute, which were formerly not uncommon female accomplishments among the wealthy Arabs, are now almost exclusively confined, like dancing, to professional performers and a few of the slaves in the ḥareems of the great: it is very seldom now that any musical instrument is seen in the hand of an Arab lady except a kind of drum called darabukkeh and a ṭár (or tambourine), which are found in many ḥareems, and are beaten with the fingers.[234] Some care, however, is bestowed by the ladies in teaching their daughters what they consider an elegant gait and carriage, as well as various alluring and voluptuous arts with which to increase the attachment of their future husbands.