A father is strictly forbidden to sell his daughter--_i. e._ to take money in any shape whatever when giving her in marriage, but is enjoined, on the contrary, to furnish her with a handsome dowry. The Parsee woman is as independent in her home and marriage relations as the European, although the universal seclusion of high-born Hindoo and Mohammedan women has not been without its influence on her domestic life. The first use of the veil among the Persian women was as a symbol of dignity and honor rather than of concealment from motives of modesty. In the early days of the Zoroastrians woman was held not so much as an equal, but as something superior in the home. In social rights and home-duties the husband and wife shared alike, and side by side they ministered to the holy fires on their household hearths. In the "Prajapatya" form, which, though _Vèdic_, is equally binding on the Fire-worshipper, the bride and bridegroom are distinctly enjoined to perform together their civil and religious duties. But the poetic love and reverence which surrounded woman in the early days of the Aryans, and which is still unsurpassed in all their literature, struck deeper than laws or rules, and in a burst of generous and spiritual enthusiasm "all men were commanded to bow the knee in filial reverence before the mother of a family, declaring a mother to be greater, more blessed, than a thousand fathers." Thus we see how much the simple fact of maternity tended to elevate woman in the home. And the desire to foster and protect her led these early worshippers to typify womanly purity as ever sacred, and as ever ready to comfort and cheer the heart of man as is the carefully-watched fire that burned on their altars. But, alas! the rules and obligations which were originally intended for her safety and happiness are now forged into iron fetters to bind her, too often a willing slave, to the caprice of man, and have been used, and still are urged, against her higher advancement to the privileges of a liberal education. Nevertheless, there are among the Parsees even to-day a few old-fashioned observances which might be introduced with great advantage to the wife and mother among the laboring and even richer classes of European nations. For instance, even in the poorest families there are certain days when the woman is considered unfit to cook, wash, bake, sweep the floor, or light the house-lamp. So strenuous are the laws against her working at these times that among certain persons her touch is held to pollute the thing or person that comes into close contact with her. She is forbidden to perform even the lighter offices which may fall to her share in the house. She separates herself from the family on such occasions. If she is too poor to keep a servant, her husband is enjoined to do her part of the housework in addition to his own outdoor labor, whatever that may be. The same rules apply to all female servants.