Our Moslem Sisters: A Cry of Need from Lands of Darkness Interpreted by Those Who Heard It
Religion
Our Moslem Sisters: A Cry of Need from Lands of Darkness Interpreted by Those Who Heard It
Women -- Orient
A comic paper published by Mohammedans in Russia, and in their own
language, has recently had some amusing pictures bearing on the position
of women. In the first, two women and several men are coming before the
Mullahs for marriage or divorce; large heads of sugar carried into the
presence hint at bribery as a factor in the case. The women, who stand
mute and submissive, with their mouths tied up, as is literally the case
with many of them, have evidently nothing to say in the matter. The
second scene shows a man and three boys sitting around a large bowl of
rice, which is rapidly disappearing before their vigorous onset. The cat
is crunching a bone, but the wife and mother sits at one side while even
the baby in her arms is given a portion; but she waits till all are
satisfied, and she may come in for the leavings. Again, the lord and
master of the house, stretched upon a divan, smokes his pipe, a crying
child beside him on the floor. His wife enters, staggering under a heavy
stone water jar on her shoulder, another in her hand, and a child tied
on her back. He exclaims, "Oh, woman, may God curse you! this child
gives me the headache! come, take it also on your back."
A full two-page colored cartoon depicts the carriage of a most exalted
personage, with the veiled wife in it rolling through the street, while
all men and boys are turning their backs, and some even shutting their
eyes in obedience to officers armed with long whips. A dog also has
duteously and humbly turned his back to the forbidden sight, and is
crouched down with the most virtuous air you could imagine. When such
satires as this can appear, and the edition of the paper runs up into
the thousands, people are beginning to think.
XVIII
DARKNESS AND DAYBREAK IN PERSIA
PART II
There is indeed another side to the question, and all honor to the
Moslem men whose eyes are open to see the wrongs of women, whose hearts
pity, and who venture into the thorny and dangerous path of reform! Many
more, no doubt, feel all these things, but what can they do? They are so
bound in the net of custom and prejudice, that it is next to impossible
to remedy, in any degree, the existing evils; while by attempting it,
they run the risk of making things worse, and so shrug their shoulders,
and feel there is nothing to do but to submit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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