'Through Persia on a side-saddle' [‎171] (204/360)

ARABABAD AND SAGOTCH
171
house, knowing full well that he is doing his best to have
a look at her, as he stands hidden away on some balcony,
anxiously watching his mother, who will by means ot
signs show him his future wife.
The suitor is not supposed to see his fiancee until the
formal betrothal by the mollah takes place. If her face
displeases him then he can draw back by paying to her
parents half the sum of money they had agreed to give
her for a dowery; but this very seldom happens, as a man
behaving in this way is socially disgraced. Moreover, the
lady is so rouged and powdered on this occasion, and her
eyelids and eyebrows so blackened with antimony, that it
is no easy matter to gain a clear idea of what her natural
charms may be.
The wedding is a grand affair, the poorest Persian often
going deeply into debt, and squandering two or three
years' income in feasting his friends, the mollahs and
beggars, and in entertaining them with hired musicians.
When the couple settle down to a humdrum married
existence the Persian theory is that a man has linked
himself to a being inferior to him in every way, who must
submit to his sovereign will in all things. From his
extreme youth he has been taught by the priests to pay
no attention to the counsels of his wife, and they have
strongly impressed upon him that if a woman advises
him to any course of action he had better do the exact
contrary.
I remember on one occasion calling on a lady when her
husband was present, and the latter at once asked me
whether I thought his wife pretty, in much the same way
as if she were a horse or dog. He also bade me remark
how ill at ease she was in his presence, adding with pride