The Education of Women and The Vices of Men: Two Qajar Tracts

Part Three: Women in Persian Satire: Hasan Javadi

P A R T T H R E E Women in Persian Satire H a s a n J a v a d i 129 From a vixen wife protect us well, Save us, O God! from the pains of hell. —Sa‘di, Golestan Slavery of woman, shah’s tyranny and the ignorance of populace; Make a story, which is hard to describe. —Abul Qasem Lahuti The man-woman relationship has always been one of conflict. Except in early matriarchal societies, man has generally dominated woman, but at the same time he has always been in need of her. Man has enjoyed the advantages of physical strength, political power, wealth, and, until recently, legal status and education, yet his life has never been complete without the presence of woman. This need, threatening both man’s sense of pride and his self-sufficiency, has made woman a continuous target of his satire. Doctor Johnson has said, “As the faculty of writing has been chiefly a masculine endowment, the reproach of making the world miserable has always been thrown upon the woman.”1 Therefore, most satirical works about women express a masculine point of view. A little-known feminist of the seventeenth century, Poulain de la Barre, sums up the whole subject 130 Women in Persian Satire in this way: “All that has been written about women by men should be suspect, for the men are at once judge and party to the lawsuit.”2 The masculine viewpoint most often expressed is one of aggression toward or victory over women. Sexual jokes, for instance, portray not an act of mutual pleasure, but an act from which only the man benefits. In some languages, the very words for lovemaking have a derogatory connotation.3 In societies where women are less emancipated, swear words often have sexual associations. This same relationship is true in English, of course, but the number of abusive sexual words in both Persian and Arabic seems to be far greater. One might seek to offend a man by verbally abusing his wife, mother, daughter, or sister. Thus, woman becomes a “sexual object” to be guarded and protected by man. Even references to a man’s relationship with his wife or sister are sometimes considered impolite. For instance, even today some men in Iran call their sisters ham-shireh, “one who has shared milk with me,” or refer to their wives as “the children’s mother.” In Persian literature, at least three categories of women are to be found. First, there are women in general; second, saintly women; and third, the beloved. The first category is treated with the most obvious and negative chauvinism, incorporating all the usual prejudices that are common in the East as well as the West. The frame tale of Thousand and One Nights, for example, in which Shahrezad prolongs her stories to save herself from impending death, indicates ever-present male suspicion of female infidelity. Similar themes occur in such other Middle Eastern tales as the Turkish Forty Viziers and The Wiles of Women4 and the Persian TalesofaParrot and Bakhtiyar-Nameh.5 The works of many Iranian poets also reflect this negative view Women in Persian Satire 131 of women. The misogynous Jami (816–97/1414–92) arranges that the hero of his philosophical allegory Salaman and Absal, Salaman, who represents the human soul, is born magically, not from a woman, so that he is purer than other men. Asadi of Tus (eleventh century) considers finding a husband a woman’s greatest art, and in one poem he says: Outside of women is green and lush as a tree, But inside they have venom as the fruit.6 Naser Khosrow (d. 395–481/1003–88) brings in yet another characteristic opinion: Since women are imperfect in faith and reason Why should men follow their way and decision?7 Jami, alluding to the biblical story of creation, asks: Woman was fashioned from the left rib; Who has ever seen right come from the left?8 According to some nationalistic Iranian scholars, women enjoyed a better status in pre-Islamic Iran, and it was as a result of the association with the Semitic Arabs that they became subordinate to men.9 But such generalizations exalting the Aryans over the Semites are difficult to justify. The Aryan Hindus, for instance, practiced the custom of suttee, burning the Hindu widow on her husband’s funeral pyre, until the...