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

10. Of Waking and Rising Manners

51 10 Of Waking and Rising Manners When the wife gets up in the morning, after saying her prayers, she should not prolong reading the Koran and saying prayers, but without delay she should comb her hair, apply eye shadow, sprinkle her hair and face with rose water, and come to the husband with a smiling face like a flaunting pheasant and a shining moon. In the morning, she should not get up and with sleepy eyes, smudged eye shadow and dirty color rouge, unbrushed teeth, smelly breath, and dirty crumpled clothes sit next to the husband in an unswept room, continuously yawning . For then the poor husband’s day is already benighted with her appearance, her sleepiness, the smell of garlic and burned tobacco of the water pipe, and he wishes a thousand times for a refuge from this hellish existence, and he leaves, trying to find succor outside of the house. The lady imagines that she should not be separate from the husband for a moment and is expecting that he should kiss and smell her. Truly, your lady, you are right. The husband at that time should lick the sleep from your eyes like sugar candy and like a dog lick your face. If he goes away, even for a minute , what mistake has he made? Such a mistake that neither Molla Ghaffar, the preacher, nor Sheikh Musa, the sorcerer,62 could set aright in a hundred years. As I have said, it is necessary for the wife that she should get up before the husband, and before showing her face to the husband, she should go to the other room, do her makeup, 52 The Education of Women and beautify herself; and even if the husband gets up before her, she should cover her face and go out of the room. She should not imagine that “it is no big deal that he should see me in this state” and should not assume that if someone loves his wife, he should not care for these details. Imagining this is an absolute mistake; love does not come from our mother’s womb. The outside appearance counts greatly, and one should do anything that creates this pleasure. One should not displease the husband. She should at least brush her teeth in the morning and should not say, “My crystal teeth are clean as pearls, and my breath is better than the smell of a rose.” This may be the case, but it may be that at night the bile of the humor has increased, and the poor husband, when he wants to kiss your blessed mouth, becomes so disgusted with your bad breath that even if he were a thousand times in love with you, that love will go away. She should not think that even though such and such a man’s wife has bad breath, her husband nevertheless kisses her day and night all the time and sucks her tongue. The purpose of what I am writing and saying is to teach, not to investigate or to argue. When you go to the restroom, you have no choice but to put up with bad smell, and there is no escape from it. But sitting with your wife should not be like going to the restroom, and her breath should not be like its smell. Rather, it should be in such a way that the husband is eager and desirous without any compulsion to kiss his wife like a bunch of flowers and that however much he kisses her, his desire increases so that he kisses her again. These considerations play a role when the wife has bad breath, and to silence the husband she says, “You don’t like me! If you did, as they say: Of Waking and Rising Manners 53 “The smell of onions from the mouth of the loved one Smells better than a flower from the hand of a beldam.”63 She tries to cover her bad breath with stupid apologies, which is a lame excuse. The poor man has to endure this and says, “Yes, yes.” One should teach such women. But if God has not afflicted her with bad breath, an ugly face, or an unbecoming appearance, she should not eat bad-smelling things or she should not make her beautiful face ugly. It is obvious that when someone gets up from sleep, there are some changes in...