Persian Westender

Dear mitra northcal

Thank you for reading and the comment. I think I am not the only one...  

re:re;

 I think religion no matter what, provides a pretext for gender inequality and it applies to ancient religions too:

“...The unfortunate fact is that men and women were not equal in ancient Iran. For example, the arduous purification rituals that women had to undergo every month and after childbirth cannot compare to anything men dealt with. After giving birth, Zarthushti women lived in isolation for a period of forty days, and had to perform additional purification rituals before coming out of such isolation. Similar purification rites followed periods of menstruation, and these rites were attached as much to religious belief as to sanitation....”

read the rest in the reference:

//iranian.com/Shirazi/2005/May/Women/index.html

Another source:

  //www.netnative.com/news/01/mar/1038.html

for very ancient era, I guess we have to rely on mythological resources such as story of Gilgamesh.

by the way,  with underage marriage a forced marriage also is attached (it might be consensual, but steel it is abuse). 

re;

  I don’t know if treatment of women by men in general was ideal in pre-Islam era. If you have historical evidences regarding this pls let us know

I think on the contrary the burden of the proof is on the claiment since ;"one is not guilty until proven otherwise" . Anyhow, I was talking about underage marriage(not forced marriage) & as such neither in zorostrian teachings nor the tales & traditions of the old Iran you see any evidence of 9 or 10 yr olds being forced to marry. & as for ideal treatment of women, it may not have been perfect but female gender had more political/social rights than many nations in 21st century as the numerous queenship of Pourandokht & Azardokht and female socio political leaders attest to that. Was it on par with modern ideals? ofcourse not but then we cant compare modern standards within antiquity environment.

Path of Kiaan Resurrection of True Iran Hoisting Drafshe Kaviaan //iranianidentity.blogspot.com //www.youtube.com/user/samsamsia

Dear pw, thanks for taking me on a sad trip to Iran of yesterday

Dear persian westender, I liked your story.  The fact that you even think about fate of Iranian women of hundreds of years ago, that shows you are a sensitive person who does not like to see injustice and speaks up about it.

...

Please note that one of my ideas to write this story was to say that there should be many anonymous individuals in our history whom may have lived like heroes and nobody knows about them;  Just ordinary people whose life-long courage and resilience may have surpassed those of famous national heroes. Act of heroism could be pretty subjective and a matter of personal choice. While we have a list of known national heroes in Iran, I may have my own choice of national heroes/ heroines without considering the other ones as discredited. Here are the source://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_national_heroes

Samsam IIII : While I realize that underage/forced marriage among Iranians was (is) an ugly practice initiated from Islamic traditions; I don’t know if treatment of women by men in general was ideal in pre-Islam era. If you have historical evidences regarding this pls let us know.

Azadeh: This is tragic indeed. Thank you for the comment.

Tragic

Thank you, persian westender, for this heartbreaking story. Imagine a society where half of the population is raped by the other half, and its children are the products of rape. This is the foundation of our "glorious" past and present.

~ Sigh!

Azadeh

Survivors

Its very uncomfortable to read & guess it was meant to be that way & I,m sure it wasn,t written to get literary reviews. Not victims since they expected their fate, not heros since they weren,t rewarded but an army of survivors who more tragic than the act itself lost their childhood innocence courtesy of the good old dual-identity shaikhak culture of pretence & rightiousness. & contrary to some,s opinion the suffering is not so much in past tense but very much alive in ommatestan thanks to us the passive army of male cultprits.

Path of Kiaan Resurrection of True Iran Hoisting Drafshe Kaviaan //iranianidentity.blogspot.com //www.youtube.com/user/samsamsia

Dear divaneh and hamsadeh ghadimi

Thanks for reading.

 Zobeideh is more like a heroine to me, although you don’t see an explicit act of bravery from her here in this short story. Humans like Zobeideh, however have withstood the test of time and have changed their doomed destiny throughout the history. They didn’t break by horrible situations they went through; the situations which I as a narrator found them hard even to imagine.                 

persian westender

eyval, that was a well-written piece.  i didn't want it to end.  i'm curious, is badbakhty keshidan a requirement to be a hero?

Fantastic Story

Another great writing. Truly enjoyed it. I just don't know if Zobeideh was a hero or a victim.

Comments

Souri: Thank you for reading the story.

MPD: Merci for the comment.

Fatollah jan: Once in a while some dose of truth is not bad. Thanks

JJ: ... and thank you for the medium you’ve provided to express that.

Silent screams

Thank you for giving a voice to so many who suffered.

PW

we have a long distance to cover, thanks for the post. 

p/s didn't enjoy the post one bit, haghighat talkh-e

This is a fantastic piece of writing

PW, you have done a great job writing this story in the first-person voice.  Excellent job!

Lovely!

I truly enjoyed. Very skillfully written. Thank you.