RayBetesh Texts Ideas

Eddie Dweck

Texts and Ideas: Antiquity and the Enlightenment

Professor Rubenstein

Shayna Weiss

Women in Persian Letters

In Persian Letters, Montesquieu analyzes the differences in culture between Persia and Europe through the use of letters, which track Usbek and Rica in their journey from Persia to Europe and their “laborious search for wisdom” (1). Upon reaching their destination, these men discover vast differences between European culture and their own. However, nowhere was this disparity in cultures starker than in regards to how each society treated women. While at first hesitant to recognize the weaknesses in their own culture, by the end of their journey Usbek and Rica realize just how misguided their society has been in regards to its treatment of women. Unfortunately, this realization does not come in time; the rigid structure that Usbek has created in the seraglio begins to crumble in his absence, signifying just how unnatural this structure was.  

Some of the early letters provide us with a window into the lives of women in Persia. Men would often have multiple wives who would live in a seraglio where eunuchs would cater to their needs. These women were thought of as possessions and were expected to remain completely loyal, sitting in the seraglio until the time when their husbands called upon them. Even the slightest hint of dissidence, such as if “any man appears before them” (2) is punishable by death for this man.

However, despite the rigid ways of the seraglio, it is not portrayed as a place devoid of love. Fatme, one of the many wives of Usbek, says “what can you expect a woman to do when she loves you, when she is used to holding you in her arms…” (7). Usbek longs for his wives as well, saying “ I cannot think of them without being eaten up with worry” (6). However, despite this love that Usbek has for his wives, he places them in the restrictive confines of the seraglio to ensure that they remain loyal. His greatest fear is infidelity and the seraglio assuages this fear by trapping these women, making it impossible for them to disobey and embarrass their husband. “For what could they do there? Would not impunity and concealment be a thousand times preferable to public chastisement?” (6).  

As Usbek and Rica begin their journey in Europe, they encounter a society extremely different from that of their own. Upon fist arriving at Leghorn, Usbek is struck by the freedom granted to European women. “They are able to see men… they can go out every day with a number of old women… they have only one veil… their brothers in law, their uncles, their nephews, can see them without their husbands ever protesting” (23). Coming from a society where a man can be put to death for simply appearing before a woman, the notion of allowing women to roam freely within society is completely alien to Usbek.

Although Usbek is struck by the freedom given to European women, he feels that this freedom is extremely improper, leading to the absence of a sense of modesty in society. While describing French society to his wife Roxana, Usbek continuously stresses how lucky she is to live in Persia, away from the cesspool of immodesty that is France.  He describes France as a place where women “have lost all restraint. They leave their faces bare in the presence of men” (26). Usbek does not feel that French women perform the worst sin imaginable “violating their marriage laws” but rather they do “fail to preserve the appearances that modesty requires” (26).

To combat feminine immodesty, Usbek feels the seraglio is the best way to house and restrain women. In the seraglio, women are separated from the rest of society and thus “can live as though [they] were in the home of innocence, beyond the reach of all the crimes of mankind” (26). In the seraglio, women are always protected from the dangers and temptations of the outside world, living a life where immodesty is impossible and loyalty is the greatest virtue. Usbek places a great deal of importance on innocence, and thus favors the seraglio for the seclusion it provides. He even goes so far as to say, “If you were here Roxana, you would certainly feel outraged by the dreadful ignominy into which your sex has fallen” (26).  He feels that things are so bad in France that if Roxana accompanied him she would flea back to Persia in pursuit of order and seclusion.

However, as Usbek and Rica continue on their journey through Europe, they begin to feel more comfortable with European society.  Usbek even begins to find flaws, however minimal, in seraglio life. He notes that women living in the seraglio do not drink, gamble, or have experiences in the outside world. They trade physical pleasures for the strict confines of the seraglio, which is “more conducive to health than to pleasure, it is an equable life without stimulus” (34). He even notices that the lives of men in France seem to be more enjoyable than in Persia. He notes, “Even the men in Persia do not have the same gaiety as the French” (34), signifying a small but monumental shift in values. Whereas before Usbek valued order and loyalty above all else, we see here that he is beginning to understand that a life without experiences is not much of a life at all.

Rica begins to question certain aspects of Persian society as well. In one of his letters, he is extremely conflicted about the power that men should have over women. Whereas before Rica felt strongly that men had absolute power over their wives, he begins to understand the complexities present in the argument. He states, “It is a great problem for men to decide whether it is more advantageous to allow woman their freedom or to deprive them of it. It seems to me that there is a great deal to be said both for and against” (38). This shows an extreme change in Rica’s opinion. He now begins to recognize the risks and rewards that both sides present, noting that Europeans feel that secluding and controlling a large group of women will cause difficulties while Persians disagree and say that “ten women who obey cause less difficulty than one woman who does not” (38).

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