Note 11 — Chapter IV · Private Festival Occasions

Living in the home of her patriarchal father-in-law, the young wife is subject to the severest restraints. She must wear a lightly fitting veil enclosing her face below the eyes, without which she can not appear even in the house.11 She wears a close fitting bodice fastened at the neck with silver clasps, full trousers of rose colored silk gathered in at the ankles by a filet of silver; her feet are bare, a silver girdle of curious workmanship loosely encircles her waist, and a long padded garment, open down the front, hangs from her shoulders. Not a single word must she utter to any member of the household, except when alone with her husband, and then only such as may be absolutely necessary, until she has given birth to her first child. Then she may speak to her nursling, after a while to her mother-in-law, later to her own mother, and by and by to the young girls of the household, but never in all her life may she have word with a young man not a relative. During her first year of married life, she may not go out of the house except for two visits to the church. Every morning and at the end of each meal she must pour water over the hands of her father- and mother-in-law, and for a certain time after marriage, when visitors come, she must kiss their hands, except of course, for men, before whom she may not even appear.12 Apart from these troublesome restraints the young wife is treated with the utmost solicitude, and in some parts, even the peasant wife is not allowed to do outdoor work. In the mountain villages of Persian Armenia, however, the women do all the tilling in the fields, wearing their veils over their mouths as they work.13 The author here quoted states that husbands never see the mouths of their wives, who not only must not speak during the first year of married life, or until a child is born, but also may not converse freely with their husbands until six years of married life have elapsed.14