The Evening Times

WAYS OF AFGHAN WOMEN.

Not as Submissive as Some of Their Indian Sisters.

Although an Afghan woman is supposed to exist entirely for the benefit of her lord and master, she is not always as meek as might be expected under these circumstances.

When a man has many wives, relates a writer in the Ladies' Pictorial, one particular one may not see him for many days at a time, but it is not considered proper for him to stay away from her as long as he feels inclined, particularly if she be of high social position. The result of such an experiment on the part of a man married to the granddaughter of the great ameer was that he suffered personal violence at her hands, and then the story got abroad and he became the laughing stock of the court.

He had neglected to visit his august wife for twenty days, and when at last he did go she was dining off a leg of mutton. Feeling like a schoolboy who had failed in his attendance at school, the delinquent husband sat down to his food, trying to appear unconscious of any neglect or misconduct. The lady, too, appeared guiltless of any irritable feelings or sinister designs. She quietly (with her fingers, of course) picked all the meat off the bone and laid the pieces before her husband, who graciously accepted the delicate little attentions she bestowed upon him, and thought he was going to escape cheaply; but he was mistaken, for no sooner had she completed the operation than she raised her weapon of vengeance aloft and struck him with such force as to make a considerable wound, the broken end of the mutton bone being no doubt sharp and jagged.

The next day the man appeared at court with his head all plastered up, and the story soon came out to his intense mortification and disgust.

The new woman has penetrated even to the harem of the ameer of Afghanistan, where she wears male attire and does precisely as she pleases. The ameer picked her up on his return journey from the northern part of his dominions, a good many years ago. She had been brought before him by an indignant father and a proposed husband for punishment. She would not conform to the usages of the country and enter the married state, though she had reached the age when it became incumbent upon her to do so. The girl declared she had run wild all her life, and did not wish to give up her freedom and be shut up in a harem. She sought the ameer's protection and obtained it.

"All right," he said, "since you wish to be free, free you shall be, but free you must always remain; that is your punishment. You wish to live like a man; you shall live like one and for your own protection you must wear men's clothes."

On her arrival at Cabul she was given the title of sirdar, or chief, and was made the harem messenger. She comes and goes as she pleases, or is ordered, both by night and day, and no one even in slanderous Cabul, has ever breathed a word against her fair fame.