Belief's of Arabic Women

Arabian Nights has many stories, which show women being evil and treacherous, or being perfect and kind. Scheherazade, The Young King of the Black Isles, and The Enchanted Horse all have good examples of this. It seems that most Arabs, of the time these stories were written, believe that women are completely bad or completely good.

“Scheherazade” shows this pattern very well. There are both evil and perfect women. The brothers’ wives both cheat on their husbands. The King of Tartary finds his wife cheating on her on page 2. “...He found her trafficking with his enemies for his betrayal.” The Sultan’s brother finds the Sultana betraying her husband on page 3. “...The prince heard her hold treasonable conversation with some of her companies.” These women are both horrible, but Scherazade is the complete opposite. She is described on page 8.

“...Possessed with courage, wit and penetration infinitely above her sex. She had read much, and had so admirable a memory that she never forgot anything she had read. She had successfully applied herself to philosophy, medicine, history and the liberal arts; and her poetry excelled composition of the best writers of her time. Besides this, she was perfect beauty and

. . .

View the whole essay, without interruption

She mixes every evening in his liquor the juice of an herb, which makes him sleep so sound all night that she has time to go where she pleases, and as day begins to appear, she comes and lies down by him again and wakes him by the smell of something she puts under his nostrils. If you chose to be horrible though, you would be punished.

The story “The Young King of the Black Isles” shows women who is terrible and takes advantage of her husband. ” She adores her husband as shown on page 71. ” The Princess in “The Enchanted Horse” is a good example of women being faithful to their husbands and beautiful. It appears that most Arabs in that time period thought that women were either terrible and horrible, or perfect. All the wicked women in the stories who cheated on their husbands might have shown the men, that other men had been deceived by their wives too.

Approximate Word count = 818
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Simply subscribe to view this paper, and 100,000 others.