WHERE WIVES RULE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 28, 3 February 1932, Page 19

WHERE WIVES RULE.

THE NATION OF THE VIRGINS PARADISE FOR MALE LOAFERS. Two of the most remarkable nations in the world—"The Nation of the Virgins" and "The Blue-Eyed Ossetians" — aro almost entirely unknown to the world. They are in Azerbaijan, the "Land of the Eternal Fire," lying between the Black Sea, the Caspian. Russia on the north, and the Caucasus on the south. The Jassaians, called by their neighbours "The Nation of the Virgins," live in a dark canyon without a name. The men do not work, but lie about under the trees, except once a rear, on the eve of the New Year, when they take their wives' weapons and go hunting. The strange people are described by Essad Bey, son of a former Turkestan oil millionaire at Baku, in a romantic book, "Blood and Oil in the Orient," a translation from the German. The Jassaian man, when bored by doing nothing, goes fishing. That is not regarded as work. Real work for a man is "a shame, an unlawful action, for which there is no forgiveness." "Work, any kind of work," says Essad Bey, "is the exclusive province of the woman. And the woman is also the first who forbids her husband to work, who casts him out and mocks him if he begins to work; for it is 'an insult to a woman if her husband works,' says Jassaian wisdom." Unlike other women of the Orient, the Jassaian women do not veil their faces. They carry daggers and axes, "and," says Essad Bey, "are more warlike than tile men of other tribas. When babies are born the women go and hide in the forest. "The woman," it is said, "carries the weapons, chooses her future husband, and makes the marriage proposal. She refuses to give up to her husband the least of her rights and duties. She does not like to permit him to leave the village and go abroad."

If a woman wants divorce she calls in two witnesses and says to her husband: "Go from me for the first time, for the second time, for the third time," and that is the divorce. "The Nation of the Virgins" holds that "It is a sin to live weary."