Proverbs About Women.

Evening Star, Issue 6913, 28 May 1885, Page 4

Proverbs About Women.

Proverbs about women are common in every language, but particularly so in the East, In Japan they say “ When the hen crows, the house goes to ruin,” evidently an Eastern rendition of the grey mare. But in China, “ A bustling woman and a crowing hen are neither fit for gods and men,” while the Persians believe in adapting the means to the end, as indicated by the expression “If youbeacock, crow; ifahen, lay an egg.” In Russia “ It never goes well when the hen crows and another thought is pertinently expressed in the proverb “ The wife does not beat the husband, but her temper rules him.” The Chinese, however, have perhaps the meanest saying about women ever written —“ There are two good women : one dead, the'other unborn.” As an expression of confidence, however, it is closely pushed by the Bengalese nation, “ A perfect woman is as rare as wings upon a cat, or air flowers, or rabbits’ horns, or tortoise-hair ropes.” Woman as a wife is not less the object of proverbial attention. The Talmud says ; “ Though the wife be little, bow down to her ’’—that is, listen to her advice ; while the Chinese say “ A good man will not beat his wife,” a self-evident proposition, the truth of which is not affected by the Persian : “A bad wife is like a fig tree growing on the wall”-—which undermines the wall by its roots. In China “ The widow is like a rudderless boat ”; and in Siam “He who marries a wolf looks often to the forest.” In Russia “ A wife is not a guitar,” which will be silent when you have done with it; while in Ceylon “A wife is like a morning flower”—to be tenderly handled. The Talmud, however, sums up the whole case : “ God did not make woman from man’s head, that she should rule over him ; nor from his feet, that she should be his slave ; but from his side, that she should be near his heart.”