MARRIED A PERSIAN PRINCE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 7 August 1926, Page 11

MARRIED A PERSIAN PRINCE

ENGLISH GIRL DRAWS THE DUMMY.

rpHE injunction granted in the Chan- ± eery Division to the English wife of Prince Farid Es-Sultaneh once more draws attention to the danger of British girls marrying fascinating men of the East, whose conditions are so different from those at home. In this striking article Princess Farid Es-Sultaneh herself sounds a note of warning.. Foreigners, especially Easterners, seem to exercise a remarkable fascination for some English girls. Such ill-assorted unions are rarely happy, and nine times out of ten end in shipwreck. How can it be otherwise, when temperaments are as opposite as the poles, and each is looking at life from different angles—the angles of East and West. Bitter disillusion and disappointment await the girl who expects to find happiness with an Eastern lover. For the average Englishman a sweetheart or wife represents a pal and helpmeet —someone in whom he can confide, and who will give him inspiration and comfort. But for the Eastern lover woman represents something very different.

She may be invited out with. her husband to a score of places, but there will alwavs be hostesses who, while including him in their invitations,, will tacitly ignore her. To them she is an outcast —a social pariah. . “I married a,Persian Prince, Earid-Es-Kultaneh,” says the Princess, a man of considerable culture and charm, but 1 have not- found happiness. I lived a care-free, happy existence, never having to think for a moment ot money. Now lam almost without a pennv, and for the first time in my life I have to go out and earn my own livWhen I was nine years old my godmother, a Miss Howard, left me £IB,OOO, and before I came of age I had a personal fortune amounting to £30,000. Mv romance with the Prince began at a Folkestone hotel. We met at a ball, and I was carried away by the glamour, of his picturesque personality. To me at nineteen he seemed not only a real prince, but a Prince Charming as tv ell. . Tall and slim, with perfectly chiselled features aud exquisite manners, he had all the culture, charm, and education of the West. Everyone liked him. He painted me wonderful word pictures of life in the Ef> r " 1 ;. Eor hours together he would tell mo of the romance and colour, of the customs and people. Then lie. would go on to describe the magnificence of his life in the gorgeous palaces of Teheran, and of the luxury and splendour with which I would be surrounded if I became his bride.'

A woman who marries" such a man finds her first, disillusionment in his attitude towards her. Instead of being regarded as an equal and a partner, the Princess discovered that she was held as of little more account than a chatel.

Her part, in her husband’s life, in fact, was that of a dressed-up doll to play with in his leisure hours. Even that, perhaps, might be endurable, if it wore not for the intolerable lack of sympathy and intuition displayed to her. An Eastern lover, says the Princess, seldom appreciates, seldom attempts to appreciate even that a woman may have an intelligence equal or superior to his own. What right has a woman to want to play any part in a man’s affairs, he argues. Her job is to look pretty. So the woman who has judged marriage in the East by Western standards, and who, perhaps, has hoped to be a real helpmeet to her husband, finds herself ranked little higher than his motor-ear in his esteem.

Little more than a school girl/;as I then was, it all sepmed like a wonderful dream. Out' there with such a man,'! felt, I would find true happiness.

His wooing lasted eighteen months. Wo met at frequent intervals, sometimes in London, sometimes in the country, and always ho was the same charming, attentive lover. At last, impressed by his earnestness, I consented to marry him. Here it was that the first strange incident occurred. When the details of the wedding came to be discussed, the Prince insisted that it should be performed in the strictest secrecy.

Not only does sne meet with this attitude from her husband, but she finds it strongly developed in his friends and relatives. No one has any sympathy for her. No one understands her. She is a curiosity—an intruder. That she is also a human being, able to feel pain and to suffer, never seems to occur to them.

Accordingly, rve were married at an official administration office in London. Two months after the" marriage I left him, but returned to him later, and anolher ceremony was gone through at a register office in Kensington.

The Prince was a remarkable example of dual personality, for beneath his Western veneer were all the immutable and mysterious characteristics of the East.

But this is only a small part of her Gethsemane. By tv single stroke of the pen on the marriage register she finds she has scuttled herself socially. Though her own people may be very kind, she knows they look at her askance as that strange creature the wife of a man of c-olour. "Wherever she goes she will find iron barriers Taised between herself and the social world.

He was a born gambler, I found, and his favourite recreations were baccarat and chcmin-dc-fer. He had little use for outdoor sports.

Wo never went to Pgris, but spent most of our time travelling on the Continent.