Abstract

In the recent years, lots of varied studies have been conducted to investigate the conditions of women in Iran. The main provocative in them among other things was to defy the traditional ideologies that deemed women inferior. One of the places which have been very effective and mostly ignored by the scholars was the Persian proverbs, the cornucopia of varied ideologies for or against women. Our aim is, therefore, to demonstrate the problems that the study of women in the Persian proverbs cause for the scholars and reveal the contradictions which make any judgment impossible. As there are innumerable proverbs about women in Iran, mostly originating from the Persian literature, prose or poetry, we have decided to concentrate on some of the main roles of women as reflected in the proverbs. We hope that the study of the existing contradictions or oppositions in the portrayal of women in Persian proverbs will provide objective results to help other scholars further the studies on and about women in similar areas.

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