Persian Girls: A Memoir

If you only have time to read one book about women in Iran, or modern Iran in general, this is it.

“Persian Girls” is a memoir of Nahid Rachlin's childhood in Iran in the 1950’s and 1960’s, a period of great change. It is the story of Nahid’s  relationships with the important women in her life: her aunt, her mother, her sisters, her grandmother; and the men: her father and her brothers.

It is also the story of a period when Iran was undergoing great change, in general, but not such great changes for women. At this time the Shah, Mohammad Reza , wanted the country to appear to be more Westernized. The veil was outlawed and women began wearing Western clothing and makeup. According to Rachlin, this was just superficial. The relationships between women and men remained fundamentally unchanged.

Rachlin’s mother, Mohtaram, was only nine when she became a bride in an arranged marriage.  She subsequently had numerous children, so many that, when her beloved older sister, who was unable to have children of her own, asked for the next daughter, Mohtaram gave her sister Nahid. Nahid thus spent the first nine years of her life being brought up as the beloved only child of a loving, traditional woman. At nine, Nahib was snatched by her father from the playground of her school and flown to the family home. Her father explains that he is taking her because she needs a father. The trauma of being taken from the only home she knows is so great that Nahib cannot forgive her parents. Her comforter at this time is her older sister, Pari.

Nahid is taken from a traditional Muslim home to one that is precariously balanced between traditional Iranian customs and Western ones. No one in her family prays, fasts during Ramadan, or wears hejab. The family, however, does not allow children to mix with the opposite sex until they are married. Education is for the sons. Marriage is arranged by the parents, without much consideration for the wishes of those involved.

In her mother’s, Mohtaram’s, generation, two of the sisters were illiterate and  one had a sixth grade education. All the sisters were married before sixteen.

Usually, teenage girls were married to men who were much older than they. This was considered to be a good thing because a man who was established in his career or business was apt to be a better provider than a young man.

Each of Mohtaram’s daughters has her own struggles. Several daughters are unhappily married and divorce. One sister is married to a man who isn't what he seems to be.  One of the sisters loses her son in the process of divorce, fights for custody of him, and becomes clinically depressed when she isn’t even allowed to see him. One of the sisters is married to an abusive man. She cannot easily leave him because the pre-nuptial contract that her family signed only gives her support money if her husband leaves her. If she leaves him, she gets nothing. Her family will not take her back.

The theme of the book is the choices, and lack of choices, that each woman, and generation of women, has to face. It was hard to be a woman in Iran and is still very difficult for many women today. Rachlin makes readers feel very sympathetic and understanding of the difficult choices that Iranian women have had to face.

Name of the work: Persian Girls: A Memoir

Author: Nahid Rachlin

Publisher: Jeremy Tarcher/Penguin 2006

ISBN: 158542-520-6

Form of the work Memoir

Length of the work (number of pages): 280

Course(s) recommended for the work: English 1B, Women in Literature

Country(s) specific to the work: Iran

Theme(s) of the work: Women in Iran, Modern Iran, Relationships, Arranged Marriages