B985 <=> B987 [BTG XLII Beelzebub in America, p. 986]

“’And so, respected Doctor! Thanks just to the aforesaid causes wisely understood by my uncle, many women prostitutes from various other countries then appeared after several years among us in Persia.

“’And owing to the instinctive attitudes which, as I have already said, had been acquired during centuries by the local women of Persia without distinction of religion towards morality and patriarchality in family traditions, these foreign women were unable to mix with the general mass of Persian women, with the consequence that from then on, there began to be among us the two categories of women I have mentioned.

“’Well then, owing to the fact that the majority of these foreign women, living freely among us in Persia and going about everywhere, in the markets and other public places, often became objects for the gaze of our Persian men, there was gradually formed in the latter, of course unconsciously, along with the already existing attitude towards women as mothers, yet another attitude towards women as simply females.

“’The property of having this definite double attitude towards women, being transmitted by inheritance from generation to generation, has even, among us, finally become so rooted that at the present time our men not only distinguish these two categories of women by their appearance as easily as one distinguishes between a man, a sheep, a dog, an ass, etc. . . but there has even been formed in them a certain something which instinctively prevents them from mistaking a woman of one category for a woman of another.

“’Even I myself could always unmistakedly tell, from a distance, what sort of woman was passing. How I could tell this, whether by their walk or by some other sign, with the best will in the world I could not now explain, but it is a fact that I could tell and was never mistaken, although, as I have already told you, both categories of women wore similar veils.