PROVERBS ABOUT WOMEN.

Inangahua Times, Volume X, Issue 1576, 20 July 1885, Page 3

PROVERBS ABOUT WOMEN.

Proverbs about womeu a»e common in every language, but particularly so in the East. In Japan they say " When the hen crow3, the house goes to ruin," evidently an Eastern version of the grey mare. Bat in China, "A bustling woman and j» crowing hen are neither ftt for gods or men," while the Persians believe in adapting the nu aos to the end, as indicated by the expression "If you be a cock, crow ;if a hen, lay au 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 Chines*, however, have perhaps the meanest sayings about women ever written— " There are. two good women : one dead, the other unborn." As an expression of contidence, however, it is closely pushed by the Ber.galese notion, 44 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 leas the object of proverbial attention. The Talmud s-iya: -• Though the wife be little, Ik>w down to her"— that if' listen to her advice ; 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 undertniues the wall with its roots. In China •• The widow is like a fudderless boat ;" and in Biam, "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 tendeiley handled. The Talmud, however, snins up tue 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 ; bat from his gide, that she should be near his heart."