History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

CHAP. II.] PARST DOMESTICITY. 127

them indulge in at dinner, though, of course, at large parties various wines are handed round and pretty freely indulgedin. During the day they abstain from drinking anything stronger than tea. They abhor drunkenness as the parent of many evils. As an instance of their esteem for temperate habits, it may be mentioned that, in the early part of this century, when the Panchayet was in power, it directed the remoyal of a liquor shop kept by a Parsi from a street inhabited by other Parsis on pain of excommunication. It will not be out of place to state here the fact that Parsis do not smoke either tobacco or opium, from their religious instinct forbidding them to brine fire, which is pure, into contact with the mouth, which is deemed impure.

The Parsi women occupy in their society a much more honourable and independent position than either their Hindu or Mahomedan sisters. According to Dr. Hang, a high authority on Zoroastrian scriptures, “the position of a female was in ancient times much higher than it is nowadays. They are always mentioned as a necessary part of the religious community. They have the same religious rites as men ; the spirits of deceased women are invoked as well as those of men.”

The Parsi generally makes a good and affectionate husband, and discharges faithfully his matrimonial duties, and the wife is equally conscious of her obliga-