If an Englishman’s home is his castle, you could say an Iranian woman’s home is her stronghold. Once the threshold is crossed, she is the indisputable mistress of the household, although she may be assisted by other family members in the everyday running of the household. The sons of the family often do the daily shopping, buying fresh bread, yogurt, and herbs. They also generally help with the housework, such as cleaning up after meals and taking their turn washing dishes. Occasionally they also carry out more demanding household tasks, such as washing the windows, carpets, and walls.
In older houses the toilet is in the yard, at the farthest point from the house. Plastic slippers are kept by the front door, with the yard functioning as a buffer zone between the clean house and the “unclean” toilet. People put on the plastic shoes before going out to the toilet, and then take them off upon returning to the house. Usually there is only one pair of these plastic slippers for everyone’s use, so visitors do not need to ask for permission to use them.
More recent houses and flats have “hole-in-the-ground” type toilets (called Irâni, i.e., Iranian). Because of the impurity of the toilet (see “Ritual Impurity”), after every use, the whole bowl and the surrounding area are rinsed with running water. In flats, which don’t have a yard as a buffer zone, the slippers are placed just inside the toilet and not outside, which is meant to be ritually clean. Following the traditional placing of the toilet as far away as possible from the rooms, some modern flats have the Iranian toilet positioned very near the front door, even if the bathroom that has a tub and shower and sink, as well as a flush toilet (called farangi, i.e., Frankish, European), is elsewhere in the flat.
For Iranians the concept of “house” traditionally encompasses the building as well as the yard. In quoting the size of a property, the total area in square meters is given along with the area occupied by the building (zir-banâ). The yard is therefore understood as an integral part of the house and kept clean and tidy just like indoors.
Older houses often have an ornamental pool. In traditional houses rooms were arranged around the central courtyard, much like houses in classical Athens, and the pool was the focal point of the whole house. In the days before piped water, the pool was used to store water for washing. Nowadays, although the pool has lost its practical importance, it still retains a spiritual significance and resonates deeply with the Iranian psyche: it is seen as the expression of a household’s purity of heart and the source of calm reflection. Elderly people, in particular, who have always lived in houses with a yard and pool cannot imagine living without them in an apartment.
Iranian Turks the First and Largest Ethnic Minority in Iran
