Comparison of women social situation in three travelogues written during Naser-al-Din Shah monarchy (1848-1896)

Social situation of women was one of the considerable subjects for those who wrote books about their travels to Iran during Naser-al-Din Shah period. There was an increase in the number of travels between Iran the Europe in fifty years of Naser-al-Din Shah monarchy and Mary Sheil (wife of British minister of foreign affairs) and Eduard Jakob Polak (Austrian medicine) were two of people who travelled to Iran at that time. They wrote about their observations in Iran which contains valuable information of women situation during Naser-al-Din shah period because they had the opportunity to visit Mahd-e-Olia (shah's mother), Ezat-al-Dole (Shah's sister) and other court women. Naser-al-Din Shah was the first Iranian king who had three trips to the Europe and wrote books about his observations. What he wrote about physical properties of European women and their sexual features, motivates many researchers to explore this type of behavior. In the present research, we studied social-familial situation of Iranian women reflected in Sheil and Polak travelogues, and compared them with Naserl-al-Din Shah's observations in his west travelogue. This is done based on a descriptive-analytical method based on the original resources (Sheil, Polak and Naser-al-Din Shah). Results clarified that Polak's occupation (as a medicine) enabled him to represent more information about Iranian women situation. Sheil and Polak both considered social problems of Iranian women, however Naser-al-Din Shah rather focused on physical and sexual properties of women compared to their social situation.