�O King, never among my kindred was a woman who married again after her
husband’s death; wherefore I will never take another husband, nor will I
marry thee, no, though thou kill me.” Then he sent to her one who said,
“Dost thou seek to go to thy native land?” And she answered, “An thou do
good, thou shalt be requited therewith.” So he collected for her all the
jeweller’s wealth and added unto her of his own, after the measure of
his degree. Lastly he sent with her one of his Wazirs, a man famous for
goodness and piety, and an escort of five hundred horse, who journeyed
with her, till they brought her to her father; and in his home she
abode, without marrying again, till she died and they died all. So, if
this woman would not consent to replace her dead husband with a Sultan,
how shall she be compared with one who replaced her husband, whilst he
was yet alive, with a youth of unknown extraction and condition, and
especially when this was in lewd carriage and not by way of lawful
marriage? So he who deemeth all women alike,[475] there is no remedy for
the disease of his insanity. And glory be to Him to whom belongeth the
empire of the Seen and the Unseen and He is the Living, who dieth not!
And among the tales they tell, O auspicious King, is one of

-----

Footnote 375:

  Lane rejects this tale because it is “extremely objectionable; far
  more so than the title might lead me to expect.” But he quotes the
  following marginal note by his Shaykh:—“Many persons (women) reckon
  marrying a second time amongst the most disgraceful of actions. This
  opinion is commonest in the country-towns and villages; and my
  mother’s relations are thus distinguished; so that a woman of them,
  when her husband dieth or divorceth her while she is young, passeth in
  widowhood her life, however long it may be, and disdaineth to marry a
  second time.” I fear that this state of things belongs to the good old
  days now utterly gone by; and the loose rule of the stranger,
  especially the English, in Egypt 