Salima's power move

The tradition that love is “woman’s whole existence” is challenged by a new assumption, a refusal to admit that any human being’s happiness can be completely dependent on one other human being. When Salima, a young woman of Turkestan, accepted a scholarship to study in Tashkent, her husband ordered her to return, and, on her refusal, divorced her, boasting by letter that he had taken another wife “obedient and illiterate.” Salima showed her quality by replying: “I received your letter telling me that you have another wife. I will have my revenge. When I finish my studies I will come back to the village and teach your second wife to read and write.” The older generation may be horrified by the flippant Salima, but the new Soviet generation will applaud her as free and self-reliant citizen.

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