When a female child is announced to one of them, his face grows dark, and he is as though he would choke." The older Arab Proverbs show that the burying alive of female children was deemed praiseworthy.
"To send women before to the other world, is a benefit." "The best son-in-law is the grave." The Koran also says, that certain men when hearing of the birth of a daughter hide themselves "from the people because of the ill-tidings; shall he keep it with disgrace, or bury it in the dust." (Sura xvi.) It is said that the only occasion on which Othman ever shed a tear, was when his little daughter, whom he was burying alive, wiped the dust of the grave-earth from his beard! Before the Seventh Century this practice seems to have been gradually abandoned, but was retained the longest in the tribe of Temim.

Naman, king of Hira, carried off among his prisoners in a foray, the daughter of Kais, chief of Temim, who fell in love with one of her captors and refused to return to her tribe, whereupon her father swore to bury alive all his future female children, which he did, to the number of ten.
Subsequent to this, rich men would buy the lives of girls devoted to inhumation, and Sa Saah thus rescued many, in one case giving two milch camels to buy the life of a new-born girl, and he was styled "the Reviver of the Maidens buried alive." The following Arabic Proverbs having reference to women and girls _will illustrate_ the ancient Arab ideas with regard to their character and position, better than volumes of historic discourse: "Obedience to women will have to be repented of." "A man can bear anything but the mention of his women." "The heart of woman is given to folly." "Leave not a girl nor a green pasture unguarded." "What has a girl to do with the councils of a nation ?" "If you would marry a beauty, pay her dowry." "Fear not to praise the man whose wives are true to him." "Woman fattens on what she hears." (flattery) "Women are the whips of Satan." "If you would marry a girl, inquire about the traits of her mother." "Trust neither a king, a horse, nor a woman.

For the king is fastidious, the horse prone to run away, and the woman is perfidious." "My father does the fighting, and my mother the talking about it." "Our mother forbids us to err and runs into error." "Alas for the people who are ruled by a woman!" The position of woman among the Arabs before the times of Mohammed can be easily inferred from what has preceded.

But there is another side to the picture.

Although despised and abused, woman often asserted her dignity and maintained her rights, not only by physical force, but by intellectual superiority as well.