The proverb says, women are weak-minded and can easily be persuaded. A story is told of a woman who had lost her husband, and she wept and cried bitterly, unable to forget her dear husband. She spent days and nights, weeping and crying over the grave of her husband.

Not far from the cemetery there was a watchman who stood guard over the gallows to see that none of those hanged should be removed, under a penalty of death from the king.

One night the watchman came to the woman and cajoled her so long until he persuaded her to lie with him. While he was with her a body was stolen from the gallows. When he returned and saw what had happened, he was sorely troubled for fear that he would be hanged by order of the king for neglecting his duty. So he went again to the woman and told her of his troubles.

The woman replied, "Do not be frightened. Take the body of my husband out of the grave and hang it on the gallows in the place of the body that has been taken away."

So they went together, took the body out of the grave and hanged it on the gallows.

You see, therefore, how the woman had been weeping and crying so bitterly for her husband, and yet she harbored within her the evil passion and allowed herself to be persuaded by the watchman. Hence the saying that women are weak-minded or easily persuaded to do a person's will even when they are in mourning.

But there are pious women also. For there once was a woman who had seven children. One

died, and she mourned him very bitterly.

People said to her, "Do not weep so much, for if you do, you may (Heaven forbid!) lose some more children."

But she would not desist and continued mourning until all her children died. And finally she also died, through the great grief over the loss of her children, and did not allow herself to be persuaded as the other woman had done.