The editors say that Shahrazad, besides trying to save her life, is also trying to teach the King that not all women are unfaithful. Support or contradict this thesis. What is there in the tales that supports or contradicts this thesis? .
Some of the women in Shahrazad's tales contradict what the editor's say because they could add to King Shayharar's suspicions by being conniving and deceitful.
The jealous wife from the first old man's tale plotted to have his son and mistress killed. The reason for her envy was she could not bear children for the old man, so he took a mistress. The mistress succeeded in producing a son. To kill them, the wife learned magic and turned the son into a bull and the mistress, a cow. She then tells the old man that the mistress died and the son ran away. The wife expected them to be slaughtered during the Great Feast of the Immolation. The mistress was slaughtered because of the insistence from the wife. But the son was spared when the old man felt mercy for his own flesh and blood. This tale can only add to King Shayharar's suspicions about faithless women by exposing how devious they can be. .
The editors say that the wicked characters are punished according to their crimes. This is contradicted when the jealous wife is turned into a beautiful deer and left to be tended by the loving husband. "To me this is a pretty form, for she will be with us day and night, and it is better to turn her into a pretty deer than to suffer her sinister looks" (1605). The old man cared for the wife even after subjecting him to the killing of his beloved mistress and the "imprisonment" of his son. .
The wife's betrayal from the third old man's tale can only add to the suspicions of King Shayharar by having him relive how women are not to be trusted. Like Shayharar, the third old man left on a journey only to return and find his wife carousing with another man.