The Story of Jullanar of the Sea is about a king who marries Jullanar and has a son named Badr, and Badr’s adventure after he fails proposing to Princess Jauhara. There are many times that the male protagonists fall in love with the female protagonists, only because of their beauty and the male protagonists do not care about female protagonists’ characters. In this story, Shaharzad tells the reader that women with beauty are more likely to be loved by men who ignore the women’s class, which shows that beauty is the most important thing for women and  men.

At the beginning of the story, Jullanar is a slave; but because of her beauty, she is loved by the King of Persia and obtained a better life. When the king sees Jullanar for the first time, “he was dazzled by her beauty, captivated by her charm, and overwhelmed by love for her” (262). Jullanar has almost everything that men like: dark eyes, smooth cheeks, heavy hips and slender waist. Because she is beautiful, the King would spend as much as ten thousand dinars and a horse to buy Jullanar, and decides to spend a lot of time on her. This indicates the king's strong affection for her. Over a year, despite Jullanar never said a word to the king, he abandoned the rest of the women he was left with and chose to live with her, treating her especially well. After a year she was moved by the king’s affection, she finally said: “O gallant King and valiant lion, may God exalt you and humble your enemies, and may He give you long life and grant you every wish. The Almighty God has accepted your pleadings and entreaties and has answered your prayers” (265). This can also reflect that the king loves her very much. The word choice “gallant”, means giving special attention and respect to women; and also, as a slave, Jullanar is even dared to pray to God to bless the king. Those descriptions show that the King really spends a lot of time on her and treats her very well. That makes her fall in love with the king too. Although Jullanar is a concubine and stays silent for a year, her beauty is enough for the king to love her, and it was also her beauty that made the king fall in love when they first met. Then they had a child and named him Badr. He becomes the king when he is older, and he arrives at the age when he needs to be married.

Because of Princess Jauhara’s beauty, King Badr fell in love as well. While his uncle Sayih is discussing Princess Jauhara with Jullanar, they focus their conversation in detail on her beauty. King Badr wakes up and hears their discussion. So the next day he leaves to find her . He tells his uncle who came to find him that “as soon as I heard what you said about her, I fell in love with her, and now my heart claves to her and I cannot give her up” (277). The word “clave” is the old version for “cleave”, and here it means become very strongly involved with or emotionally attached to someone. Human heart only cleaves when it encounters something that really excites you. So here, we could see that King Badr is already moved by Princess Jauhara’s beauty and has strong feelings for her. He finally meets Princess Jauhara, and he finds out that she is even more beautiful than what he heard through the conversation: “Princess Jauhara, who looked like the shining moon. He says to himself, ‘Glory be to God who created this wonderful form! Unless I am wrong, she must be Princess Jauhara. … If she is not Princess Jauhara herself, then she is one who is even more beautiful’ ”(282). Because of her beauty, he couldn't believe his eyes. He believes that they have to get married, and is overwhelmed by love. Jauhara is a princess, and King Badr falls in love with her the first time they met, and we observed a pattern: it is the beauty of the women that caused the two kings to fall in love. We can say that beauty is important to him because it makes him move easily to her and lets down his guard. After that she turns him into a bird, which leads him into a new adventure.

Despite being tricked by Jauhara, King Badr does not learn his lesson: he falls in love again with Queen Lab because of her beauty. After he turns back into a human and meets Queen Lab during his adventure, he says to himself: “By God, she is more beautiful than Jauhara. If she marries me, I will leave my kingdom and stay with her, without returning to my mother; if not, I will at least enjoy her in bed for forty days and nights, and I do not care if she enchants me or kills me afterward” (292-293). The word “more” here is emphasizing that  King Badr really thinks Queen Lab is more beautiful than Jauhara, and he decides to fall in love with her. They live together with each other in about forty days, and they finally have sexual activities together. After a few days of intimacy, “the two spent the happiest of night in bed” (295). Throughout the examples above, we can conclude that for him, it is so easy to fall in love with a beautiful woman. Queen Lab, through her beauty, pleases King Badr and makes him fall in love with her. This can also show that beauty is important to women. But at last, King Badr doesn’t love her anymore and escapes from her, because Queen Lab did a really bad thing - she cheated on him. 

Through the above, we can know that almost all men like beautiful women, and fall in love with them easily. When King Badr finishes all his adventure, he returns back home. Remaining unmarried, the king wants another wife. So his mother Jullanar says to his uncles and cousins: “Leave not a province or a city or a king's palace without noting every beautiful girl there” (301). Jullanar especially emphasized looking for beautiful girls, which shows that King Badr’s first requirement for a marriage partner is beauty. However, King Badr refuses and said: “None will satisfy me, save Princess Jauhara, the daughter of King al-Shamendal, for she is, like her name, truly a jewel” (301). In his mind, Princess Jauhara is a jewel. The word "Jewel" is used here even more than "beauty" to describe a beautiful person. So in order to marry her, King Badr forgives the fact that she had turned him into a bird and put him on an island which is far away from his home before. In order to marry the most beautiful person, he ignored almost everything. This indicates that beauty is important to women, because it can let men fall in love easily; and it’s also important to men, because they will try their best to catch her. Through beauty, both women and men will get happiness. 

Every woman with beauty is loved by men in this story. Imagine if they aren’t that beautiful, would they still be loved easily? Probably not. In the real world, when men meet women for the first time, the first thing men will look at is still their looks. Perhaps the stories suggest the reality that  beauty is really an important thing for women also, for men. Most of the men try their best to get a beautiful wife, to show off to others. Even though sometimes women and men have different class backgrounds, men still want to get a beautiful woman for themselves, so they often ignore the class, such as the old king marries slave Jullanar at the beginning of the story. Overall, both in the story and in the real world, women with beauty are more likely to be loved by men. If the strength and intelligence to rule a kingdom makes a man king, then, perhaps, beauty makes a woman queen.