the story of the husband and the parrot

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For one of my stories, I chose to read "The Story of the Husband and the Parrot". This was the seventh story in the 1001 Nights, and it was slightly disturbing, to say the least. The first paragraph caught my attention immediately by cluing me in on the sexist (and, according to today's standards, politically incorrect) undertones of the story ahead:

THERE was a certain merchant, of an exceedingly jealous disposition, having a wife endowed with perfect beauty, who had prevented him from leaving his home; but an event happened which obliged him to make a journey; and when he found his doing so to be indispensable, he went to the market in which birds were sold, and bought a parrot, which he placed in his house to act as a spy, that, on his return, she might inform him of what passed during his absence; for this parrot was cunning and intelligent, and remembered whatever she heard.

First of all, the mere fact that a man could be so untrusting of his wife annoys me. He couldn't trust her merely because she was beautiful? Her beauty was enough to make him sure that she would cheat on him? Apparently ugly women aren't capable of committing adultery, so I don't understand why men even bother marrying beautiful women. They obviously can't be trusted. From as far as I can tell, the wife had never done anything to make the husband so suspicious, he is merely described as being "jealous". However, the husband buys a talking parrot to spy on his wife when the time came that he had no choice but to leave her for a couple of days. Basically the husband ends up killing his wife and the bird because of his anger and jealousy. In the end, he is all alone.

The storyline of the parrot was slightly familiar to me, and I'm sure it was to most of the class. It made me think of the Disney movie Aladdin, because there is a parrot in that movie who is used to spy on others. Jafar uses his parrot (named Iago, I'm not sure if it has anything to do with Othello) to get information about the Sultan and Aladdin. Similarly, Jafar's plan ends up backfiring, and of course, the good guys prevail.

*If you can't read the caption to this picture, it says "The husband asking the parrot about his wife's behavior"