The level of civilization in any people is measured with reference to certain basic "touchstones" and to that civilization's stance toward them. By gauging the stance of a people, or a person, toward each of these touchstones, we are able to determine the degree of maturity and refinement that person or people enjoys.

Take, for example, the subject of "man" and his worth: how do the members of a people look upon "man" — upon his being, his personality, his rights and duties, his worth in himself and his worth as a member of society, the depths of his personality and the elements of his soul? These are questions by whose answers we can judge the level of the people or the person answering them. And by answers we do not necessarily mean conscious, explicit answers: it is enough to take the unconscious answers, the answers implicit in the people's institutions and in the conduct of individuals, the answers latent in the depths of consciences, embodied in behavior and deeds.

And what we say of a civilization's or a people's stance toward "man," we say also of its stance toward "society," or "the state," or "liberty," and other such vital subjects.

Nor do we exaggerate if we say that among these touchstones, and holding a special rank among them, is "woman." By the measure of a given civilization's stance toward woman, and its view of her, the worth of that civilization is measured.

The stance of a civilization or a people toward "woman," and its view of her, carries implications that extend beyond woman in her-self to touch other matters bound up with woman and her being. For the view of woman truly implies the view of "the family," and "mar-riage," and "love"; and it implies also a particular stance toward human nature, and a particular answer regarding the nature of woman — whether it differs essen-tially from the nature of man, or whether it is a variation of a single

nature: the nature of man. This view likewise implies a particular stance toward woman's task — whether it differs from man's task, and whether that difference is essential, touching the foundation, or secondary, touching forms and institutions incidentally...

The subject of this article is the stance of the Greeks toward woman. In taking up this subject we are not concerned only to gain an objective historical acquain-tance with that stance; we are concerned to make of this objective knowledge a path toward forming the sound stance it behooves us to take toward woman, and toward the questions that accompany woman and bear closely upon her — such as marriage, the family, the equality of the sexes, and the tasks of the two sexes in society.

In the light of this study we can also judge, by comparison with the stance of the Greeks, our own stance toward woman. And when I say "we," I do not mean the modern world — that world which, in the lands of the West, has been able to draw from the institutions, the spiritual movements, and the profound experiences through which it has passed a new light to cast upon this problem — rather I mean "we," the sons of the Arab world, especially in this society among the societies of the Arab world whose sons claim that it stands at the forefront of the other Arab societies in evolution and progress.

The Greeks looked upon woman with a view that expelled her from the sphere of man the citizen, qualified for the privileges which social and civilizational refinement presupposes — and cast her down to the rank of slaves and children, that is, to the rank of human beings that have not yet fulfilled the conditions of their humanity,

and therefore cannot perform their lofty human task, and have no right to enjoy the prerogatives and privileges of the mature human being. Thus we find the Greek philosophers, poets, lawgivers, and social thinkers banishing woman from the sphere of the human being active in creating the ideal society, and banishing her also from the sphere of the human being to whom the order of the ideal society guarantees particular civil and human liberties befitting the dignity of the humanity embodied in him.

We find them also excepting woman — as they except the child and the slave — from man's lofty virtues. They warn the man, for example, against weeping or cow-ardice or hesitation — traits they ascribe to woman and child, con-fining them to those two classes (as Plato did in the "Republic").

And we find them looking upon marriage — that intimate bond between human being and human being, which binds their two destinies with the bond of love and puts an end to the solitude, then the desolation, then the melan-choly that accompany the isolation of each, in order to raise upon the ruins of that solitude an intimate life of devoted, self-sacrificing partnership — we find them look-ing upon marriage as a means of procreation, required by the state's interest in multiplying offspring! So sacred human relations sink to the level of means... and the freshness of life withers, because love — the seat of that freshness and its wellspring — has withered and faded away,

and its place has been taken by considerations of collective politi-cal interest...

For this reason we also find them subjecting marriage to legislations,