Woman Is the Most Perfect Thing in Creation

These reflections are by the accomplished woman of letters Miss Marie Sabri, who addresses them to the daughters of her sex while she herself, on another front, is putting them into practice with a large company of her companions, students and teachers of the Junior College — the American College for Girls — where they are all serving the development projects the College has undertaken in the village of Ain Yaacoub in Akkar, projects by which it aims to serve the peasant, to teach him, and to bring him recreation.

Miss Sabri said:

I have no need of elaboration and explanation to show you what influence woman has in her society, and what a greatness poets, men of letters, and philosophers have sung. They have said of her things that raise her worth and place her in the ranks of the angels, and they have not scrupled to describe her with qualities the least of which is that she is of the race of devils! Yet the scholars and thinkers were right, whether they praised or lampooned, for woman is not great merely because she is a woman; her greatness depends upon her understanding of life's great values... and it is to this that I wish to draw the attention of my sisters, the young women.

The noble Arab Prophet said: Be dutiful to your mother, then your mother, then your mother, then your father, then the nearest of kin and the next; and if your parents call you, answer your mother... Paradise lies beneath the feet of mothers. If we of the company of women understand the meaning of true motherhood, the loftiest meanings of love and sacrifice will take flesh in our souls...

Napoleon, the great French commander, said: We must begin the education of children twenty years before they are born. He meant by this that we must teach the girl to be a good mother who knows how to manage the home and rear children — and here we have armed each one of you with the weapon of sound learning and conscious understanding. Will you promise, then, to work with strength and sincerity to build the good home and the firmly-founded homeland?

Lamartine, the French poet, said: You are bound to find a woman at the origin of every great work.

And Schiller, the German thinker, said: Wherever a great man is found who has attained glory by his work, a woman is found at his side.

Among the sayings of Alphonse Daudet: If I deserve any pride, half of it belongs to my wife. — Will you not pause a moment before these noble sayings, ponder them well, and pass in review those women to whom these great men point?

Paul the Apostle said: "Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman." This means that we should keep entirely away from entering that clamorous fray created by certain weak souls who try to make woman appear less than man, whereupon they rise in fury against men, demanding woman's rights and her equality with man. And what rights are woman's rights, and in what do they differ from the rights of man? Whenever man has enjoyed the blessing of knowledge and freedom, woman has enjoyed it too, and humanity has risen.

If equality must needs be demanded, then let man demand to be made equal to woman, that he may enjoy the blessing of spirit, of love, of peace and tranquility.

A young man once came in to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and said to him:

I have become engaged to a rich girl. Rousseau set down a zero on a white sheet of paper before him. The young man said: And she is of honorable descent. He set down a second zero. The young man added: And she has a touch of beauty. Rousseau set down a third zero. The young man went on: "That fiancée is, above all this, delicate of feeling." So Rousseau set down, to the left of the zeros, the figure one — and the number became a thousand; by this he signified that the girl's worth was a thousand times greater than her worth at first.

Woman, if she adorns herself with delicacy of feeling, can accomplish what multitudes of men are powerless to accomplish...

Delicacy of feeling is openness to the tragedies and calamities taking place around us; it is the descent from our ivory palaces, in which we live contented and happy, to the lower classes of the world's people, and the labor of raising them out of the mire in which they live... It is the inner voice in the depths of each one of you, calling you to your sacred duty — which is to join the various women's organizations that work for the public good, to raise up this homeland.

Therefore I appeal to you, daughters of my sex, not to work for the love of show and leadership; rather let

your aim be work that benefits woman and the country, and remember that no nation will rise unless there arise from among its sons and daughters those who awaken the lost human meanings.

The condition of the East will not change except with a change in the condition of its women. The responsibility laid upon your shoulders is very great indeed, especially in this stage through which the Arab countries are passing, and you will not be able to shoulder the burdens of this responsibility unless you possess a measure of learning and culture joined to integrity of soul and soundness of character.

Arm yourselves with moral courage — that rare quality, that strength of soul which does its duty without fear or hesitation, and pays no heed to the talk of the ignorant nor to deceptive appearances.

Nature has singled you out with diverse gifts; may you use them for the good of humanity. Every flower is known by its fragrance even if we do not see it; the gentle violet, hidden behind its green leaves, announces itself by its intoxicating perfume.

And just as every flower has its own fragrance, different from every other, so must your lives be filled with the fragrant deeds of humanity that leave a beautiful trace whose perfume never fades.

May each one of you be a spring of unbroken permanence, winning with its laughing, sweet-scented blossoms.

O fresh flowers of spring: walk with firm step along the road of progress and civilization, and with your patience and forbearance lift away the thorns strewn in your faces, that the saying of Confucius may be fulfilled in you: "Woman is the most perfect thing in creation."