Woman Is Woman

Here is history, refusing all but to poke its nose into everything and thrust its finger into every matter, casting a brilliant light upon what we call events, bringing them forth plain and established, so that the human mind is compelled to believe them, since this history supports them with its shining arguments and its manifest proofs. It confirms whatever of them has been shaken and displays them on the screen of truth, clear and distinct.

Let us return now to that far-off age, the age of the creation of the father of mankind and his fashioning from clay. No sooner had the spirit stirred in Adam's body than he sprang upright, looking to the right and to the left as though searching for something lost that had possessed his senses, with two questioning eyes, awe having tied his tongue, so that the lines of his face spoke what was hidden in his heart.

What can he want... and what can he wish... He is perplexed, questioning; he finds a lack in himself, a lack in his spirit, a lack in his inner being... And it was as though Divine Providence, having read his secrets and understood his intentions, refused to prolong his anguish; it showered its blessings upon him, eased his soul of its perplexity, and filled that void in his heart. And behold, Eve was at his side. Now the necklace of the universe was strung complete: Eve came, that wondrous completing half, to restore him to eternal life.

Poor Eve... She is weaker than Adam in frame and less than he in strength; by nature's decree she submits to his will and yields, content, to his pleasure. Thy mercy, O God, upon her! Shall this weak one live a captive to that tyrannical oppressor, with no power and no strength...

But God, who is the most just of the just and the most merciful of the merciful, refused to strip her of every weapon with which to defend herself. He compensated her for Adam's strength and might with two contradictory qualities by which she prevailed over man: by the first she rises to the ranks of the angels, and by the second she sinks to the depths of the devils. She is an occasion of bliss or a deadly spring of hell; by her, nations rise to the summit of glory, and by her, peoples plunge shattered upon the shore of extinction. She is an angel if she wills, or a devil if she chooses.

Is woman not a gracious angel when her husband finds rest and tranquility at her side... when she consoles his soul... and lightens his care, and drives away his sorrow in his hours of misery and pain... Is she not a merciful angel and a faithful servant when she sacrifices her rest and her comfort for the sake of the wounded and the sick... Is she not a gracious angel and a wise master when she gives her pupils to drink of the essence of her heart and the ether of her spirit... She is all that — nay, above all that.

That gentle angel suckles her sons on noble qualities together with the milk, lulls them with the melodies of true patriotism, and gives them to drink of noble morals and virtues; she lights the darkness of their minds with luminous opinions and upright guidance, and illumines their paths with the lamp of right guidance and virtue; so they walk in the arena of that world with deliberate, steady steps in the shelter of that angel, merciful to her children, faithful to their interests, who guided their steps, enlightened their minds, and refined their morals. And who is better than that mother who raises up this nation...

Or is not the one derived from the other?.. How many kingdoms has she raised up, and how many crowns have been shattered at her feet; how many fortresses have been razed for her sake, and how many thrones have toppled because of her..

Behold, the gentle lamb has begun to lead that ravening lion; behold, this weak one has become the guide of that strong man, who has begun to follow her guidance and take light from her light, and to build upon her firm foundations that glory by which he consolidated the pillars of his nation and his homeland. She was the foundation and he the building; she the spirit and he the body; she the truth and he the statue. But among the strangest things ever heard is that this ungrateful one, no sooner did he see his stem harden and his arm grow strong, than he began to deny her merit and disown her, denying what she is owed by him — she who fashioned him into a righteous human being. He strips her of her competence, for matters he imagined were reserved to him and not to her; he monopolized them, and was selfish to an unreasonable degree, and proclaimed before all witnesses that she is fit neither for government nor for justice, and that she has no right to vote in governmental elections — she who gave birth to those rulers, raised up those judges, and formed those ministers.

Zenobia, Joan of Arc, and al-Khansa display that intellectual superiority, that political and military management, and that patriotism which history has recorded for them in letters of light upon its pages, proving in woman — in that merciful angel and that gentle lamb — the cunning of the most cunning, the strength of valor, and the greatness of the great. And say nothing of that in which woman excels: instinctive gentleness, ample resourcefulness, beautiful patience, forbearance, and long endurance. That weak angel exerts upon this universe what influence she will: she steers it in her own way, stamps it with her stamp, and plays it upon her fingers, so that kings bow their heads to her in homage and scholars bend before her in respect...

Here is woman, truly guided toward perfection.. here is that eternal lamp that directs the world toward loftiness and righteousness; here is that pure angel and that dazzling light. But beware, beware lest human society make of her a burden upon its shoulders, so that she becomes the devil of her age, and a hell that destroys her nation and brings it to the watering-place of ruin.

Learning alone preserves that woman from the chasms of vice and safeguards that mission for which she was created. Learning is for her an impregnable armor warding off the arrows of calamities, and a stout shield protecting her from the spears of misfortunes... But if a woman acquires a defective learning and goes out into life with it, this scanty learning brings down woe and ruin upon her; she is like a blind man striking about in the paths of a mountain between two precipices, soon to fall into one of them. Perhaps ignorance in such a case is better than the defective learning that yields woman nothing but loathsome vanity, false pretension, and hateful corruption, turning her from a merciful angel into an accursed demon.

O God, if Thou desirest our life and our salvation, then reform our women, for they are the pillar of our progress and the reformers of our affairs; there is no righteousness except through them.

The half-ignorant woman goes out into the world, vanity having blinded her eyes and her insight, and she becomes entangled in affairs from which she finds no deliverance except by using the ugliest weapon of intrigues and plots to guarantee her success and her escape from what she has fallen into; and soon she collapses into ruin, dragging with her in this torrent many innocents. She is now the instrument of war, the ore of the devil, and the source of loss.

Woman finds it hard to fail and be disappointed; she sacrifices all in her power to see herself victorious and superior, and she strives to realize her wish by whatever means... and so she becomes a scourge upon mankind and a mine of cunning, deceit, evil, and vengeance. You see her rushing headlong through the wastelands of error, exposing herself to dangers; sometimes she comes through safe, and sometimes misfortunes ravage her, and she learns a disciplinary lesson that makes her an example to those who will not take heed.

True learning alone is what makes her follow the paths of right, so that she can dispense with all that harms her reputation. She is a woman.. she is a creature that must not be crushed; a creature born with the love of progress and the knowledge of existence; a creature that hates to retreat before its opponents... Woman always loves to obtain the success and eminence that others possess — but how can she, while she is ignorant... She attempts the impossible and sets out, driven by her leaping soul, striving toward what she aspires to, spending all the wiles and cunning she has been given, to match those whose names people extol and whose praises they sing.

Woman is woman: she wants everything that satisfies her ambitious instinct — to know everything and to obtain everything.