In My Library — Woman: Body and Soul

Dr. Georges Hanna's book "Woman" has a special value from the scientific standpoint, for it is one of the few books in Arabic that explain to woman, in a clear and easy scientific style, the secrets of her physiological life, and that deal at length with the subjects of reproduction, marriage, and motherhood, which are still closed to the girl in many of our schools — although such subjects ought to form an essential part of the lessons in physiology and hygiene in the secondary schools. The reason for keeping them from girl students is either fanaticism, or reaction, or the absence of practical courses, domestic and the like, owing to the absence of specialists in these subjects.

Nor is the book confined to the medical side, in which the author's long experience shows itself; it also — as the title indicates — takes in the spiritual side of woman's life, in this resembling the modern physician who studies woman's psychology while treating her body, or the humane thinker whose acquaintance with woman has given him sympathy for her and an understanding of her problems. On this subject he has valuable opinions, for which I hope he will find many supporters among us, and which I hope will not be long in becoming realities, for they express frankly the thinking of the modern generation that looks toward a new life and a reform that will make patchwork unnecessary. Among them is his call for civil marriage, because it is one of the rights of the people as represented in its government, because it better guarantees the fulfillment of the health and social conditions in those seeking marriage, and because it keeps more in step with the needs of the age. Likewise his call for intermarriage among the different sects, as a means of combating fanaticism. Among them also is his call for the equality of woman with man in the rights of divorce and guardianship, as in the rights of learning and work; for the age is past of the creation legend that made woman one of man's ribs and made submission to his will incumbent upon her. Among them, too, is his urging the mother to activity and to refusing to surrender to indolence after marriage: it is she who ought to nurse her child instead of employing wet nurses, and it is she who ought to see to his upbringing and his education, with the man's support — and this she cannot do unless she keeps up her mental activity after marriage.

Yet on its social side the book contains opinions that admit of discussion, because they have not been studied deeply, the size of the book being too small for their elaboration. Among these is his holding to the legend which says that the wife's age should be half the husband's age with seven years added to that half. This opinion rests on no physiological basis, for the difference in the age of maturity in woman does not exceed three or four years compared with man's, and likewise the difference in the age of decline and the entry into old age. Nor does it rest on any social basis, for once the distance in age between the two spouses widens to the extent he indicates, understanding between them becomes difficult, since the man's mentality becomes, relative to the woman, the mentality of the generation before.

Woman
Body and Soul
By Dr. Georges Hanna
174 pages with 9 plates, smaller than medium format
Publishers: Dar al-Ahad — Beirut

We may likewise debate with him on the subject of spinsters and free marriage. The spinster is she whose stay in her father's house has grown long, and who has lived a dreary life waiting for the husband (according to the dictionary). But she who has freed herself from the family's control and taken up for herself a profession or a work to which she devotes her efforts should not be called a spinster, but a free, unmarried woman; she is not exposed to what spinsters are exposed to in the way of moral or psychological disturbances, and her like have multiplied among the women of the West in this age of emancipation.

As for free marriage, it is a phenomenon urged by certain governments of Europe out of a desire to multiply offspring, after the shortage of population that struck those countries in the wake of the grinding wars, or as a solution to the problem of the unmarried women whose men were killed in the wars and whose numbers came to exceed the men's by an enormous margin.

And this is not the problem of our country, which is almost too small for its inhabitants — so much so that it drives them to emigrate; nor do we complain of women outnumbering men. And even supposing we could cure the common causes of the marriage crisis — I mean economic hardship on the one hand, and the weakness of mixing between the sexes on the other — there would still remain, in spite of this, a number of unmarried women, for three reasons: either weakness or bodily deformity in the girl, or mental abnormality and eccentricity of behavior — and in these two cases it is better for the girl not to venture upon marriage, and likewise for the — and a third reason, which is the independent nature that prevents the girl from finding the man who suits her and would make her prefer life with him to a life of independent work.

And in my opinion, the girl who feels an urge toward marriage strong enough to make her accept it free — no power on earth can keep her from lawful marriage, even to a simple workman or a lowly clerk.

The solution of this problem, then, would be: solving the crisis of unemployment and the problem of poverty; encouraging woman's work, so that she may help the man in providing for the family and he will not fear marriage despite his poverty; encouraging mixing between the sexes in the clubs and the places of work; removing the barriers between the classes by means of culture, so that a woman will not disdain to marry one who is beneath her in social position; and making work easy for those who turn away from marriage for one of the three reasons mentioned above.

Finally, it is a cause for good that there should appear among men one who calls for justice to woman and stirs up discussion of her subject. I count this justice a necessity for our country, not only from the economic side, to which some point when they say that the bird does not fly with one wing, but also from the moral side; for man's dominion over woman is immoral, since it breeds in her hypocrisy and servility, and in him selfishness and tyranny.

And our women, in whose lives reading fills no small part — as study has proved to us — will find profit in reading this book, and will thank the author, who strives to understand woman and to champion her with boldness and sincerity — and few among men are such.