A session arranged by Mrs. Edvick Jureidini Shayboub, in which Miss Nahla Marwa took part.

Edvick: It is very difficult to know the date when this quarrel between the mother-in-law and the daugh-ter-in-law first arose. It is certainly of ancient standing. What we shall concern ourselves with is analyzing the primary causes of this quarrel, and proposing some ways of settling it... In your view, Miss Nahla Marwa, on which of the two falls the greater blame for the rise of this quarrel — on the mother-in-law or on the daughter-in-law?

Nahla: I incline to the belief that the mother-in-law is the one to blame in most cases of dispute. The daughter-in-law is younger in years and purer of heart, and it is unlikely that she would be the one to begin provoking her mother-in-law.

— You have spoken truly, and in the past my opinion agreed with yours on this subject; but the situa-tion has changed now, after I have become the mother of two children, and I can no longer be unjust in my judgment of the mother, or be harsh with her even in supposition. Her position toward her daughter-in-law is no easy position — she who raised her son with the tears of her eyes and guarded his steps one by one; it is not at all easy for her to see him slip from her arms all at once, for another woman, a stranger, to embrace him. This, in my view, is the most important cause of this quarrel.

— True, but this is God's way with His creation: the woman leaves her father and her mother and follows her husband. People — all people

since the days of Adam and Eve — have walked this road...

— I, my dear, incline to the belief that the daughter-in-law, or the wife, can avert most of the discord that arises between her and her mother-in-law with a little tolerance and largeness of heart, in consideration of the fact that she is the winner — has she not won the man and taken him wholly for herself? — while the mother is the loser — has she not lost her son, despite the great sacrifices and the nights of wakefulness spent in raising him? When we take all these matters into account, we can only pity the mother's state, and lend her our full sympathy, before entering into the subject.

— You are right, and I never meant anything but appreciation and respect for the mothers' position. But do you not see with me that most of our mothers tend to tyrannize over their sons' wives and impose their word by force? The mother-in-law in our country is rarely pleased by any of her daugh-ter-in-law's doings, from cooking to running a house and the like, and for this reason she never stops criti-cizing her, until the daughter-in-law loses all pleasure in work, and the longing and desire to learn new things dies within her. Is it not better for life, and to guarantee peace in the home, that she confine her attention to her own affairs, and that her daughter-in-law hear from her no phrases but those signifying approval and encouragement?

— It is a beautiful theory, and I agree with it entirely, but it is diffi-cult to carry out. The mother-in-law

cannot, with her old, fossilized men-tality, stand with us on one level and analyze her feelings and her psychological reactions logically... She is confident of herself, of her capacities, and of the success of her choices to a far degree; and when she takes up her daughter-in-law with criticism and correction, she is only aiming to make of her a model of her own person. She considers every act of her daughter-in-law whose method does not agree with her own particular method a mistake that must be corrected — and when she tries to correct it, the familiar collision occurs.

— Yes! The collision occurs — because the daughter-in-law has a second opinion which, in her belief, is superior to her mother-in-law's old opinion, which does not harmonize with the renewing spirit of this age. For that reason she does not easily give up her opinion — and I believe she has the right to be independent in her opinion, especially in what concerns the running of her house?

— Indeed, she has every right, and full liberty, to be independent in her house and in the management of its affairs. And she will arrive at this result sooner or later — so what prevents her from arriving at it with a little diplomacy and patience, and a little wisdom, while keeping her mother-in-law's love for her? Do you not know, my dear, that a man's love for his wife is doubled when he feels that she humors his mother and treats her with gentleness and largeness of heart, avoiding all quarrel and aversion? The young are broader of heart than the old, because hope is still