An Opinion on the Lebanese Woman

It is concluded at present, from the social gauge of the Eastern woman on all her levels of culture and of learning, that the Lebanese woman is the most fortunate of them in seeking out the draught of the sciences and letters, the deepest of them in sounding the field of culture and the arts, and the foremost of them in competing with man in his works and his professions. This superiority in the two fields, of learning and of practice, is attributed to unique characteristics and special qualities which, in their natural and historical course, followed the temper of the people and the nature of the land, and bore her along on a procession high-spirited of soul, hungry of heart, wide of range, whose yearning brought her to this exalted degree of pride and esteem.

The psychological factors possess an activity no less in substance and in value than the outward incentives, whose effect is confined to the following aspects:

First — the abundance of national and foreign schools was a basic factor in creating a refined women's society, aided in its rise by woman's love of learning and of progress.

Second — the Lebanese people's bent toward emigration and expatriation, which awakened in the souls of its men and women the incentives of inquiry and of acquaintance with all the languages of the world; for it found in the study of them a helper enabling it to spread its wings over all lands and countries.

Third — the multitude of strangers who come to the Lebanese land in search of rest and recreation, for it is the one Eastern homeland in which Nature reposed content with her art and her creation. Its people therefore resolved to master many languages, to strengthen the bonds of understanding and affection and to pull down the barriers of ignorance and estrangement, so that this homeland might keep its character as a model country for summering and tourism.

The Lebanese woman is divided, according to environment and station, into four classes:

* The woman of the city..
* The woman of the village..
* The woman of the street..
* The woman of the home..

1 — The Woman of the City

She claims a variety of distinctions, in which her beloved and visible traits show themselves at every tremor that visits her overflowing dreams and above every pleasure that drains her greedy longings. She is well-proportioned of figure, well-dressed, lavish in the use of powders and perfumes, and affects haughtiness and gravity. What her ambition lacks is the power of invention and creation: she is a professional imitator, yielding before every glittering ornament and led along by every new fashion. Yet she is ambitious in her choice of fashions, quick in adopting them, eager to possess them.

As for the educational gauge of this class of women, it stands at a high degree of eminence and capability, for the woman of the city — in general — claims a telling superiority in the field of learning and culture in several languages. Some energetic women have joined party ranks and have shared in building women's organizations, and they still work with diligence and energy to raise the standing of woman and of the homeland. Her family life usually rests on regular, traditional foundations affected by environment and surroundings, while it is hardly to be expected that her man should have any authority or opinion: she loves him for what he has, not for what he is. She is, on the whole, an alluring beauty; she reads romantic novels and spends most of her evenings in the cinemas and the pleasure-houses.

Her future: she will reach, in her development and progress, the level of the seasoned political man, and will crowd him in all his works and his thinking. But she will not have his distinction, despite the existence of some soaring women of letters, because her tendencies so often rest upon borrowing and imitation; and the future will not change her literary traits absolutely.

2 — The Woman of the Village

The village woman enjoys an absolute social freedom despite her slender ambition and her simple aims, for she lives within an independent circle most like a large family, and her daily work is confined to the recurring household tasks and to a short stroll toward the wood or the spring. This isolation and contraction have given her special traits which curbed the vitality of her dreams and hopes, confining her within a small circle of simplicity and trifles. Her love life is usually restricted to the neighbor's son, or to the first lad who whispers to her the words of love and passion; for her virgin soul is as far as can be from hypocrisy and flattery. She is quick to believe and careful to keep faith. And she often looks silly and naive when she follows in the footsteps of the modern woman. In spite of her many visits to the city, there is in her dress, her gait, and her accent a fixed proof and a decisive evidence marking her personality off from all other women. As for her social gauges, they are limited on all sides — in learning, in culture, in art, and in politics.

Her future: the village woman in Lebanon is entering upon an era teeming with social forms and conditions of every kind, and her longing to embrace it gives her a speedy road to progress in the matters of dress and taste, while the school works to furnish her with the various means of learning and culture — for the village in Lebanon is developing tellingly.

3 — The Woman of the Street

Rarely do her wishes vary or her whims differ according to circumstance of place or time: in city and village she is one and the same. Her habit is to trade in talk and to discourse on fashions. Her visits never cease and her chatter never runs out. From the tree of her produce she will pluck nothing but the fruits of degradation and meanness, for she generally fills her hours with these negative pursuits, contenting herself thereby with amusements and a worth that has neither value nor use; and it is rare that the traits of her past, laden as it is with frivolity and dissipation, leave any trace to change her nature and her morals.

Her future: it is not to be hoped that she will be anything of effect in the life of the country and the nation, whether from the educational or the social standpoint, for her progressive ambitions are trivial, hollow, limited in range, cold in energy, never passing, in their rounds, beyond the little band of her acquaintances and friends.

4 — The Woman of the Home

The woman upon whom rest the foundations of civilization, present and to come, is the mother of the great statesman and the sister of the successful merchant. It is she who fashions out of her sons fortified pillars upon which the future of the country sits enthroned, glad to see in her excellence a noble distinction lifting it above all nations and peoples. She builds men, and burns upon the altars of their care the fairest meanings of sacrifice and the loftiest heights of virtue. Selfishness finds no entry to her soul, nor rebellion any way to her heart. She enjoys an ample share of learning and culture; she is mistress of all the social usages, so as to pick out the best of them and fling the bad against the wall.

Her future: the future will unveil to her its fairest ascents, that she may sit enthroned at the head of every institution of reform and every organization of construction; and hers will be a lofty standing in the life of the nation and the homeland.