they arose between two spouses with no proportion between them in understanding, character, wealth, and station.
Therefore, among the most important things a young man must attend to, if he undertakes marriage and wishes to be happy — in such a society as this, built upon distinctions and social ranks — is to choose the girl whose station accords with his station, whose character with his character, and whose inclinations with his inclinations. Then he will be safe from the calamity of surrendering to his appetites, and will be assured of a family future wrapped in contentment, blessing, and happiness.
What is said of the young man in choosing a wife is said of the girl in choosing her companion. Indeed the girl's position in this matter may be more delicate than the young man's, for reasons there is no room to mention here. But in many circumstances the girl ought to be left the choice in deciding her own destiny: she should not be forced to marry a man from whom she recoils because her parents' interest dictates such a marriage. And if we may offer one piece of advice in this regard, it is to beware of the young man given to drink and gambling — two plagues that have never crept into a house without destroying it utterly.
There remains the matter of age, which is among the gravest of all for the fate of family happiness. The best that can be said in this regard is that fathers should beware of marrying their daughters to men who far exceed them in years, because of the harm, in many respects, that follows from such disparity.
Sociologists attempt to analyze all the questions of society upon economic foundations and to treat them from that side. On this reckoning it may be said that the first cause delaying marriage is purely economic. The truth is that a great number of our young men — most of them employees and functionaries — do not possess money enough to run a household. Moreover, the evolution of social life in this age, and the rise in the cost of living and the multiplication of its demands that follow upon that evolution, have greatly affected people's thoughts and inclinations. They have come to look at life from a new angle, and a man is no longer content to be what he was yesterday — with the result that the young man and the young woman each aspire to a milieu other than the one in which they live. He is not satisfied with a companion of his own rank in money and lineage, and she is not satisfied with a young man whose financial condition falls short of satisfying her ambitions. The inevitable result is that both parties spend the fairest days of their lives apart. The young man desires success and strives for it; as for the girl, she takes some consolation from the poet's wisdom: 'How narrow life would be, were it not for the expanse of hope!'
There is, however, a cause other than money that holds the young man hesitant before marriage — I mean the abundance of amusements and the multiplication of the means of pleasure, above all in this age when the ways of Western arts of every kind have poured in upon us, capturing the affections of the young and draining their money and their energy.
One of them comes to believe, or to incline to believe, that life is play, and that happiness (if happiness there be) is to be found in the café, not in the home. It is a tendency which, one fears, may take root in souls and destroy the best of what the homeland asks of its faithful sons.
As for the claim that bachelor life is a life of freedom and gaiety, it is a doubtful claim, and I do not think that whoever takes this view believes in its truth or can support his word with reasonable proofs.
As for removing the causes that delay marriage, it is a difficult matter, and it is not in our power to confront them directly. They may be lightened when economic and agricultural projects multiply, and when clubs of physical exercise grow numerous, along with other things that bring good to young men and young women.
Woman: Body and Soul (Book Advertisement)
The long-awaited book has appeared
Woman: Body and Soul
By Dr. Georges Hanna
Publishers: Dar al-Ahad — Beirut
To be ordered from the publishers
Price per copy: 200 piasters, or 230 millimes, or mils, or fils