Woman is the heart of humanity, pulsing with life and feeling. She is in herself a complete world, and for man she is a teeming world overflowing with truth and imagination; and when she pours forth into the world of existence, she is glory and victory, both flowing into man's imagination and breathing forth genius and striving from the resting-place of life. Man stands in need of woman's tenderness, and she gives him everything of her youthful self, following him with her feeling — a watchful eye that does not sleep and a beating heart that does not rest.
From the ample tenderness of motherhood to the wife's compassion for the weary man, man reclines upon the slopes of bliss and walks toward his goal in life with a steady heart and a firm resolve. She is the companion of sorrows and the cause of being; she is the delight in life, the balm of wounds, and consolation when consolation is scarce.
Man's first knowledge is his mother. She is the greatest factor in shaping her child's future; she is the great refiner and educator, a fortified hedge and a shining torch lighting his path. If a man's people abandon him, the mother does not abandon him; if his loved ones draw away from him, she does not draw away. If life turns against him, she pardons and has mercy; and if her son forgets her, she does not forget him.
The mother — and is anything purer than the mother? The mother is the keeper of the covenant, the bearer of bounty, the guide to the path of right. How beautiful she is, laughing over the cradle, and how sublime, weeping over the grave!... She is a sacred creature whom every person must honor.
Nothing equals woman's penetration, and no conquest her conquest. The best whom humanity has borne are those who were
marked with woman's virtues, to whom discernment was given as suck along with the milk, and on whom fertile imagination was lavished along with the games of the cradle. History bears witness that many glorious poets, leaders, conquerors, and inventors of soaring fame reached what they reached thanks to woman and her preparation of them while they were small — and so they prospered when they were grown.
This is woman's throne: the kingdom of the child. And her second throne is the heart of man; and from these two her brow bears the crown, immortal forever.
Forever!
And it is as if these men had forgotten, or feigned to forget, woman's merit toward the world and the good offices she has rendered in the field of public affairs; her sharing the largest portion in the creation of nations and states, civilizations and cultures; and her striving to advance our political, social, cultural, and economic systems. Our human history is filled with the works of woman, who was and remains humanity's smiling hope, the symbol of sacrifice, and the key to the peoples' progress and to their solidarity in building a world ruled by an all-embracing love, over which the flag of lasting peace flies.
And despite all these efforts, she now presses forward through crowding and struggle, while man stands lying in wait before her; it does not please him that she should advance and work for her standing, as though he wanted life for himself alone and for no one else — in his belief that woman was created to occupy herself with the management of the house and the raising of children. The keeping of the house and the raising of children is something we do not dispute with the men; but we women — mothers and girls, mistresses of households and strugglers — have the right, once our household work is done, to look out upon the world and go forward in the caravan of the civilized, cultivated age. The era in which forced confinement was imposed upon us has passed, and
it has become one of our rights to breathe as men breathe, for the air is for all and the sun is for all. And we are going forward on our way, striving toward our goals with longing and with hopes. We must reach our demands so long as we have set our minds on reaching them. Events and storms will not keep the sun from rising in the east or setting in the west; thus must we understand life, and thus must we live.
For woman is an essential element and a necessary member for the completion of life in all its aspects and for the steady march of success in every quarter of the state. Democracy cannot be realized unless the official authorities believe in the principle of equality between the two sexes and apply it to all without discrimination in political and social rights, and unless this will is expressed by way of the free vote in elections sound and clear of all pressure and coercion.
It is but a small word I have raised, in solidarity with my women companions who demand our political rights — perhaps in this modest cry there is a reminder to those who hold authority in the country; and the reminder profits the believers.
Woman: Body and Soul
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 fils