On the Margins of Women's Rights

The past year was full of political and social events and developments, but for us, the women of Lebanon, one matter surpasses all the others in importance, in view of the developments expected to follow from it: the granting of electoral rights to the educated woman. I am not here, in this brief note, to review the circumstances that led to the granting of part of a usurped right and the establishment of a measure of justice, nor to treat its political consequences in the Lebanese and international arenas. My discussion will be confined to the direction the Lebanese woman must take in the legislative and administrative fields, and to what we hope to see achieved in the coming year.

It is well known that woman, and especially the Eastern woman, is conservative and holds fast to matters of religion and to the domestic and social virtues, relatively more than man. Her faith is firm and her power to shape society is unrivaled. In her arms the men and women of the future grow up. The corruption of society does not seep into her as easily as it besets man, and her high ideals are not shaken, since she does not come into contact with the external affairs that tend to breed despair and bewilderment in those of weak will. This being so, she occupies an excellent position, and it has become one of her duties to take a practical part in public life, to declare her will and put her principles into practice.

They speak of reform — and who is worthier than woman to take part in it? With her help and her participation it has become possible to build a solid edifice on the foundations of the virtues and of social justice. When woman sees with her own eyes, and ascertains, the indifference of the rising generation to their social and national duties, she hastens to her children to instill these foundations in them and to awaken in them zeal and sacrifice for the homeland, so that they grow up holding the state's money dearer to them than their own, preferring to live destitute rather than stretch out their hands to embezzle the nation's money. On the contrary, they rise as one man to fight corruption and tear out its roots.

And when woman sees that among the causes of moral weakness is the people's failure to abide by order, she hurries to her home to teach her children that just as they must obey their parents, so too it behooves them to obey the laws and statutes of the nation, their great mother.

In the field of legislation, woman must strive to achieve social justice among all and for all classes. And just as she has achieved justice, so must she strive to make right prevail in every sphere of public life.

In the field of education, woman must spare no effort in drawing up a common program by which her children are taught on the same foundations in all schools — private and public, national and foreign — so that they do not grow up with differing mentalities, viewing the same matter through divergent theories, so that what one of them sees as the very essence of right another considers wrong. A multitude of schools is not all that we need; what matters most is that their programs be harmonious and their guidance in national and social affairs identical.

One of the evils of the modern age is the unemployment crisis, whose source is the lack of the projects needed to employ working hands, as well as the failure of many of the nation's young men to specialize in a craft or an industry. To you, my sister woman, falls the task of bringing the development projects to realization, retrieving them from the baskets of oblivion and setting them in motion. Unemployment is the mother of vices, and we cannot afford to procrastinate in studying and approving projects. It is also a duty to develop in our children inclinations toward crafts and industry and to encourage them to specialize, for this is the best capital that can be given them.

So, my sister, weighty duties rest upon you, and great deeds are expected of you. Set narrow local party politics aside and strive to achieve justice and to consolidate the pillars of this dear homeland. If you apply in public life the zeal you show in private life, you will have rendered the most exalted of services to this dear homeland.