A Press Investigation: These Married Women Employees Are Denied the Family Allowance by Law

... We promised our dear readers in the last issue that we would bring them a press investigation concerning certain married ladies, women employees on the state payroll, whom Lebanese law denies the family allowance ... In fulfillment of our promise, here we record some of the names, hoping that we shall soon arrive at a fuller count, so that Lebanese public opinion may know the extent of the injustice that befalls the married woman by depriving her of the family allowance when she is, in most cases, the sole breadwinner for her children ...

The mother bears the greater share of the pains, the suffering, and the hardships in bringing the new generation into life, raising it, and preparing it to be an element of good and of building in human society. Yet for all that, she remains on the margin of the matters that touch the foundations of her children's lives, insofar as they are social individuals and insofar as they are an element of building and construction in the rising generation.

That seemed natural — or shall I say "acceptable" — in the days when the woman, or the mother, was a dependent of the head of the family, who secured for her and for his children their needs and their livelihood. He alone held the right to manage the affairs and concerns of this family, and the law granted him this right and protected it. And so it was with the authorities when the head of the family alone held the right to enjoy the family allowance: they considered it natural and necessarily taken for granted that the man should enjoy this right. And he entered into the texts of the law as the sole party concerned.

But it was not long before the woman plunged into the currents of public life and entered the various fields of work, contributing to securing the family's livelihood and its needs. It thus became natural, and in the logic of things, that the law's position toward her should change, and that its provisions be amended to accord with her new situation; that she should have rights like those of the head of the family; that the family allowance be divided into two parts, the man receiving the first part and the wife the second; or that one of them receive it in full if there is no partner to draw it; or — and this is reasonable and just — that both of them receive it in full, as an encouragement to bear children.

This is the matter from the general standpoint of principle.

As for the practical, factual standpoint: the magazine The Woman's Voice — whose editor-in-chief, Edvick Jureidini Shayboub, had the merit of priority in raising this subject and in sending an open letter to the leaders of the women's movement to alert them to this very important aspect of women's rights — the magazine The Woman's Voice, I say, wished to prepare a detailed study of this question, the question of woman's right to the family allowance. So we decided to furnish it with specific information, to be taken as an example of the situation of lady employees who provide for their children by themselves, owing to particular circumstances and causes, and who nevertheless do not draw the family allowance — because the law stipulates that:

"In application of the law of legitimacy, the children are the charge of the father until they attain majority or the age at which they are able to earn their living, and, if they are female, until the day they marry."

"If the father is materially unable to secure his children's needs, the children are legally in the custody of the mother; and upon the mother's death or in her absence, they are in the custody of the nearest relative until majority or until the age that enables them to earn their living."

"The father's absence is considered a material impediment to his fulfilling what is incumbent upon him toward his children, provided that his place of residence abroad is unknown, or that he is in a state of utter poverty that prevents him from carrying out his duties toward his children," etc. ...

From this it is clear that the mother cannot enjoy the right to the family allowance even if she contributes by shouldering an ample share of the burdens that fall upon the head of the family, and that she is entitled to enjoy the family allowance only if she can prove that she is a widow or that her husband's place of residence is unknown.

From the foregoing it is clear that the law in force among us is no longer of such fairness and justice as to be fit for application in a country where woman has taken her decisive step and now stands politically on one level with man; and it has become a duty to raise this subject on a wide scale and to bring it before public opinion.

As a preliminary to this second stage, the correspondent of The Woman's Voice endeavored to obtain from certain government departments a count that reveals plainly the names of some of the mothers who struggle to feed their children while, in most cases, the husband has abandoned his responsibility, turning his face across the Mediterranean toward whatever his ill luck willed for him ...

These mothers, upon whom time has borne down with this straitened condition, find that the law — the law of their country, which has made them politically equal to man — turns about and denies them the right to the family allowance, instead of granting them two allowances

in place of the single one!!

And here follow lists of the names of married ladies whom Lebanese law denies the right to the family allowance.

1 — Mrs. Emily Fares Ibrahim: an employee at the Régie; her husband is an emigrant, and she alone provides for four sons whose ages range between 18 and 11 years. 2 — Ahila Ramadan Ayas: an employee at the Ministry of Social Affairs; she has three children. 3 — Mayy Fayyad: a social worker at the Ministry of Social Affairs. 4 — Eileen Emile Mhanna: an employee at one of the companies; she has one child. 5 — Antoinette Derian: an employee at the Ministry of Social Affairs; she has two children. 6 — Loris Tabbakh: an employee at the State Inspection Board, separated from her husband; she has two children.

7 — Mrs. Ghawi: Ministry of National Economy; her husband is an emigrant, and she has four children whose ages range between 16 and 11 years.

8 — Mrs. Bshour: Ministry of National Economy; her husband is an employee at the Kazan establishment, and she has four children, three boys and a girl, whose ages range between 13 and five.

As for the payroll of the Ministry of National Education, it is full of married women with children; we content ourselves for now with mentioning 64 names of women teachers from Beirut alone ...

At the New Girls' School:
Muntaha Abi Shahin, Aqlin Shaftari Haddad, Abih Bustani, Marie-Louise Donato, Salwa Hamadeh, Linda Taleb.

At the Burj Abi Haidar School:
Salwa Nuwayri, Nafisa Makki, In'am Addu, Zaynab Rifai, Najah Sha'r.

At the Raml al-Zaydaniyya School:
Nadia Nasnas, In'am Halabi, Thurayya Fakhouri, Hafsa Hawwari, Wafiqa Mneimneh, Khayriyya Abbas, Fatima Banat Makki.

At the Second Girls' School:
Nabiha Baayni, Bahiyya Shuqayr, Suad Mneimneh.

At the First Girls' School:
Asma Fayed, Rose Ghubril, Fatat al-Mir, Salma Jaber, Salma Shabaqlu.

At the Tariq al-Jadida School:
Isabel Nimeh, Nazik Ramadan, Umayya Bakdash, Lodi Bandali, Salwa Banat, Fatima Uthman, Hayat al-Hajj.

At the Ras al-Naba School:
Yusr Fakhouri Naqqash, Widad Baba, Josephine Atiq, Salwa Sinno, Sabiha Khatib Sukkar.

At the Huda Shaarawi School:
Juliette Abi Zayd, Kawthar Zantout, Ilham Haidar, Hamida Jawish.

At the Manara School:
Najia Qabbani, Iqbal Hamadeh, Daad Nurallah, Jamal al-Badawi, Mahasin Ramadan, Marie Barbar.

At the Ras Beirut School:
Yvette Farah Suleiman.

At the Ain al-Mraisseh School:
Aqlin Bja'azani.

At the Ashrafieh School:
Carmen Sioufi, Linda Sayegh Saab.

At the Warda al-Yaziji School:
Bahiyya al-Sirwan, Suad Mazhar, Ihsan Khalid, Rasmiyya Mneimneh.

At the Basta School:
Nilufar Salhab al-Hakim, Ibtihaj al-Sirwan, Samiha Jabr al-Amin, Imtiyaz Jabri, Lodi Shuwayri, Dalal Haidar, Afaf Makkawi, Saniyya Mazbudi.