according to her budget. Nor does the bride furnish a complete house at the start of her married life; she does so gradually, over several years. And so the two move into a small apartment.

The wife often works several years before settling in the home to raise the children. Seventy-five percent of newly married women in America work a year or more at the outset of their married life.

The girl considers her material help to her husband necessary at first, to secure the purchase of house furniture and kitchen neces-sities. Thus, by the time the baby is born, the house is complete in its contents — even if the greater part of the furniture is being paid for in monthly installments.

I often visited some of my newly married American friends,

and sometimes there was no third chair for the table!

At supper the husband would offer me his chair and sit on a table with some books stacked on it. That day his wife apologized to me, saying frankly: "My husband still needs another year to obtain his engineering degree, and though we both work, what we earn is barely enough for the house and to finish paying his fees at the university!"

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There is no doubt that the American girl enjoys a freedom and a boldness which the Arab girl might well envy her. She is, though, less gentle and less quiet! And no doubt her material ambition and her clinging to her personal independence have cost her some of her femininity, espe-

cially the qualities of bashfulness and modesty with which the Arab girl is adorned.

American society places the girl's responsibility on her own shoulders, yet its reckoning is severe with any girl who strays in her conduct, especially in the states that are still conservative and attached to religion and its teachings.

Thus we see that the American girl, although there is no family and there are no traditions binding her, is in most cases mindful of her own good and her future, even when she is thousands of miles away from her home.

It is noticeable, too, that she is free of affectation in her behavior, frank in her speech, good-hearted, and easily trusts everyone around her.