"The Woman's Voice" Asks

Debate has gone on at length of late over the distinction between the girls' curriculum and the boys', and many a zealous voice insists that the girls' curriculum complete its orientation toward the role of motherhood.

In the margin of all this we ask: "Why is the boys' curriculum not likewise amended so that it fulfills the orientation toward the role of fatherhood? Does the man, one wonders, know the father's responsibility in the family and his duties toward his wife and children?"

The participants:
Mrs. Habiba Shaaban Yakan
Dr. Zahia Kaddoura
Mr. Charles Saad
Mrs. Widad Maqdisi Cortas
Dr. Zaki Shakhashiri

I believe the curriculum of instruction should be one and the same for male and female alike, with the addition of whatever each of them, man and woman, needs for the conduct of life and the forming of the family and the household, so that young men and young women are prepared in the light of science and knowledge. It would be well, then, to include in the programs of instruction studies in psychology, in marital and family relations, in the rearing of the young, and in household management, together with the responsibilities and duties that follow from these — considering that true happiness has its source in the home to which a person, man or woman, comes for shelter, finding there rest, warmth, and security, and harmony in a cooperative partnership in which duties and rights are balanced in a spirit of affection, love, and knowledge founded upon sound science.

And I hope it will not enter my brother man's head that I am biased toward the daughters of my own sex; rather, I say in all sincerity that I prefer he learn to perform the necessary household tasks well, for he may travel, or he may remain a bachelor. I also wish him to understand the soul of the woman with whom he will keep company his whole life long and without whom he will find no happiness, and to know the mentality of his child, the very piece of his heart, so that he may be able to refine him and guide him along the right path...

Therefore I see no room for differentiation in secondary study, and if this question can rightly be posed at all, it can rightly be posed only of what comes after secondary study, by asking: "Should we establish, alongside the coeducational university institutes, university institutes set apart for girls, for the acquisition of what only girls will need in their future, as many countries have done? That I shall not answer now, for it is not the subject of the question."

I hold to this view, and I see no room for what was said in the question — that if the girls' curriculum must complete its orientation toward the role of motherhood, then the boys' curriculum must fulfill its orientation toward the role of fatherhood and the affairs of the family — because this is not, in origin, something toward which he is oriented at school; rather, there are various factors and circumstances at work in orienting him.

The future lawyer, the future physician, and the future engineer study, at the secondary stages, things that have no connection with their craft, because it is a deficiency, for example, for the lawyer or the judge to be unacquainted with Lavoisier's theory in chemistry, or Archimedes' law in physics, or Pythagoras' theorem in geometry; and likewise it is a deficiency in the engineer or the physician not to know who al-Mutanabbi was, or who Khalid ibn al-Walid was, for example.

If this is true — and I reckon it is — then what applies in this matter to the boy applies to the girl, for they will face one and the same future and one and the same life.

There is no doubt that the amendment of our present curricula is something we cannot avoid, so that they become purely Lebanese. Let us proceed to purge them of padding that exhausts the memory and does nothing to develop the power of thought and deduction.

I agree that we should borrow from the curricula of others whatever suits our needs — provided we keep our Lebanese character. And since those responsible for education in Lebanon are agreed on the necessity of amending the Lebanese curricula, why should we not seize this fitting opportunity to complete the orientation of our girls toward understanding motherhood and bearing its burdens, without resorting to any amendment to orient the man toward assuming his responsibilities as father and husband?

It is of the utmost necessity that we prepare woman to be a wife and mother first, because God chose her to be a mother, like it or not. And it is wise to prepare her to become a teacher to her husband, making him happy in his home and helping him to be a good father and a husband who fulfills the conditions of husbandhood and motherhood.

And once our curricula guarantee the preparation of the man to be a working member of his society, bearing his responsibilities as a good citizen, there is no doubt that, with his wife's help, he will bear his duties as father and husband both.

Mrs. Widad Maqdisi Cortas says:

I am among those who say a radical change must be made in the present program: it should be made practical, and branched out in its final stages so as to keep pace with differing inclinations and talents. But I do not consider any portion of human talents the special property of one class of humanity; nor do I believe at all in the necessity of creating one particular program for boys and another for girls that arrives at the same goal the official program aims at today — that is, higher education. We need a simplified, easy program by means of which a large portion of boys and girls together would turn away from university studies to prepare themselves for professional, technical, and manual occupations, accept their lot with contentment, and find in the various trades and industries the country needs a field for displaying their talents to the fullest. As for the program that leads to university studies, it must be one and the same for boys and girls, with abundance of branching regarded as a basic necessity for the scientific and cultural expansion that society needs.

Dr. Zaki Shakhashiri

If the girls' course of study requires amendment to prepare the girl for the life of motherhood, then the boys' course of study ought to require amendment to prepare the boy for the life of fatherhood... But the qualities common to motherhood and fatherhood are purely human qualities, for whose growth the courses of study should provide, in the boy and the girl equally; and whatever exceeds these qualities — whatever is asked of the boy more than of the girl, or the reverse — should be given a special place for its development in the curriculum devoted to the one or the other.

In other words, the course of study should be furnished with the atmospheres and subjects apt to bring forth in the boy or in the girl the latent springs of manhood and the latent springs of womanhood, before it prepares either of them for skill in mastering certain applied matters such as motherhood or fatherhood or medicine or agriculture... and so on...

The concern of marriage and family life is not the human being's first concern as a human being, nor even as male or female. Rather, the attainment of the minimum level of human culture is his first concern, and that alone suffices to guarantee the competent shouldering of the burdens of all these other concerns, even where orientation toward some of them is absent from the curricula of instruction altogether.