The naked face of the Arab women (trans. The Hidden Face of Eve)

THE ILLEGITIMATE CHILD AND THE PROSTITUTE The law punishes a woman for committing adultery much more heavily than it does a man. In Egypt her punishmen could be a maximum prison sentence of two years. A man, however, is not punished for adultery as long as it is committed outside the home in which his wide is living with him . Even if he is caught having sexual relations with another woman in the very same house, his sentence cannot exceed six months’ imprisonment. Usually the woman alone is punished, since infidelity in a woman towards he husband is branded by the law, bu custom and by religious precepts as an inexcusable crime. The disloyalty of a husband towards his wife, however, is looked upon much more lightly, and can even by tacitly permitted by law, custom and religious precepts. Adultery in a woman has dangerous consequences for the established system; it may lead to confusion between the descendants and in inheritance, both of which together constitute the cornerstone of the patriarchal system.

According to Egyptian law, if a man is caught in sexual intercourse with a prostitute he is not put in jail, but is used as a witness against her, whereas she is sentenced to a term of imprisonment. When such kinds of inequality exist no law can be just. Therefore all the laws that are promulgated within the framework of the patriarchal system the with aim of regulating the relationship between man and woman are forcibly unjust.

Prostitution means sexual intercourse between a man and a woman aimed at satisfying the man’s sexual and the woman’s economic needs. It is obvious that sexual needs, even in a male dominated system, are not as urgent and important as economic needs which, if not satisfied, lead to disease and death. Yet society considers the woman’s economic need as less vital than the man’s sexual one. This situation can only arise where inequality exists. In all ages it has been possible for people to change the system of marriage and the relationships between the sexes according to economic necessities without having qualms about the question of moral standards or values. During periods of widespread poverty and stringency, parents are allowed to rid themselves of children by killing them, abortion becomes rife, sexual relations outside marriage strictly prohibited, while people are encouraged not to marry, or marry and practice birth control. Society is, and always has been, capable of choosing from religion those values that are consonant with and serve to fulfil its economic interests. When there is a period of relative prosperity and labour is scarce, things change again and people are encouraged to have lots of offspring, whether inside or outside the marriage relationship. LOVE AND SEX IN THE LIFE OF THE ARABS For the traditions and customs prevalent in Arab society imposed limitations on sex which in actual practice were much stricter than the sexual freedom they accorded. They tended to create a sharp separation between love and sex, and between the body and the soul, a heritage which the human race carried down from Judaism, and which was the direct result of damning sex eternally with the stigma of sin and viewing it as something defiling and degraded. The Arab, therefore, related love to the soul and believed that it was a pure emanation of the spirit, just like the love of Allah, or of one’s country, or the feeling and affection reserved for a mother. Sex and the body, however, were dragged down to the level of the earthly animal desires that should not defile the noble feeling of love.

Romantic love in the West, therefore, had its counterpart in el hob el ozri among the Arabs. The separation between sex and love was carried so far that the Arab also carved out a deep ravine between love and marriage… …this masochistic tendency to take pleasure in pain is not limited to the Arab alone, but is peculiar to the whole of the human race ever since body was separated from mind, and sex equated with sin. ARAB PIONEERS OF WOMEN’S LIBERATION In no country in the world has it happened that women have achieved equal rights with men simply because they have been given their political rights. All the clamour of voices on radio, television and in public meetings, all the oral and written statements, all the clash of cymbals, the beating of drums and the floating of banners, all the throbbing speeches on democratic rights and the freedom of women cannot change the fact that, as long as feudalistic, capitalistic and paternalistic systems persist, the votes of women will very often be used against the real interests of women, in exactly the same way as the votes of the workers and peasants are very often used against their interests.