Daily News · New York, New York · 18 January 1945

CP-1945-012

Only the Rich Can Share ’Em In a Harem, Arab Gals Insist

Sam D. Souki, United Press, Cairo

Transcribed from the clipping

“Cairo, Jan. 17 (U.P.) — The first Arab Women’s Congress, insisting that women’s place is no longer in the harem, demanded today that polygamy be limited to men who can financially afford it. The former veil-wearers kept the problem of plural marriage on a practical economic basis. They pointed out that when poor men marry as many as four wives, it leads to great misery. Therefore they called for an examination of a man’s financial status before he takes on more than one wife. Demand Single Code. Divorce is simple for the Arab man. He can divorce his wife simply by saying to her three times ‘I divorce you,’ but Arab women object. They also demanded today the same penal code for men and women. The current practice in divorce cases here is to give the children to the father, but the women’s congress insisted that children be left with the mother. The ladies of the harem demanded the right to vote and run for parliament and to hold public office. They blamed the inferior position of their sex on the fact that ‘the Arab male has up to now merely been a weak imitator of his western brother in economic, social and political spheres of life.’ Oppose Jewish Palestine. The congress women agreed to support Arab demands for a majority in Palestine and a suspension of Jewish immigration. Cables were sent to President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill protesting pro-Zionism in the United States and Great Britain. This first congress of 100 Arab women was an eastern version of the old-fashioned women’s rights demonstrations. But the veils and flowing costumes were gone — the delegates were all dressed in western clothes.”

Photograph caption

A photograph of four veiled women, captioned “Them days are gone forever.”

Context added by this archive

A hundred women meet in Cairo and demand the vote, the right to stand for parliament and hold office, one penal code for both sexes, custody of their own children, and limits on polygamy. They also cable Roosevelt and Churchill about Palestine. The headline calls them Arab Gals and the photograph of four veiled women is captioned Them days are gone forever. Lebanon’s delegate to this congress was Louise Amin, who turns up in this archive a year later billed as a speaker in a Westchester school hall, and Alice Kandaleft Cosma, who chaired the Arab Women’s Congress for the Defense of Palestine, is here in 1947.

Cite this item

"Only the Rich Can Share ’Em In a Harem, Arab Gals Insist," Daily News, 18 January 1945. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1945-012. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1945-012

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