‘Arab Women Inferior Beings’

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30955, 11 January 1966, Page 2

‘Arab Women Inferior Beings’

Evenings spent in Arab homes in Amman, Jordan, reminded Mrs Susan Tucker very much of Christchurch parties. The men all congregated in one room; the women in another.

But the men did not stand around a keg of beer in the kitchen. Nor did the women sip gin in the lounge. The couples were segregated because women were considered inferior beings and they were not allowed to drink. Women’s inferiority to men is laid down by Moslem teaching.

“Women there are far from emancipation, though the wives of wealthy Jordanians are becoming Westernised. But even they are well and truly under the thumbs of their husbands,” Mrs Tucker said yesterday. Young women were beginning to take jobs in shops and offices, but very few went to university. Their main interest was to find a husband, marry and have plenty of sons. Too many daughters brought disfavour to a wife.

“Jordanian men seem to have the idea that Western women, because they are emancipated, are less moral than their own women,” she said. “You cannot have a friendship with a man there without complications. It is not very pleasant to walk alone along a street in Amman because the men stare at you so much.” None of the English women in Amman envied Princess Muna, King Hussein’s English wife. She seldom left the palace or appeared anywhere with her husband. She lived a restricted and lonely life, Mrs Tucker said.

“Life for any Western woman married to a Jordanian in his own country would be very frustrating,” she added.

In Amman there were about 500 English and 1000 American residents, who made a gay social life for themselves. “We were there for two years while my husband was working for a consultant engineer, and I would not want

to live there indefinitely. After a year in England I’m very glad we are going to settle in Christchurch,” she said. Mrs Tucker did all her own house work in Amman and spent her leisure painting landscapes and portraits.

“When I left Amman I sold or gave away most of my paintings,” she said. Mrs Tucker came to New Zealand from England as a social worker in the Child Welfare Department and later at Sunnyside Hospital, before her marriage in 1959.