Only Through the Rejection of Love Are Women Equal to Men

The unjust plight of women is a suspiciously familiar tale throughout the world's societies, countries, and histories. Always subjected to the whims of men in charge, women have been fighting for their rights of equal standing for centuries. How are women to find their rightful places in a society that creates a set standard for all women to obey? Women are usually considered to be frail, emotional, unreasonable, only fit to be mothers, subservient, and in love with love. But what if women were to reject some of these traits imposed upon them, especially the idea of love? In two novels, I look at the effects of society's treatment of women and the author's portrayal of women as an attempt to answer this question.

The Princesse de Clèves is a story by Madame de Lafayette depicting a sheltered young woman, Mlle de Chartres i.e. Princesse de Clèves, who is taken to an illustrious 16^th century French court by her moralist mother. The mother, Mme de Chartres, wishes to insert her daughter in her rightful place in society through marriage. The court is a devious place, described by Mme de Chartres as a place where "if you judge by appearances...you will frequently be deceived: what you see is almost never the truth" (26). The young daughter falls prey to adulterous passion and is only able to escape by temporary madness and a physical removal from the cause of her passion. But why is this young woman tortured by the inability to pursue her passionate inclination when marital ties are no longer a barrier? Why is love not attainable for the Princesse de Clèves? I propose that the answer to these questions lies within the world Madame de Lafayette lived and how the unequal treatment and social view of women during her era, affected her treatment of love in the novel The Princesse de Clèves.

In Louise K. Horowitz's text Love and Language: A Study of the Classical French Moralist Writers, Horowitz astutely infers that the sociopolitical status of the early modern Europeans was based firmly on the patriarchal model of the husband/father dominated household (x). Gender defined familial relationships and was the key for shaping the structure of "household, local, and royal authority" and the reason for "naturalizing many forms of power"(x). Because man ruled his home, it only made sense that the natural ruler of the external dichotomy of the home was man, creating a justification of the domination of men in all social aspects of life. However, the life-giver's (woman's) key roles in the formation and preservation of the household and ultimately society, had been disguised and hidden by the "practices that emphasized the bonds between men as patrimonial managers, as guarantors of loans, as public social contacts, and a myriad of other roles"(Hardwick 193). Men continued to keep women hidden behind closed doors and beneath a veil of obscurity in order to perpetuate their supremacy over societal, judicial, economical, and political systems. In this way, the weaker sex was forcibly held as an invisible contributor to society without being recognized as a whole person worthy of speaking for herself. Men's authority was constantly illuminated and reiterated so as to provide a model for the development of early modern political culture and to strengthen the relationship to the male royal head (Hardwick 227). For as the French nobility fortunes began to decline, they converged towards the King and into "the court, which became a center...of power-mongering" (Merrim 98).

In an environment where power was the ruler, love was a fickle friend. Louise Horowitz described the court as a place where "belief, trust, and confidence [were] of perilously little weight in a world where the humanistic code [had] been stripped bare" (62). Compassion, kindness, and love were not useful qualities in the French court. The notorious court of Madame de Lafayette was a place of "rivalry and mutual envy" (Lafayette 14). The women of the court portrayed by Lafayette were jealous of the social status and acquisition of lovers by their peers because of the "ambition and advancement" they desired (Lafayette 14). Love was not a motivation among the women of court, but power. The more power obtained the more control one was able to exert over the rest of the court, like the way the Queen was able to deftly threaten the Vidame into giving her control over his friendships and destroy his career when he displeased her (Lafayette 79).

Marriage was also a resource of power. The negotiation of a marriage was based upon what each partner could bring to the union in forms of social status and financial gain. For example, the Prince de Clèves was "delighted to see that the beauty of the women to whom he had been so strongly attracted was matched by her position in society" (Lafayette 12). Although the Prince desired Mlle de Chartres, until he had knowledge of the political standing of her family, he was unable to make a progressive step towards marriage. The references to social standing continue with the Chevalier de Guise and his realization that a marriage with the Mlle de Chartres was impossible because "his wealth was insufficient to meet the demands of his social rank" (Lafayette 15). Although the Chevalier professed a love for Mlle de Chartres, he could not obtain what he wanted because of his lack of finances and the social maneuverings of his father because of political reasons (Lafayette 15). These examples of marriage as a business contract in The Princesse de Clèves are common activities because it was the custom of the times. These marriages were successful and useful in maintaining the relations between powerful families and countries. However, once love and passion became a factor, the deterioration of the self was inescapable.

Madame de Lafayette socialized amongst a group of women who participated in salons of upper class women dedicated to discussions on the position of women in society. These women were known as prècieuses: "precious woman". The prècieuses were women who were at the forefront of the feminization of French culture (Merrim 99). These women boldly pronounced they envisioned marriage to be "a form of slavery for innocent female victims" and imagined marriages "based on convenience and interest, experimental marriages, short-term marriages that could end with the birth of the first child and spare the woman the dangers of excessive childbirth, marriages that would allow women to exercise the privilege allotted to aristocratic males of taking lovers" (Merrim 100). Their ideals were explicitly modern and the terror of the men ruling society. So, as one of their highest ranking prècieuses, Lafayette expressed her agreement about the topic of marriage in her writing, even though Lafayette was a married woman.

In Early Modern Women's Writing and Sur Juana Inès de la Cruz, Stephanie Merrim makes a bold observation that in The Princesse de Clèves, "married love fails to be mutual love" (98). Merrim's claim is reflected through the Prince de Clèves complaint to Mlle de Chartres before their marriage that his "passion affects [her] no more than would an attachment based only on the advantage of [her] rank and fortune rather than on the charms of [her] person" (Lafayette 20). Although his future bride was too virtuous for the possibility of adultery, "she continued to arise in him a violent, restless passion" (22) that restricted the Prince from being happy. Mlle de Chartres is unable to reciprocate the Prince's love because a marriage of love cannot exist in Lafayette's world. For Lafayette, "love weakens its victims due to its indomitable destructive forces that wreak jealousy, madness, and disorder" (Merrim 98). Thus, the instability of love is the reason the Prince can never be happy with his object of desire, nor can the Vidame successfully deceive the Queen and keep his love. Moreover, the Queen states that "one cannot trust people who are in love; one cannot be sure that they will keep a secret" (Lafayette 79) to show how love is a negative influence on people's loyalty and morals. In order for a marriage to work, there must be no love so that there can be trust.

In addition to the promise of love, passion and eroticism were also detrimental forces against the Princesse. Passion and eroticism are seen as threats to the stability of the market of marriage because their nature is to "ravage, to destroy the smooth continuum of existence, to alienate the self from its most intimate conception" (Horowitz 58). Women were considered to be ruled by their passions and unable to be reasonable enough to make the decisions which ran the country like men could, who were faculties of reason and cold-logic. After the Princesse is free from her matrimonial duties, why does she not give in to her passionate nature and take Nemours either as a lover or second husband? Some feminists would say that Lafayette makes the Princesse a stronger woman because she sacrifices her position at court and the chance to experience the secular passion that her body yearns for in order to maintain the rigid moral code of ethics and values taught to her by her mother. However, I feel that this explanation is merely an attempt to justify not having a woman stand strong and take pleasure in her sexuality. I tend to agree with "prefeminist contemporary readers" who state that the Princesse's removal from society and momentary loss of sanity shows as a "defeat-a failure to meet the challenge of life, a selfish withdrawal from the risks of self-giving, a semi neurotic flight from reality" (Merrim 131). It is my belief that a strong woman is able to stand up for herself and take pride in her body and status as a woman. The Princesse flees from any more hardships and returns to a child-like stage to the mothers in the nunnery, incapable of showing strength in herself.

However, to be fair, the ending could have been the result of the suggested compilation between Lafayette and male counterparts/authors. Meaning the suggestion of a strong woman character who was able to take charge of her life and enjoy her sexuality as a widow without the condemnation of society, was an unfamiliar idea. The Princesse's retraction from the difficulties of life reflected the lack of women who were able to exist without being tied to a male identity/relationship. Like so many other women, the Princesse retreated to the safety of a nunnery, free from the presence of men and rejection of a society against women who enjoy sex.

Like Lafayette and the reflection of society in her work, I also see a strong connection between Naguib Mahfouz and his Egyptian society's treatment of women in his novel Adrift on the Nile. Mahfouz's novel tells of the nihilistic existence of a group of friends in a complacent state of drugged contemplation on a houseboat. The four men and two female characters are able to fully enjoy their ceremonies until another woman, unlike the two who are able to exist in harmony on the houseboat, enters into the picture and creates dissonance. Rather than the desire to possess love and bodily passion bringing the breakdown of the character's lives, why is the insertion of a woman who resists the temptation of love become the source of chaos and disorder? I believe that the answer is hidden within the theory of female inferiority to the male superiority in Egyptian culture.

Men are given more power because Egyptian culture considers men to be the life-givers, as opposed to how I labeled women as life-givers earlier. Men are seen as procreatic rather than women because it is their seed that gives the womb life. Therefore, the patriarchal power of men is merely natural in both societal and familial areas, because of the power held within the ideology of male procreation (Inhorn 23). However, women who fail to perpetuate the "most important act of male creation," are seen as failures and, in a sense, murderers (Inhorn 24). In Mahfouz's novel, there is only one woman who has children and two men who have children, which appears to agree with the sentiment that men must have children to show their power in procreation.

Moreover, the judicial system of Egypt works to keep women in their place. Made a law in 1920, the Egyptian Personal Status Law legally defines women as inferior to men; "the husband is in charge of supporting financially, his wife and children and thus allowed to restrict his wife's movements, confiner her activities, and make decisions on her behalf-the wife then must care for her husband and children and obey her husband" (Walter 75). The legal code of Egypt is based on the four schools of Islamic law and generally works towards reflecting the "patrilineal" nature society. Also, Egyptian women are often expected to permanently resign from their careers once they give birth to their first child in order to regenerate the inferior position women hold (Inhorn 26 & 39). Culturally, it is also presumed that women are unable to hold positions that require "male characteristics such as rationality and lack of emotion" (Sherif 76). The inability of women to be logical and reasonable is grossly mistaken in many cultures, including Egypt.

So how are these ideals represented by Mahfouz in his work? In Adrift on the Nile, there are three female characters I wish to focus on. First, Layla Zaydan is thirty-five, unmarried, a graduate of the American University, and a translator at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mahfouz 26). Layla is also the lover of Khalid Azzuz, a short-story writer with a son and daughter. Even though Layla is unmarried, she still gravitates towards a man who has children which represents the idea that women should be mothers instead of career-oriented women. She is also in a career that keeps her safe from a position that could be "physically or morally hazardous" (Sherif 77) and requires no uses of emotion as a translator of texts.

Next is Saniya Kamil, who graduated from Mère de Dieu Collage, wife and mother who always leaves her husband and goes to a "standby"- Ali al-Sayyid. Saniya is a lady of "great experience of womanhood" who never "forgets her children, even in the intoxication of love and kif" (Mahfouz 24). Although Saniya enjoys sex and engages in adulterous liaisons, she is whole-heartedly a slave to her children and her love for her kids. Saniya will also "be with her husband one year and leave the next swearing always that it is his fault" (Mahfouz 24). Rather than taking a step towards independence, Saniya is trapped within the relationship with her husband, unable to break free.

Each of these two women are regulars on the houseboat and were introduced to the party members through Ragab al-Qadi because he is "the god of sex, the provider of women for [their] boat" as if he is a pimp (Mahfouz 24); which reinforces their engagement in sex, but does not deteriorate their social standing like the prostitutes on the wharf because Layla and Saniya "give and take, just like men" (Mahfouz 33). Last is Samara Bahgat, a twenty-five woman of character who carries intelligence in her gaze that prevents others from fathoming her (Mahfouz 40). Her strong personality is condemned by Saniya as a "somewhat repellant characteristic in a woman" (Mahfouz 123) showing that even other women were afraid of the strength of independence in Samara as she continually rejected the attentions of other men and sexual advances.

Unlike Layla and Saniya, Samara is the one who does not fit into their ideas of women who can enjoy sex and the home life as a wife and mother. Why? Is not the fact that Layla can enjoy a career and sex with a man she loves enough evidence of the change in views of women amongst the men on the houseboat? Although Layla may appear to be the most free of the three women since she is not tied to a husband and family and participates in sex, she is still a slave to her heart which is tied to a man. Samara is the only truly independent woman who tries to reject the notion of love, which is considered to be a woman's domain (Mahfouz 99), and enjoy her career. It is Samara's absolute rejection of a feminine ownership of love that destroys the sanctity of the houseboat. For if women were to behave like men and forsake love, our society would fall into complete chaos like the houseboat.

What would be the purpose of Lafayette and Mahfouz creating female characters that cause such a disruption in the lives of their characters? For Lafayette, love is the enemy. In her novel, love is the ultimate destroyer of morals and reasoning. Because of the unpredictable nature of love, the Princesse is reduced to a woman who can only remove herself from the trials of life and is forced to deny herself the happiness of obtaining her desire. Yet for Mahfouz, the absence of love is what destroys the harmony of life. Without the humanistic qualities of love in women, anarchy reigns.

Are these two authors trying to saying something about their cultures? Yes. By removing the power from women and expecting them to behave in the inferior formula men have carved out for them, the fabric of society is destroyed. In Lafayette's era, women were viewed as property and should be removed from the daily workings of society. When the Princesse is removed from society and the chance of having love, she is reduced to a state of temporary madness and relocated to a place without men. For Mahfouz, women are meant to be subservient to men, loving, and enjoy their roles of mothers and wives. When Samara rejects all of these sentiments, she becomes an outcast from a family of sorts and is the voice of morality which destroys their unity because she is unable to fit into her niche society tries to care for her.

Works Cited

Hardwick, Julie. The Practice of Patriarchy: Gender and the Politics of Household

Authority in Early Modern France. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.

Horowitz, Louise K.. Love and Language: A Study of the Classical French Moralist Writers. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. 1977.

Inhorn, Marcia C.. Infertility and Patriarchy: The Cultural Politics of Gender and Family Life in Egypt. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.

de Lafayette, Madame. The Princesse de Clèves. Oxford: University Press, 1992.

Mahfouz, Naguib. Adrift on the Nile. New York: Doubleday, 1993.

Merrim, Stephanie. Early Modern Women's Writing and Sur Juana Inès de la Cruz. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1999.

Sherif, Bahira. "Egypt: Multiple Perspectives on Women's Rights." Women's Rights: A Global View. Ed. Lynn Walter. London: Greenwood Press, 2001. 71-84.