The Construction of Motherhood in Semi-Colonial Egypt

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that a new institution of motherhood was constructed through modernising reforms in law and medicine in semi-colonial Egypt. It shows that Egyptian women were characterised as ignorant of basic principles of health and hygiene and blamed for the high infant mortality rate in turn-of-the-century Egypt, which coincided with an ongoing reorientation of the Egyptian family in popular and religious literature, wherein the woman was being recast as the central figure in shaping the child and tending the home. At the intersection of these phenomena, new discussions emerged about the significance of women as mothers and the proper way to perform motherhood as an Egyptian woman. A new institution of motherhood was then constructed, concretised, and enforced through medical and legal discourse and interventions that were opposable against women across Egypt. This article shows that British and Egyptian lawmakers privileged the role of women as mothers in debates surrounding the drafting of new labour legislation and that they sought to ensure the maturity of mothers and the mental and physical health of the Egyptian family in a series of controversial personal status law reforms throughout the semi-colonial period. Through a socio-legal history of the institution of motherhood, it examines how colonialism, nationalism, and claims to modernity affected Egyptians’ daily lives and accessed family homes and women’s bodies. Throughout the article, a conceptualisation of modernisation as a dialectical process is emphasised. Modernisation claims to liberate individuals, women, or a nation, but, at the same time, it creates elaborate structures for their discipline. This article treats the institution of motherhood as one such structure and explores the roles of hygiene and domestic cleanliness, coloniality, and law in its construction in semi-colonial Egypt.

Notes

1 Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton University Press 1994) 111.

2 Bahiga Arafa, The Social Activities of the Egyptian Feminist Union (Cairo Elias Modern Press 1973) 25.

3 As above at 29.

4 On motherhood, childhood, and the family see Heidi Morrison, Childhood and Colonial Modernity in Egypt (Springer 2015); Kenneth M. Cuno, Modernizing Marriage: Family, Ideology, and Law in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Egypt (Syracuse University Press 2015); Hanan Kholoussy, For Better, For Worse: The Marriage Crisis that Made Modern Egypt (Stanford University Press 2010); Lisa Pollard, Nurturing the Nation: The Family Politics of Modernizing, Colonizing, and Liberating Egypt, 1805–1923 (University of California Press 2005); Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt: With a New Preface (University of California Press 1991) 105–107; Beth Baron, ‘Perilous Beginnings: Infant Mortality, Public Health, and the State in Egypt’ in Esther Möller, Johannes Paulmann and Katharina Stornig, Gendering Global Humanitarianism in the Twentieth Century: Practice, Politics, and the Power of Representation (Palgrave Macmillan 2020) 195; Renate Lunde, ‘Building Bonny Babies – Missionary Welfare Work in Cairo 1920–1950’ in Nefissa Naguib and Inger Marie Okkenhaug, Interpreting Welfare and Relief in the Middle East (Brill, 2007) 83; Hanan Kholoussy, ‘The Nationalization of Marriage in Monarchical Egypt’ in Arthur Goldschmidt, Amy J. Johnson and Barak A. Salmoni, Re-Envisioning Egypt 1919–1952 (American University in Cairo Press 2005) 317; Omnia el Shakry, ‘Schooled Mothers and Structured Play: Child Rearing in Turn-of-the-Century Egypt’ in Lila Abu-Lughod, Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East (Princeton University Press 1998) 126. On women and nationalism see Beth Baron, Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics (University of California Press 2005); Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation; Mervat F. Hatem, ‘The 1919 Revolution and Nationalist Constructions of the Lives and Works of Pioneering Women Writers’ in Re-Envisioning Egypt 398. On shifting gender roles during the period see Hanan Hammad, Industrial Sexuality: Gender, Urbanization, and Social Transformation in Egypt (University of Texas Press 2016); Lucie Ryzova, The Age of the Efendiyya: Passages to Modernity in National-Colonial Egypt (Oxford University Press 2014); Wilson Chacko Jacob, Working Out Egypt: Effendi Masculinity and Subject Formation in Colonial Modernity, 1870–1940 (Duke University Press 2011); Mona L. Russell, Creating the New Egyptian Woman: Consumerism, Education, and National Identity, 1863–1922 (Springer 2004); Beth Baron, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press (Yale University Press 1994).

5 The author heeds the arguments of Beth Baron and Hanan Kholoussy on the choice of the term semi-colonial. See Beth Baron, The Orphan Scandal: Christian Missionaries and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood (Stanford University Press 2014) xi; Hanan Kholoussy, The Marriage Crisis above note 4 at 5-6; Hanan Kholoussy, ‘Monitoring and Medicalising Male Sexuality in Semi-Colonial Egypt’ (2010) 22(3) Gender & History 677 at 688.

6 See generally, William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East (Westview Press 2012, 5th edn.) 86–92.

7 M.W. Daly, ‘The British Occupation, 1882–1922’ in M.W. Daly, The Cambridge History of Egypt (Cambridge University Press 1998) 239 at 241.

8 Khalid Fahmy and Rudolph Peters, ‘The Legal History of Ottoman Egypt: Introduction’ (1999) 6(2) Islamic Law and Society 129 at 131.

9 Cleveland and Bunton above note 6 at 99.

10 See Baron, Egypt as a Woman above note 4.

11 As above at 36–37.

12 Cleveland and Bunton above note 6 at 180.

13 As above.

14 Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, A Short History of Modern Egypt (Cambridge University Press 1985) 81.

15 Amr Shalakany has traced the rise of an Egyptian legal elite trained at successive iterations of what was known during this period as the Khedival Law School. He writes that graduates of the institution came to monopolise the leadership of the early-twentieth-century Egyptian nationalist movement and succeeded in hitching the nationalist project to a ‘“liberal legality” project of political and economic governance.’ Amr Shalakany, ‘“I Heard It All Before”: Egyptian Tales of Law and Development’ (2006) 27(5) Third World Quarterly 833.

16 See Zachary Lockman, ‘Imagining the Working Class: Culture, Nationalism, and Class Formation in Egypt, 1899–1914’ (1994) 15(2) Poetics Today 157.

17 The Earl of Cromer, 2 Modern Egypt (Macmillan 1916) 538.

18 Abd al-Rahman al-Rafʿi, Mustafa Kamil Baʿith al-Haraka al-Wataniyya: Tarikh Misr al-Qawmi min Sanat 1892 ila Sanat 1908, (Maktabat al-Nahda al-Misriyya 1962) 215.

19 Samir Boulos, ‘“A Clean Heart Likes Clean Clothes”: Cleanliness Customs and Conversion in Egypt (1900–1956)’ (2010) 21(4) Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 315 at 321.

20 Francesca Biancani, Sex Work in Colonial Egypt: Women, Modernity and the Global Economy (Bloomsbury Publishing 2018) 142.

21 Letter to Miss Higson (23 January 1930) 3AMS/D/13/01 Egypt 1921–1950 on file with the London School of Economics Women’s Library).

22 Baron, ‘Perilous Beginnings’ above note 4 at 196.

23 Elizabeth Cooper, The Women of Egypt (Frederick A. Stokes Company 1914) 294. Cooper was a professional writer who travelled to research and write a series of books on women. For more on Cooper and her time in Egypt see Reina Lewis and Nancy Micklewright, Gender, Modernity, and Liberty: Middle Eastern and Western Women’s Writing: A Critical Sourcebook (I.B. Tauris 2006) 156–163.

24 Ministry of Interior Annual Report (23 February 1921) FO 141/586/4 (on file with the British National Archives) 21.

25 Quoted in Baron, The Women’s Awakening above note 4 at 160.

26 Omnia el Shakry, ‘Barren Land and Fecund Bodies: The Emergence of Population Discourse in Interwar Egypt’ (2005) 37(3) International Journal of Middle East Studies 351 at 359.

27 Baron, ‘Perilous Beginnings’ above note 4 at 196.

28 As above at 197, 204.

29 As above at 197.

30 See Jennifer L. Derr, The Lived Nile: Environment, Disease, and Material Colonial Economy in Egypt (Stanford University Press 2019) 99–126; Mohamed Gamal-Eldin, ‘Cesspools, Mosquitos and Fever: An Environmental History of Malaria Prevention in Ismailia and Port Said, 1869–1910’ in Onur Inal and Yavuz Kose, Seeds of Power: Explorations in Ottoman Environmental History (White Horse Press 2019) 184.

31 Roger Owen and Sevket Pamuk, A History of Middle East Economies in the Twentieth Century (IB Tauris 1998) 30–33.

32 Baron, ‘Perilous Beginnings’ above note 4 at 200.

33 Quoted in above at 200.

34 As above.

35 Ministry of Interior above note 24 at 21.

36 Quoted in Beth Baron, ‘Women’s Voluntary Social Welfare Organizations in Egypt’ in Inger Marie Okkenhaug & Ingvild Flaskerud, Gender, Religion, and Change in the Middle East: Two Hundred Years of History (Berg 2005) 85 at 90.

37 Quoted in Baron, ‘Perilous Beginnings’ above note 4 at 198.

38 Cooper above note 23 at 272.

39 The Earl of Cromer above note 17 at 539.

40 Clara Asch Boyle, Boyle of Cairo: A Diplomatist’s Adventures in the Middle East (T. Wilson 1965) 41–42.

41 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ in Cary Nelson & Lawrence Grossberg, Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (University of Illinois Press 1988) 271 at 299.

42 Many have offered criticisms of Qasim Amin and questioned the characterisation of his works as feminist, showing, instead, their links to a colonial modernising project. See Mitchell above note 4 at 111–113; Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (Yale University Press 1993). 144–163. For an exploration of the predicament Qasim Amin found himself in at the time of his writing, see Murad Idris, ‘Colonial Hesitation, Appropriation, and Citation: Qasim Amin, Empire, and Saying “No”’ in Burke A. Hendrix and Deborah Baumgold, Colonial Exchanges: Political Theory and the Agency of the Colonised (Manchester University Press 2017) 180.

43 Qasim Amin, The Liberation of Women and The New Woman: Two Documents in the History of Egyptian Feminism (trans Samiha Sidhom Peterson) (American University in Cairo Press 1995) 115.

44 As above at 116.

45 Salama Musa & L.O. Schuman, The Education of Salama Musa (trans L.O. Schuman) (Brill 1961) 29.

46 Juan Ricardo Cole, ‘Feminism, Class, and Islam in Turn-of-the-Century Egypt’ (1981) 13(4) International Journal of Middle East Studies 387 at 402.

47 Quoted in el Shakry above note 4 at 158.

48 Qasim Amin above note 43 at 162.

49 El Shakry above note 26 at 353.

50 Cooper above note 23 at 294-297.

51 See Avner Giladi, Children of Islam: Concepts of Childhood in Medieval Muslim Society (Springer 1992) 42–68.

52 Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim, Child Custody in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice in Egypt since the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge University Press 2018) 165–191.

53 Baron, The Women’s Awakening above note 4 at 158–159.

54 Beth Baron, ‘Readers and the Women’s Press in Egypt’ (1994) 15(2) Poetics Today 217 at 218–220.

55 Baron, The Women’s Awakening above note 4 at 163.

56 Quoted in above at 161.

57 Huda Shaʿarawi, The Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist, 1879–1924 (trans Margot Badran) (Feminist Press at the City University of New York 1987) 86.

58 Baron, The Women’s Awakening above note 4 at 161.

59 Quoted in Thomas Phillip, ‘Feminism and Nationalist Politics in Egypt’ in Lois Beck and Nikki Keddie, Women in the Muslim World (Harvard University Press 1978) 277 at 283.

60 See Baron above note 36.

61 Anna Davin, ‘Imperialism and Motherhood’ (1978) 5 History Workshop 9 at 14.

62 See Hammad above note 4.

63 As above at 6. See also Judith Tucker, ‘Egyptian Women in the Workforce: An Historical Survey’ (1976) 50 MERIP Reports 3.

64 Taqrir Lajnat al-Dakhiliyya wa-l-Shuʾun al-Sihhiyya, ‘ʿAn Mashruʿ al-Qanun al-Khass bi-Wadʿ Nizam li-Tashghil al-Ahdath min al-Dhukur wa-l-Inath’ in 1 Mahar al-Jalsa al-Khamisa wa-l-ʿIshrin li-Majlis al-Nuwwab (1933) 340 (cites the expansion of factory labour as a reason for the formation of the committee).

65 Mai Taha, ‘Reading “Class” in International Law: The Labor Question in Interwar Egypt’ (2016) 25(5) Social & Legal Studies 567 at 578.

66 As above at 580.

67 Dr Nazmi trained in France at the turn of the century as part of an Egyptian mission, and upon his return to Egypt in 1903, began to research the high rate of infant mortality in the country. He published numerous articles and gave talks on the significance of the cleanliness of infants’ clothing and surroundings and proper hygiene for mothers and infants throughout his career. See Baron, ‘Perilous Beginnings’ above note 4 at 202; Mine Ener, Managing Egypt's Poor and the Politics of Benevolence, 1800–1952 (Princeton University Press 2003) 109–110.

68 Quoted in Ener above at 109.

69 Taqrir Lajnat al-Dakhiliyya wa-l-Shu’un al-Sihhiyya above note 64 at 386.

70 Quoted in Taha above note 65 at 580.

71 Badran above note 4 at 174; See also Joel Beinin & Zachary Lockman, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882–1954 (American University in Cairo Press 1998) 205.

72 Hammad above note 4 at 92.

73 Badran above note 1 at 174.

74 Farhat Ziadeh, Lawyers, the Rule of Law and Liberalism in Modern Egypt (Hoover Institution Press 1968) 116.

75 Badran above note 1 at 127; Cuno above note 4 at 130–131.

76 Baron, The Women’s Awakening above note 4 at 33.

77 Quoted in Beth Baron, The Making and Breaking of Marital Bonds in Egypt in Beth Baron & Nikki R. Keddie, Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender (1991) 275 at 281.

78 Kholoussy, ‘The Nationalization of Marriage’ above note 4 at 320–321.

79 Quoted in above at 321.

80 See, generally, Amin above note 43.

81 Kholoussy, ‘The Nationalization of Marriage’ above note 4 at 321.

82 Badran, above note 1 at 127–128.

83 As above at 128.

84 Cuno, above note 4 at 140.

85 Kholoussy, ‘The Nationalization of Marriage’ above note 4 at 323.

86 The EFU, which would later lobby for this cause, was not yet founded and would not launch its campaign to reform personal status law until the end of the decade. See Kholoussy 'Monitoring and Medicalising Male Sexuality' above note 5 at 682. On the EFU’s later efforts to ‘[demand] women’s rights’ see Arafa above note 2 at 29–32.

87 See Kholoussy as above.

88 Omnia el Shakry, The Great Social Laboratory: Subjects of Knowledge in Colonial and Postcolonial Egypt (Stanford University Press 2007) 170.

89 Ilyas al-Ghadban, ‘Zawaj al-muʿtallin wa-hal min al-imkan man’uhu?’ al-Ahram 21 March 1914.

90 Abd al-Wahid al-Wakil, ‘Hal naʿmad ila tahdid al-nasl?’ 40 al-Hilal December, 1931.

91 Nancy Elizabeth Gallagher, Egypt’s Other Wars: Epidemics and the Politics of Public Health (Syracuse University Press 1990) 89.

92 El Shakry above note 88 at 173.

93 El Shakry notes that while this article was attributed only to ‘S.Q.,’ it’s likely that Sayyid Qutb penned it. He was a regular contributor to the journal, as above at 276.