Aqlah Brice Al Shidyaq: A Woman Peddler from Northern Lebanon

Lebanese from all social and economic classes were attracted by the international migration movement of the nineteenth century. Men and women, married and single, middle class and underprivileged all sought their fortune through migration. Rather surprisingly, given the patriarchal norms of Middle Eastern society, Christian as well as Muslim married women sometimes emigrated without their husbands and families, for, as A. Khater notes, they “had their [own] reasons to leave… Some wanted to escape an unhappy marriage, others sought a better financial status, and a few were after adventure, but most went looking for the family”