Lebanese women are considered to have more rights and freedom compared to women elsewhere in the Arab World. Women in Lebanon are able to dress more liberally and move around with relative ease in certain parts of the country, unlike other countries in the region. Lebanese women enjoy almost equal civil rights as men. However, due to the large number of officially recognized religions in Lebanon , Lebanese family matters are governed by at least 15 personal statute codes.
Muslim women can legally marry Christian or Jewish men; for example a Lebanese Catholic man can marry a Muslim lady on the condition of getting their children baptised, otherwise, the couple may opt for civil marriage performed abroad, which can be registered at any Lebanese Embassy, thus giving it official recognition this is a particularly popular option, with Cyprus usually acting as the destination of choice.
Local and regional NGOs have helped to increase awareness of violence against women in Lebanon. The family in Lebanon, as elsewhere in the Middle East region, assigns different roles to family members on the basis of gender. The superior status of men in society and within the narrow confines of the nuclear family transcends the barriers of sect or ethnicity. Lebanese family structure is patriarchal. The centrality of the father figure stems from the role of the family as an economic unit.
This notion prevails in rural regions of Lebanon where women participate in peasant work. However, it is noticed that the percentage of women working in the labor force has increased.
Since, , Arab societies have allowed women to play a more active role socially and in the work force, basically as a result of the manpower shortage caused by heavy migration of men to Persian Gulf countries. Notwithstanding the persistence of traditional attitudes regarding the role of women, Lebanese women enjoy equal civil rights and attend institutions of higher education in large numbers for example, women constituted 41 percent of the student body at the American University of Beirut in Although women in Lebanon have their own organizations, most exist as subordinate branches of the political parties.
