Dainty Emancipator

Among the heroic figures in Indo-China's past, no two are more revered than the fabled Trungs--the beautiful young sisters who raised an army against the Chinese invaders in the middle of the 1st century and, faced with defeat, threw themselves into the Red River rather than surrender.

Women since then have had little chance to appear heroic. For centuries, the women of what is now South Viet Nam could not marry without their parents' consent, no matter what their age, or refuse a husband of their parents' choosing. They had to live with their in-laws, endure without protest their husbands' infidelities, could be turned out on the flimsiest charge of "disobedience" or reduced to the status of a servant to a new mistress in the house. But three years ago, when South Viet Nam became independent, the women found a champion. As sister-in-law and official hostess of Bachelor President Ngo Dinh Diem, dainty Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, 30, a Christian, is not only the first lady of a Buddhist land; she is also the most determined feminist since the late Emmeline Goulden Pankhurst.

The Independent One. The daughter of South Viet Nam's present Ambassador to the U.S., Mme. Ngo married at 15, was soon smack in the middle of her country's resistance first to the French, and then to the Communists. Thrown into prison in 1946, she escaped, joined the partisans. Today, in her bustling office in the palace, which because of its busyness she calls Le Moulin (the mill), she handles a bewildering assortment of visitors and letters asking every sort of favor, from help in curbing an abusive husband to advice on a Latin essay. She manages the presidential palaces and mansions, but in spite of her connections ran for the National Assembly as an Independent. "I am very independent," she explains. "It isn't that I disagree with the majority party, but I might in the future."

Three years ago Mme. Ngo began dipping into ancient files and poring over old laws and codes to draw up what was to become a declaration of independence for women. She wrote drafts in Vietnamese. French and English, sent them to legal experts all over the world for comment. Meanwhile, evoking the magic name of Trung, she rallied the women to the cause, soon began having sleepless nights and nightmares about the situations her bill did not cover, would furiously scribble notes in the night for the next day's revision.

The Fickle Ones. In the Assembly, the opposition was not large, but it was noisy. Male delegates talked interminably about the value of tradition. Just when Mme. Ngo thought she had won them over in committee, they would wriggle free. "Really," complained Mme. Ngo, "men change their minds much more easily than women." But gradually, in an Assembly tightly controlled by her brother-in-law, the opposition melted, and last week the Family Bill became the law of the land.

For an Asian nation it was a surprising law, and in some respects reflected the alien Western influence of Roman Catholic teaching (she and Diem are Catholics, while about 75% of the people are Buddhist). From now on, any Vietnamese wife will be free to practice a profession, even it her husband says no. She will not have to marry against her will or live with her in-laws. Her husband will no longer be able to be unfaithful with impunity, nor will he be allowed to take his bastard children into the house as if they were legitimate, or repudiate his wife at whim. A married man, seen too often in the company of an unmarried woman, is apt to find himself having to explain his conduct to the authorities. In the first version of the bill, divorce was outlawed entirely. But on this point, Mme. Ngo did not quite get her way: the Assembly passed an amendment empowering the President to grant divorces in cases where marriage had clearly become intolerable.

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