Restrained motherhood: the Lebanese state in times of changing demographics and moral values.

The socially engrained notion that motherhood is essential to womanhood is strongly portrayed in how states view women's political participation through their reproductive capacities. In Lebanon, the state's political agenda influences laws and policies that restrict or encourage women's procreation, depending on their nationality, sect, marital, and legal status. Since 1943, Lebanon's system of proportionally allocating parliamentary seats to sectarian political parties, based on their population size, has spurred fears of demographic changes across sects.