Moufida Bourguiba Moufida Bourguiba Moufida Bourguiba (مفيدة بورقيبة), (born Mathilde Lorrain) (24 January 1890 in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés France – 15 November 1976 in Monastir). She was the first wife of the President of Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba, and the First Lady of Tunisia from 1957 to 1961. She died on 15 November 1976 at the age of 86. Mathilde Lorrain was born in France in 1890 in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Val-de-Marne. She married a French officer, Colonel le Fras who was killed at the very end of the First World War on 11 November 1918. She met Habib Bourguiba in 1925 whilst he was studying law
Habib Bourguiba was a Women's rights defender, Bourguiba based this law on his ideas, emancipating women, despite the then-conservative public opinion. Bourguiba understood the opposition he would face but decided to act, before even building the Republic. Nevertheless, he was supported by some religious personalities, such as Mohamed Fadhel Ben Achour, who defended Bourguiba's reform, stating that the CPS are possible interpretations of Islam. However, others did not share these views and said that the CPS was violating Islamic norms. The Personal Status Code would, then, constitute the fundamental legacy of Habib Bourguiba, to the point of becoming a sort of consensus