Gender has provided a key analytical tool to understand questions of nation and class in the history of the modern Middle East. The debate on modernization initiated by the Tanzimat reforms (1839-1876) ultimately begged the question of women's place in Ottoman society. As the family came to be conceived of as "the nation's" basic unit, the role of the wife and mother was scrutinized. Women were conceived as carriers of civilization, whose significance was their ability to educate and discipline the future leaders and individuals of the nation. Hence, women's increased presence came to symbolize reforms associated with modernization and westernization. While reforms were first felt in the imperial center, it was not until the early twentieth century that Syrian women began to feel the effects of these changes through the expansion of state schools and those run by charitable foundations. Looking at the writings of the nahda, or literary renaissance, initiated by bourgeois Syrian intellectuals in the nineteenth century shows how the issues of gender and nation were linked in discourses of the modern period. Women activists came to frame their responsibilities in the language of national progress. This paper looks at Mary 'Ajami's early twentieth century Damascene women's magazine, al-'Arus (The Bride). Mary 'Ajami, one of Syria's leading women writers and activists, gathered support and readership for this monthly from within Syria and from emigrants abroad. This paper situates the periodical within a broader background surrounding gender, nationalism, and class in early twentieth century Syria. Published in 1910 till 1926, the publication spanned Ottoman, Arab and French rule. Since the periodical temporarily halted publication during the First World War, this paper looks at the issues 1914, 1919, 1920 and 1921. My analysis of the periodical reveals a shift in rhetoric and content which accompanied the changing political landscape. This paper will argue that as the effects of the state became more defined, individuals were better able to conceive of their place within the public sphere. The periodical's issues just before the war reveal oft repeated themes concerning self-improvement and sociability; when bringing up issues of wataniyah, the magazine's rhetoric was often metaphorical. After the war, especially during the brief reign of Amir Faysal in 1920, the content and language of the magazine is much more concrete with regards to women's concerns and imagined role within state and society.