|
Sensitivity to human rights towards women is changing attitudes
2006-05-12 11:39:52
By Betty Okere
Jacob Zuma is out and acquitted that he is free as a molecule or a fish in water.
Whatever the charge and the nature of the case, men will always own women. There are two sides of the coin here for a lady.
She either accepts this and side with men or refute it and at the end of the day, even fellow women will isolate her.
It may sound strange- and very politically incorrect- but have you noticed that men act as if they own their wives, just like land or a car?
Ownership of buildings, animals, investments and the like, these we’re used to. Even , in the past, slaves, servants and children. But in these enlightened days, it seems inherently wrong that men should own their wives.
And anyway, why should a man see his partner this way?
Well, bluntly, because it’s difficult for him to be sure that his wife’s children are also his! Helping her to rear them is a serious commitment-and a total disaster if he ’s unknowingly raising some other man’s children.
And there’s always some man looking for an opportunity to have an affair with another man’s wife.
What’s more, women are not always monogamously inclined either. They gain from successful affairs.
Superior genes maybe, perhaps material benefits, greater status, and increased genetic diversity among her children.
Women have always behaved this way: the best hunters in foraging societies have always had more affairs and children than the poorer ones, partly because their greater skills and status made them more attractive.
So in all cultures, men guard their women against the possibility of another man trying to have an affair with her.
They lay claim to particular women, advertise their intention of defending her from rivals- and do.
They also ask others to recognize their rights to her and cooperate to enforce them.
These almost universal male behaviours have resulted in very similar traditions and ideas almost everywhere: the value of female chastity; the concept of adultery; the ’protection’ of women from sexual contact; female infidelity as an accepted provocation to male violence.
Marriage in particular is recognized by almost every society.
A contract which bestows rights to the bride upon the groom.
It usually results in her joining the husband’s kinship group and in most cultures, has all the characteristics of a purchase and change of ownership.
Substantial payments of money or goods have to be made to her family in recognition of her value.
Even today in the west, a man ’gives’ his daughter in marriage. Despite all the joy and romance of a wedding, at rock bottom it’s a commercial arrangement largely between men, after which a woman generally adopts the husband’s family name, wears some sorts of status maker such as a wedding ring and uses different modes of address (Mrs/Miss), to mark her unavailability to other men.
You might argue that this isn’t ownership, but a process that creates a unique and equal partnership between a man and a woman designed to provide the best possible environment for them to bring up their children.
Yes, at its best, marriage can be exactly that. But equality is a demanding ideal, rarely achieved.
More often, successful men have increased their reproductive potential by acquiring more wives- at the expense of other men.
These women were far from equal.
They were often confined, guarded by eunuchs, records maintained of their menstrual cycles, and passed on to underlings when they got too old.
It’s been argued that men are polygamous because wives are an economic asset.
Wives are required because of the wealth they create. But harems suggest that it’s much more likely that the women were valued as goods in themselves-demonstrating their owner’s power and status and for their productive capacity.
Did you know that in England, until as recently as the 19th century, wives could be sold in public markets?
The husband would pay the market fee just as if he had a cow or a sheep to sell, lead his wife up to the auction block by a halter and call for bids. Actually, it was not quite as bad as it seems.
Although it sounds like they were trading in women like farm animals, wife sales were really customary divorce proceedings.
The woman was usually sold to a man who was already her lover.
Laws concerning adultery were also rarely gender neutral- and that remains true in many cultures today.
All defined adultery in terms of the marital status of the woman- rarely the man.
Nearly everywhere, adultery by the wife was grounds for divorce, but much more rarely by the husband.
Adultery was usually regarded as a property matter, entitling the victim- always the husband- to damages, violent revenge, or divorce and the return of her purchase price.
Adultery was often a crime as well. In 17th century England, it was a capital offence. During the reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) , ’abducting an heiress’ was also a capital crime: a chaste sister or daughter could become a marketable wife.
The law defining the legal entitlements of fathers and husbands over women within the Western legal traditions was similar to those in patriarchal societies all over the world.
’Crimes of passion’ also give a special status to a man’s sexual jealousy.
Anglo- American common law in 1800 specifically described a murder committed immediately after the discovery of a wife’s adultery as the act of a ’reasonable man’ and deserving of a lower sentence.
Throughout the English-speaking world, the common law recognized sexual contact with a man’s wife as such a serious provocation, that murder was reduced to manslaughter.
Other legal traditions- continental European, oriental, Native American, African, Melanesian all treated the situation similarly.
Indeed, it was not regarded as a crime at all in many American states until the 1970s, and to this day juries often acquit the defendant.
Everywhere, some sort of diminished criminal responsibility is recognized, and some cultures consider the violence as a praiseworthy redemption of honour. Reactions to the rape of a wife are also very revealing.
Men often reject them as ’damaged goods’, sometimes accusing the victims of having provoked or enjoyed the incident.
Even where it is perfectly clear that this is far from the case, men still seem to perceive the woman as diminished in value.
I’ll admit, instantly, that there are very many men in the world today who do not in any way think of their wives as something that they own –we’ve come a long way from Moulay ’The Bloodthirsty’ Ismail, who had around 1,000 children. Legislation around the world is changing.
Sensitivity to human rights, especially towards women, is changing attitudes.
But the biological drivers that created them in the first place have not changed.
And it’s not easy to sweep the traditions of centuries away. Tell me.
Have you ever referred to a boyfriend as ’possessive’? Think about it.
|
