Within the Pakistani and Afghani cultures, when a crime is committed or suspected, the family of the perpetrators must suffer some dishonor in retaliation. Often this retaliation occurs in the form of abuse or the killing of someone within their family, usually a woman. This is referred to as an honour crime or an honour killing. In Western cultures this is deemed unacceptable and against the values of the human race. Although we, as individuals living in Western society find this practice morally abhorrent, we have no reasonable basis on which to condemn it. We can never really say whether or not a cultural practice is acceptable unless we are able to rid ourselves of our preconceptions and biases. Ridding ourselves of the preconceptions, however, is impossible. This is because; the values one has are dependent on the environment we are exposed to within our culture, the norms of behavior we accept come from the institutions also formed within a particular culture and the cultural bias that taints our opinions of other cultures and the practices.
Values are defined as the ideas that are important in life. Within a culture the accepted cultural values vary over time. In many Western societies, human life has become valued over everything else. However, in some Middle-eastern cultures a family’s honour is considered more important than one person’s life, thus leading to the committing of honour crimes. One woman, Mukhtar Mai, wrote about her experience with honour crimes in the book ‘In the Name of Honour’2. Her younger brother was accused of raping a woman from another family and so in retaliation, her father offered her up to the opposing family. She was raped by four men and then thrown out into the night. In this way, her enti...
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...ay in what happens and therefore is punished whereas the man is simply accepted and moves on. Because of the cultural bias one forms, it is impossible to form an unbiased view of another culture.
Honour crimes, while viewed as acceptable by the cultures and societies that commit them are viewed as unacceptable by many people within other cultures. One cannot, however, state that one culture is unacceptable due to the preconceptions given to them through the values, norms, artefacts and institutions of another that create a cultural bias. One cannot state from within that a culture is right any more than one outside the culture can say it is wrong as there is no rational way to prove one’s statement upon the subject of any supposedly unacceptable practices.
Works Cited
1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_bias
2. Mukhtar Mai, Simon & Schuster, 2007 - 192 pages
In The Saga of the Volsungs, a paradoxical notion of the value of life emerges from almost every action that the characters perform. One’s corporeal death is almost of no concern in the sometimes harsh and cruel society of the saga. The importance of honor over almost anything else can explain many of the seemingly contradictory and nonsensical actions of characters in the saga. This obsession with honor constitutes the basis for an honor society—a culture where pain, death, and other earthly concerns fall short in significance to one’s good name and honor. Many of the actions inspired by this fixation with honor seem foolish, but considered within the context of how the culture in the saga views reputations and honor make perfect sense.
Honor killings are acts of retribution, frequently causing death. These acts are often committed by the male family members against female family members. Victims of honour killings are believed to have brought dishonor or shame upon the family. In 2007, a study by Dr. Amin Muhammad and his colleague, Dr. Sujay Patel of Memorial University, Canada, researched how the tradition of honor killings was brought to Canada The report highlighted that ‘’When people come and settle in Canada they can bring their traditions and forcefully follow them. In some cultures, people feel some boundaries are never to be crossed, and if someone would violate those practices or go against it, then killing is justified to them’’ (Leaders-Post, 2007). The Shafia family homicide is a perfect example of culture crisis leading to crime. The tragic murders really emphasize all the key aspects of how two cultures
I agree with Edgerton’s argument that cultures that practice exploitation should be judged morally inferior to those that enhance people’s lives. Islamic and African cultures, Kazio cultures, and Hamer tribe do not enhance women’s lives. Using my own cultural lens, I believe that women deserve to choose what they want to do with their bodies and without being shunned by their own cultures, I believe that women should not feel so inferior to men simply because they were born that way, and I do not believe that there should be any rituals or practices performed that damage or exploit the women in any way. Because these cultures do not enhance women’s live, they should be deemed inferior.
Overall, Islam and Gender is a valuable addition to the field of ethnography by examining the everyday struggles, experience, and involvement of women within the Islamic law. Hosseini targets a Western audience and hopes to leave them with a better understanding of the Islamic judiciary system and Iranian feminism. She successfully provides her readers with an unprejudiced account of the shari’ah and family law, and even includes the ideologies of those opposing her personal beliefs. Hosseini specifically requests Muslim women to take a stand develop their own local, Islamic feminist movement and openly advocates new discourse within Islamic jurisprudence.
Honor Diaries, produced 2014, focused on the treatment of women in Muslim majority countries, specially the issue of honor killings. The film was based on the narratives of nine women, activists for women’s rights in Muslim committees in various parts of the world. These women experienced or had members of the family that experience ill treatment in Muslim communities. The film focuses on the importance of honor, in which the Islamic principles are grounded upon. The way the women dress, act, and who she marries must bring honor to not only the their families but to their communities as well. Depending upon the stringent values of family and the country, a woman would be killed by her family or the community if she acts out of her place. Some of these attacks including pouring acid, cutting the nose and ears of women, stoning them to death, etc. Honor killings are more of a cultural practice than it is religious practice since it is not mentioned in the Quran directly. However, we do see texts within the Quran
South Asian women engage in patriarchal values and normative structure established more than two thousands years ago, continue to be oppressed by a dominant group of men. These women suffer further oppression through the strict adherence to cultural garb. Still today, media and educational system portray South Asian women as self-sacrificing, faithful to the family, and submissive to men.
Honour went hand in hand with how reputable a family was considered to be within the community. There were two types of honour; “honor” which symbolized the honour brought to an individual by their family or their birth right, and “honra” which represented ones virtue in the sense of morality and piety or their saintliness. Honour killings would occasionally be performed (most often by men) on women who took lovers behind their husband’s backs. To restore his honour, the husband would be legally allowed to kill both his wife and her lover. Women would also resort to violent tendencies if anyone threatened their families’ honour and reputation. High class woman were known to protect both their own honour and the households by filing lawsuits and beating other women they saw as treats, making women more likely than men to act out in defence. In the “Scandal at the Church” case, Mr. de Alfaro indirectly refers to his wife’s and his family’s honour multiple times as his wife was attacked in the daylight crowds after mass. With so many people present to witness his wife’s beating and Mrs. Bravo’s insulting words, Mr. de Alfaro’s family honour was tarnished as a direct result from the scandal. Even as a man of a lower class, honour is still incredibly important as other families within the community base their perceptions on how honourable and thus reputable a family is. Mrs.
In the pre-Islamic Arabian society a family’s honor depended on the honor of its females which led to the belief that the group was vulnerable through the girls and women. Females were seen as a burden and many were the victims of infanticide because they were in need of protection from capture and were seen as a drain on the family’s meager resources. The most common form of ridding the family of an unwanted girl was to “bury her in the dust” which was done while the child was still alive. Once established, Islam condemned this practice and required that “…those who had killed their daughters in the time of the j¬¬¬ahiliyyah make expiation for their heinous act.” The Prophet said, “Whosoever has a daughter and does not bury her alive, does not insult her, and does not favor his son over her, [God] will enter him into paradise.” The words of Muhammad sharply contrast with the commonly accepted portrayal of women’s importance in Islamic society. The search for the truth behind the stereotypes and misinterpreted ideas is an eye-opening voyage into the lives of Muslim women.
Women for Women International is an operation that aides women survivors of war, civil conflict, and injustices, and helps them to become self sufficient and educate them on rights awareness. They promote stability, peace, and self sufficiency through matching programs, donations and micro credit loans (WomenforWomen). I chose to write about this organization because I had just finished the book “Honour Lost” by Norma Khouri. This is a love story in modern day Jordan between a Muslim woman and a Christian man; and though all they did was spend time together talking, the woman was killed by her father for disgracing her family. Her murder was classified as an honour killing and her father faced minimal to no punishment. Women for Women International addresses the problem of honour killings and tries to educate people of the tragic issue through their website. Under the “Women in the World Today” link on the top of their homepage there is a column of issues, and you click on the issue of your interest.
Rosaldo observed the Ilongot ritual of headhunting in northern Luzon, in the Philippines. When asked the question of why, and older Ilogot man stated, “to carry out his anger.” The act of decapitating the victim’s head and disposing of it allows the men of this society to vent, and cast off the anger. However, Rosaldo did not understand this ritual for quite some time during his fieldwork. He even stated, “Either you understand it, or you don’t.” If one (like Rosaldo initially had) were to look at this as a comparison between cultural and moral norms in the United States and the Ilogot, there are vast differences which can be perceived differently and incorrectly. However, to truly understand the ritual of headhunting, one must consider the subject’s position within a field of social relations. It wasn’t until 14 years after first recording the Ilogot ritual that Rosaldo began to grasp its, “overwhelming force.” It is true that life experiences both inhibit and enable particular kinds of insight. For example, Rosaldo did not place judgment on the Ilogot ritual of headhunting, however, he did not grasp the force of the Ilogot’s grief, rage, and headhunting until his wife, Michelle’s death in 1981. Moreover, Rosado’s article showed both excellent and poor signs of cultural relativism. There was never any judgment on the ritual or the people partaking in it. The
As a conclusion, crimes of honor are social in the full sense of the word. They are very strong cultural issues that still exist even though the image on the outside of a certain country is not portrayed as such. For a woman to be killed because she refused a marriage, or because she was seen with another man and hence has brought disgrace to her family is blasphemy. It is sad to think that even with laws protecting these women are still around; these laws are not regarded as something credible.
Crimes are not ‘given’ or ‘natural’ categories to which societies simply respond. The composition of such categories change from various places and times, and is the output of social norms and conventions. Also, crime is not the prohibitions made for the purpose of rational social defence. Instead, Durkheim argues that crimes are those acts which seriously violate a society’s conscience collective. They are essentially violations of the fundamental moral code which society holds sacred, and they provoke punishment for this reason. It is because of these criminal acts which violate the sacred norms of the conscience collective, that they produce a punitive reaction. (Ibid)
This article doesn’t tackle a issue which is new but it has breakthrough information which make people think and revise this topic. This event between families happened in 2008, actually it’s not old because blood feuds can continue for decades with the new generations from the families. "People think their and their next generation's honor and power will be eroded in society if they do not continue the blood feud and this incident is an example of it,"(“Families of blood feud victims cry out”, 1) said Nilu...
An Honor Killing is when a female brings shame to her family through their sexual relations and other signs of disobedience. A family 's reputation is based solely on a woman’s abstinence, loyalty, and obedience. If there is an suggestion that any of those values have been compromised, then that woman’s family will be shunned from their community. The only way to get back into the community is by killing the primary cause: the woman (Lesnie). Originating back to Ancient Roman times, honor killings
Honour killing, in some societies, means the executing of a relative, particularly a young lady or a lady, who is seen to have brought shame to the family. Honour Killing, is the murder of a part of a family or social gathering by different parts, because of the culprits' conviction, that the victimized person has brought disgrace or shame upon the family or group, typically for reasons like declining to enter a masterminded marriage, having intercourse outside marriage, turning into the casualty of assault, dressing in ways which are considered improper, or participating in gay person relations. Honour killings are particularly focused against ladies and gay people.