Liverpool opinions
The world's oldest crime - A male point of view of women's violation
By John Williams
There is in Liverpool, possibly the European City of Culture elect in the year 2008, a wonderful place known as the Walker Art Gallery. In the foyer is a remarkable sculpture, depicting a soldier's brutal murder of a young woman. Part of its awesome beauty lies in the fact that the sculptor has made clear it that the gloating murderer has just removed his own sword from his victim's breast, rather than his having just found her inert body after somebody else had killed her. No doubt she had been raped prior to her death.
Today, April 16 2000, I read in the Observer that 20000 women had been raped and/or murdered by Serbs in Kossovo before the allied invasion. Those human rights violations alone would have brought the UN attack earlier, if the plight of those women had only been made known to the world. The complicit silence of the male Albanian leaders is an indictment of their medieval attitude to women. Because, that attitude impelled them to cast out and shun the victims.
Long ago, before property and hereditary considerations were ever thought of, women must have had control over their own sexuality, and so mated with whom they pleased. The offspring of such unions would not have been called bastards as bastardy can only occur when legitimacy and lineage have become the norm. If you have no land or chattels, what does it matter who follows you?
"When you ain't got nothin' you got nothin' to lose" - Bob Dylan
The time arrived, though, when men did have land and goods to leave behind. They became jealous for their heirs, and any women who had sex outside of marriage or bondage, thereby leaving open the possibility that an interloper might benefit from the legacy, was a candidate for expulsion or death. Men coerced women to their point of view with the notion of family honour, a phrase liberally sprinkled throughout the Observer article, by Kossovan Albanian men.
In ancient times, then, any woman who had sex with a man outside of her social constraints, whether by volition or rape, was tarred with the same brush. They had violated honour by not dying for their family. So the 'family' often killed her instead. No wonder rape victims have always been reluctant to report violation. Indeed, there are reports that the Anglo Saxons killed any woman who reported her own rape. Over time women learned two things. Firstly, if you get raped and survive, keep quiet, or you might end up dead. Secondly, if you are being assaulted, struggle, even if this means being murdered by the assailant, and then 'honour' will have been preserved.
So now, when I read that a woman has been raped and murdered after struggling preserve her 'honour', and, of course, her innate right to choose her lover, I hear ancient laughter from the patriarchs of old who always demanded death before dishonour. Thus, when a woman is raped there are always two assailants, the aggressor and his ancient ancestor.
This might sound like a call for women to lie back and enjoy it. Not so, I say lie back, and endure it, then go to the police. Rape is always rape, and inertia is not consent. Don't become another victim of an ancient oligarch's greed.
Remember the commandments, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife or goods. Now any law presupposes a problem. Even thousands of years ago somebody had more women and goods than his neighbour, and family honour was the way the haves maintained the status quo. I am, somewhat shamefacedly, a man.
" Honour is a mere scutcheon!" Sir John Falstaff
Update. Monday, 12 June 2000
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, more than 1,000 women were killed in the country last year in the name of "honour", a term indicating that a woman was killed by a male relative who believes she sullied the family's name by fraternising with a male outsider.
Update 17.09.05
You must understand the environment in Pakistan, Mr Musharraf told the paper.
"This has become a money-making concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped."
Timothy Taylor, reader in archeology at Bradford University, reviewed evidence from dozens of archeological finds and scientific studies for his research.
“The widespread lay belief that sex in the past was predominantly heterosexual and reproductive can be challenged,” said Taylor.
He argues that monogamy only became established as hunter-gatherer societies took up agriculture and settled in houses, allowing the social roles of men and women to become more fixed.