On 12/5/05, Mike Ballard <swillsqueal at yahoo.com.au> wrote: <some quotes from various texts>
You need to use your original insight about the social context within which any religion develops, both shaping and being shaped by it. In the process, prejudices and horrors can go both ways, but over time becoming entwined such that what is religious and what, cultural, become indistinguishable, even to their practitioners -- except in comparison with other places. Middle Eastern culture, or for that matter, 19th century European culture, is patriarchal to a degree not known in historical Southeast Asia, and that has left its imprint on Southeast Asian Muslim practices.
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Thanks KJ, for that reasoned response and the link to UN data on domestic violence in various countries which you posted earlier. Yes, I think, you're right : the roots to this kind of interpersonal violence can be found in various patriarchal social strutures which in turn impact on the interpretation of religious ideologies and other cultural practices in class ruled societies. It all seems related to a variation on a similar theme...to paraphrase an ancient Arab aphorism : a man's honour can be found between a woman's legs. The amount and intensity of domestic violence seems to be proportional to the strength that this ancient patriarchal ideology has within the minds of people living within any particular culture, past and present.
Best, Mike B)
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