Part 2
Analysis and Reflection
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Religions
Not one
of His best efforts; world religions and womens oppression
Hilda Saeed
Hilda
Saeed of Pakistan presented a paper, here edited and
abridged, on "How religion contributes to the oppression of women",
at the 1985 WSCF Asia-Pacific regional women's meeting in Singapore.
I'd
like to begin with these words from Elaine Morgan's book, The descent of woman:
According to the book
of Genesis, God first created man. Woman was not only an afterthought, but an
amenity. For close on 2000 years, this holy scripture was believed to justify
her subordination and explain her inferiority, for even as a copy she was not a
very good copy. There were differences. She was not one of His best efforts.
This
male thinking has been furthered by male-defined research and "proof. Men
have had a marvellous time "proving" female
inferiority via psychology, science, the theories of evolution, and religion.
Even
the great philosopher Aristotle was of the opinion that "the female is a
female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities: we should regard the female as
afflicted with a natural defectiveness". St Thomas Aquinas, well known
though he was for his saintliness, pronounced woman to be an "imperfect
man" and an "incidental being". Faced with historical attitudes
like these, it is no wonder that women were brainwashed into regarding
themselves as inferior. The irony, however, is that women themselves have perpetuated these myths through the
centuries.
Initially,
the reproductive function of women proved to be a severely limiting factor in
their progress, both in the west and in the east. Religion was easily
interpreted in a patriarchal fashion, thereby placing the seal of divine
approval on what was "right" or not right for women.
I shall
attempt to summarise the attitudes of several
religions towards women, and then discuss the present situation in Pakistan.
To an
avowed feminist, a lot of the material contained in the holy books is
confusing. There are exhortations to kindness and affection, but rights given
with one hand are snatched away with the other. Through all of the world's
major religions faiths as diverse as Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism,
Christianity and Islam runs the common theme of women's
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"uncleanness"
(the label for a simple biological function beyond any woman's control: the
physiological promise of the ability to bear life). Examples of this exist in
the Hindu Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita, in
the Jewish Torah, in the Bible
and in the Koran. In each of
them, a woman is regarded as unclean on certain days of the month, and
following the birth of a child. She is considered a temptress by nature; if she
swerves or departs from the path set out for her, she may be chastised.
With so
much pressure on them, most women accepted their inferior status. The process
towards the "downtroddenness' of women had
begun; the words of each religion underwent translation and misinterpretation,
resulting in new dogmas for womanhood. Men wrote the codes; mystical rituals
assumed great importance. Wife
became wives property
symbols. Even in the old testament tenth commandment "thou shall not
covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor
his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's" the woman is classified with servants
and cattle, possession. Women
were offered for sale and exchange, were captured as the prize of battle
winners, were sacrificed in rituals. Dignity was replaced with indignity. There
occurred, finally, a denial of the personhood and humanity of woman.
Perhaps,
if woman's production in areas other than child rearing and nurturing had been recognised, her story might have been different. But
biology limited her: she was never able to choose her lot, choose to use her
brain as a man could, without any shackles. Woman's place in society has always
been one which men assign to her; she has never lived by her own rules. She has
rarely been economically independent, except in matriarchal societies.
The
monotheistic religions, in enunciating principles relating to the role and
position of women, drew inspiration from patriarchal models of social organisation prevalent at that time. That, perhaps,
explains an ambivalent attitude towards woman. At one moment, she is pure,
unsullied and virtuous: the virgin Mary (Bible), "heaven lies at the feet
of the mother" (Koran),
the Brahmina
(Hinduism). At the next, she is Eve, who tempts Adam and has him removed from
the garden of Eden; she is the unclean one. Sexuality and conception belong to
fallen women: the fact that the mother conceives in exactly the same way is
conveniently overlooked.
Through
this ambivalent, irrational argument, and by the force of misinterpreted
religion, man succeeded in converting woman to both unpaid servant and loving
companion. The "loving companion" bit came later. In earlier days, a
father had absolute authority over, and the right to do as he wished with, his
wives and daughters. The old testament recounts how Abraham banished his slave
Hagar the Egyptian and her son to the desert. Polygamy was widely practised: David is known to have married many women; he
also had a retinue of slaves and concubines. Solomon had 700 wives and 300
concubines. Even when polygamy was finally supplanted by monogamy as the norm
for marriage, the dignity of woman was hedged with a thousand and one clauses.
The
situation within a family is such that love for the children, if not for the
husband is bound to creep in. Woman became, perforce or by
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choice, loving
companion, with the blessings of society and religion. Laws and customs of each
country reinforced this situation. The descent of woman was complete.
Traditional
customs and religion are often so closely interwoven that it is difficult to
judge where one leaves off and the other begins. In Hinduism, the system of
classifying people into social castes according to work became, in religious
terms, the basis for degrees of "cleanness" or
"uncleanness". A woman, even of the cleanest and purest brahmin
class, had her days of untouchability; among the harijans or untouchables, her position became lowest of the low.
India's legal system enshrines complete equality for women; the country's
former prime minister was a woman. But the forces of religion and culture
govern the lifestyle of the average Indian. In India, widows were looked down
upon; even their shadow was considered inauspicious. Small
wonder that suttee (death by
voluntary burning on the husband's funeral pyre) was regarded as a preferable
alternative to living a less-than-half-life even though the laws in the Mahabharata expressly forbade suttee. On the Indian
subcontinent, many phrases and sayings in common usage reflect women's inferior
status: she is "a burden"; "a daughter's place is really in her
husband's home". Women's dependence on fathers and husbands led to the
development of a dowry system.
Anthropological
studies reveal that the most ancient deities were female. The elevation of
women to the heights of goddesses shows that they were deeply honoured. In ancient cultures, name and inheritance were
often matrilineal; it was the eldest daughter who inherited. The woman was
economically important, occupied leadership roles, and headed religious rituals
and ceremonies. How then did we get into this present mess?
The
pattern probably began at the time of changeover from nomadic to settled
lifestyles, when woman's reproductive role assumed paramount importance. From
there it was but a short step to the indentification
of land, women and children as men's private property. Men thereby deprived
women of their prerogative to name children after themselves. Private property
destroyed the foundations of matriarchal society, and relegated women to lives
of subservience. Under these oppressive conditions, religion was bound to
develop sexist overtones. Thus even "enlightened" people were unable
to conceive of equality of men and women. Examples of sexism in Judaism,
Christianity and Islam abound. While the Jewish Talmud was unavailable to me, these quotations from the
Christian old testament are suitable illustrations of both Judaism and the
roots of Christianity.
In
Genesis 3:16, God says to the woman, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow
in thy conception; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth
children and thy desire shalt be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee"
(emphasis mine). Exodus 21:7 reads: "And if a man sell his daughter to be
a maidservant she shall not go out as manservants
do". And Leviticus 12:1-7:
And the Lord said
unto Moses "Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, 'If a woman have
conceived seed and born a man child then she shall be unclean seven days... but
if she bear a maid child, she shall be unclean two weeks... and when the days
of her purifying are fulfilled, she shall bring a burnt offering' ".
In the new testament, it is Paul who remains the most chauvinistic. For
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example, Ephesians
5:22: "Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, as unto the
Lord". And verses 25 and 26:
Husbands, love your
wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word . . . that
it should be holy and without blemish.
is the
implication here that the man's action purifies the woman? Paul's first letter
to Timothy 2:11 reads:
Let the woman learn
in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach nor usurp authority
over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And
Adam was not deceived, but woman being deceived was in transgression.
Is this last verse
male wishful thinking? Adam ate the fruit of his own free will no one forced him
to so how could he be not deceived?
The Koran
too, has similar passages; male superiority is upheld in many of its chapters.
In the section on Sura al-Nisa
(women), these words trouble most westerners:
And if ye fear ye
shall not act with equity towards orphans of female sex, take in marriage of
such other women as please you two or three or four, and not more. But if ye
fear that ye cannot act equitably towards so many, marry one only, or the
slaves which ye have acquired.
Further,
A male shall have
as much as the share of two females; but if they be females only, and above two
in number, they shall have two-thirds part of what the deceased shall leave;
and if there be one, she shall have half. [The remainder, under Sunni law, is for the male relatives.]
. . . Men shall have pre-eminence above women, because of those advantages
wherein God has caused the one of them to excel the other, and for that which
they expend of their substance in maintaining their wives . . . But those
[wives], whose perverseness ye shall be apprehensive of, rebuke; and remove
them into separate apartments, and chastise them. But if they shall be obedient
unto you, seek not an occasion of quarrel against them.
Al-Beidawi comments:
"By this passage, Mohammedans are in plain terms allowed to beat
their wives, in cases of stubborn disobedience; but not in a violent or
dangerous manner".
According
to many scholars, biblical and koranic statements
like these should be viewed in the context to which they pertained. Shaykh Mustafa Al-Ghaylayni
states in Islam: the essence of civilisation:
In pre-lslamic Arabia, a woman was treated like an animal in a
man's possession. Her position and status were favoured
over her. Her condition was such extreme hardship that no other people would
surpass the Arabs in treating her with such humiliation and persecution.
Moreover, the Arabs considered it an ill omen to have newborn daughters, so
they resented them. The custom of killing a newborn girl was widespread. They
would take her life by burying her alive. Girls were also sold for merchandise
and exchanged for animals ... their birth was a permanent disgrace.
He also quotes the prophet Mohammed's sayings: "One good woman is better
than a thousand improper men"; "women are more trustworthy and
deserve to be better rewarded for their good deeds". And his last words:
Prayer...
prayer... If any slaves are in your possession, do not burden them with what
they are unable to do. Allah Allah... of women. They are in your hands. You
took them with God's trust.
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The veil is a powerful symbol of the place of women under fundamental
Islam. Its significance is summed up in the Pakistani saying, chaadar and caar divari (within your veil, within the four walls of your
house).
Photo: UNESCO.
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What
has happened throughout the Arab and Muslim world is that the passages quoted
above have taken precedence over all else. In this way, the progressive
tradition within Islam has been limited. Christianity has also suffered under
orthodoxy and rigidity, but has, to some extent, overcome it due to different
economic structures and higher rates of literacy. The Koran however, is far more significant to Muslims than the Bible
is to Christians. Not only does it provide the canons of their faith; it is also
the textbook of their ritual and the principle behind their civil law.
How
have these teachings influenced present-day life? The agony for women the world over seems almost
unending. (This is what prompted the United Nations to observe 1975-85 as the
decade of women. If we have succeeded in highlighting some of women's problems,
at least something has been achieved.) Throughout Muslim Africa and Arabia,
religions and moral standards are geared to control women: she is the one to be
crushed if morality is to be kept alive. A legitimate daughter is less
important, less privileged, than a son. This attitude touches every feature of
her life: throughout the east it is common to find that girls and women are
more malnourished, more anaemic and less literate
than men. The fear that a daughter may become a source of dishonour
to her family is ever-present. Rules are such that a woman may not seek
education outside her own country, drive a car, or give court evidence in the
same way as a man. She must remain veiled in public, and generally live an
unfulfilled life. Laws of inheritance, divorce and custody do not operate in
her favour. Adultery is punishable by stoning to
death.
In
Sudan, the horrible practice of female circumcision, which dates back to the
pre-Islamic era, still continues in spite of the fact that many books quote
the prophet Mohammed as being opposed to it. In some regions, only the clitoris
is removed; in others, clitoris, labia majora and minora are all cut off, and the vaginal opening sewn up
to be re-opened slightly at marriage, and re-sewn at widowhood. All these are
deliberate measures of subjugating women; they are all sanctioned by the ulama
(religious leaders).
In Iran
in 1906, "women were thought to have neither souls nor rights; it was
thought that a doctrine granting them the vote would mean the downfall of
Islam".1 Although other nations are making efforts to escape
this kind of fallacious thinking, many scholars believe that, in Pakistan, the
overall progressive inspiration of the Koran
has been reduced to reactionary dogma, and exacerbated by feudalism and
negative cultural attitudes towards women.
Islamic family laws
Pakistan
Pakistan
is a country burdened by overpopulation, a lack of family planning, poverty, generally low nutrition and illiteracy ... all
contribute to women's oppression. Specific laws which compound women's
subservience govern the family:
Marriage under Islam is
supposed to mean the joining in matrimony of male and female through consent. Registration
of marriages takes place under the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance of 1961. Registration is
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compulsory; a
column is provided in the form for stipulation of terms and conditions of the
marriage contract. Legal age is 16 years for girls, 18 for boys.
Pre-pubescent marriage is a punishable offence.
Divorce: here the chauvinism creeps in. The husband's unilateral utterance,
three times, of standard words talaq2
signifies the end of a marriage. No reasons are required to be given only service
of notice to the wife under the ordinance, after 90 days of which the divorce
becomes final. On the other hand, certain conditions such as a husband's
insanity, impotence or cruelty must be satisfied before a wife can sue for
dissolution of marriage. A woman may also sue for khula
deferment of the marriage
tie.
Guardianship
and custody: The father is the
"natural" guardian of the person and property of a child from
wedlock. Under Hanafi Suni law,
a mother can get custody of a daughter until she reaches puberty; custody of a
son runs up to the age of seven years. Under Shia law, the age limit for a
daughter is seven years, and just two years for a son. The mother loses these
rights if she is "immoral" or neglects the child. These age limits
are based on neither Koran nor Hadith,3 but have been fixed by Muslim jurists. In
Pakistan, there is case law to the effect that a woman's custody of a minor
child above these ages is possible if it will be in the interests of the
child's welfare.
"Illicit
relations": The controversial Zina Ordinance has made fornication and
adultery punishable offences. The koranic injunction
is that four witnesses should have observed the act; however, convictions are
often by way of tazir4,
without the requisite witnesses. Sadly, it is the women who suffer most. A
woman might become pregnant if she is a victim of circumstances or of rape, and
can be convicted by the evidence of her pregnancy, whereas a man is often given
the benefit of any doubt and goes free. This law needs a complete overhaul,
especially as it puts zina on an equal footing
with zina bil
jabr5.
Inheritance: a wife or, if the marriage is polygamous, the wives inherit one-eighth
of the husband's property. Legitimate children inherit as specified by Islamic
jurisprudence. Illegitimate children supposedly inherit only from the mother;
they are, however, usually abandoned. Adoption: There are several verses in the Koran urging the care of orphans. But a child does not acquire
the right of inheritance from his or her Muslim foster parents.
Contraception is urgently
needed. Many consider the low priority accorded to it to be the root cause of
all Pakistan's problems. Abortion, even within 120 days, is not legal under
Islamic law. In practice, religious orthodoxy has been responsible for
unlimited childbirth and the poverty associated with it.
Koranic injunctions have given rise to laws of qisas and diyat
(evidence and compensation) under which a woman's evidence is worth only half
the weight of a man's, and compensation due to her upon injury is only half
that paid to a man. There are still many people who insist that education for
women contravenes Islamic tenets. The phrase "chaadar
and chaar divari" ("within your veil, within the
four walls of your house"), now in common parlance, is an appropriate
indication of the place of women in Pakistan.
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Women
are forbidden to watch spectator sports. If a woman is even suspected of
adultery, her nose may be chopped off: worse still was a case where the woman's
eyes were gouged out and an ear cut off. Last year, women were forced to march
naked in the Nawabpur marketplace not for any crime
of their own, but because of a quarrel involving their male relatives. Last
month a Christian couple was to be flogged in public for adultery, although
such cases are supposedly governed by Christian, not Muslim, law.
The
fight is an arduous one. A petition against the unjust evidence laws has now
reached the Supreme Court; women's groups are running programmes in adult literacy,
pre- and post-natal care and nutrition. Women began a campaign against the
restrictions on women playing sport, and have been successful: our women will
participate in the next Asiad. Hockey has become
popular again, and one Pakistani woman is even playing in the Wimbledon tennis
championships. We got a stay placed on the order for public flogging of the two
Christians, and have started fighting for the couple in court.
I am no
scholar of comparative religion, so please forgive any errors in my interpretations. I only know
that I have grown up with, and still have, too many unanswered questions about why women are oppressed. The
western woman has reached a stage where the fight for equality can be hers
alone; in the third world, women's struggle is very much bound up with the
common struggle for democracy, social justice or a better life. As an educated,
Christian woman, I am able to have faith in spite of all the injustices I have
discussed. But we must probe the past in order to realise
a new status quo. I cannot
believe that a just God would countenance such human inequality through any
religion.
Notes
1. Quoted in The Times, London, August 22, 1911.
2. Talaq has a
meaning akin to "I loose you".
3. Hadith refers
to the entire sacred tradition of Islam, not just that recorded in the Koran.
4. Tazir
appears to refer to a summary court process, under which an accused may be
convicted on his or her own confession (this is not withdrawable),
or on the statement of two witnesses, one of whom may even be a woman!
According to some, the judge's knowledge of a transgression may even be
sufficient.
5. The exact significance of this distinction
eludes the editor. Zina means simply
"fornication"; zina bil jabr probably refers to
rape, although it may mean "adultery". My thanks to Prue Walker, for researching the Islamic terms in this
article.
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References
The Bible authorised King James version.
The Koran George Sale translation, with comments by Al-Beidawi.
Although the all
Yousufi version is not quoted here, I have
studied portions of
it and the sense is
similar.
The second sex and The nature
of the second sex, by
Simone de Beauvoir.
The descent of
woman, by Elaine Morgan.
Women in the Muslim
world, edited by Lois Beck and Mikki Keddie.
The hidden face of
Eve, by Nawal el Saadawi.
Women and Islam, edited by Azizah al Hibri.
Manushi Indian feminist magazine.
Newsletters from
the Women's Action Forum, Karachi, Pakistan, and
Rasheda Patel, feminist
lawyer, Pakistan.