Family Honour and Sexual Purity
Another factor involving social relationships is a family response to sexual violence that blames women without punishing men, concentrating instead on restoring lost family honor. Such a response creates an environment in which rape can occur with impunity.
While families will often try to protect their women from rape and may also put their daughters on contraception to prevent visible signs should it occur, there is rarely much social pressure to control young men or persuade them that coercing sex is wrong. Instead, in some countries, there is frequently support for family members to do whatever is necessary including murder to alleviate the shame associated with a rape or other sexual transgression. In cases where the victim was a single pregnant female, the offender was either acquitted of murder or received a reduced sentence.
Read more about this topic: Victim Blaming
Famous quotes containing the words family, honour and/or purity:
“The family is on its way out; couples go next; then no more keeping cats or parrots.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The only thing of weight that can be said against modern honour is that it is directly opposite to religion. The one bids you bear injuries with patience, the other tells you if you don’t resent them, you are not fit to live.”
—Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733)
“And all the popular statesmen say
That purity built up the State
And after kept it from decay;
Admonish us to cling to that
And let all base ambition be,
For intellect would make us proud....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)