Violence towards wives and children in Islam

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Miaamira098's picture
Violence towards wives and children in Islam

A man who could marry 3 other women is like legally cheating on her. and if she tries to be with someone else there are many cases were women have been murdered either by her father or brother or husband. And when a man wants intercourse with his wife she doesn't have the right to refuse him. She can't get a divorce she has to ask her husband for a divorce. She can't even go outside of her house without her husbands permission. Some Wives that's beaten by their husband . Is this marriage or is this ownership. you can't marry for love it's all arranged and it's exactly the main purpose for divorce. And Muslim parents abuse their own children when they are not obedient. Why you may ask ... well I was a victim of being beaten by my mother and I asked her why do you hit? Because the prophet Muhammad told us to teach you and this is the way we are teaching you . How sick and twisted is that. From where do they get the idea that beating equals teaching. And wasn't even light it was painful. Some parents use sticks others shoes. And treat their children like they own them.

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CyberLN's picture
Welcome to AR, Mia. Happy to

Welcome to AR, Mia. Happy to have you here with us. I cannot imagine the horrors of being female in a society like that. It's unconscionable to treat any human being that way!

mykcob4's picture
Welcome. Sorry for your

Welcome. Sorry for your troubles.
Please write your story on the thread: http://www.atheistrepublic.com/forums/debate-room/how-we-became-who-we-a...
I'm sure it is interesting and we all would like to know more about you.

chimp3's picture
Welcome !

Welcome !

LogicFTW's picture
That is horrible that you got

That is horrible that you got beaten as a child. That should never be okay under any circumstance.

I am impressed by you that you later in life did not internalize that, and grow up to be a bitter and troubled person, but instead can share with others so we can all learn, and help others step away from the trap that is religion.

Joy Chakrabarti's picture
Getting corporal punishment

Getting corporal punishment when growing up doesn't make one a bitter and troubled person- otherwise everyone over the age of 40 in the whole of human history would be bitter and troubled. Corporal punishment, when done right, is a very powerful tool in raising kids. I know this, because i was disciplined corporally when i was a bad kid. But only by my dad and it was a cold, dispassionate, 'you did this, you know the punishment. 10 lashes with the switch' kinda deal. A bit like Spock administering punishment. And that is perfectly fine. The trouble is, most parents hit their kids when they are angry and losing control and thats what most kids learn - that when you are really angry, its ok to hit people and violence works. Cold dispassionate spanking is inflicting physical pain instead of emotional pain of being grounded/reamed out.

LogicFTW's picture
Mia A Amer said she was

Mia A Amer said she was beaten by her mother, and said she was a victim. That is far different then some stern, disciplined corporal punishment (like spanking) to a child that knew the consequences to their actions.

Lots of controversy and studies over even simply spanking a child being a good thing or a bad thing.

I do not know where I stand on it, but I have no kids, and do not plan to have any kids, so fortunately I do not have to figure it out for myself.

I will say: it takes a lot of discipline on the parents part to carry out a corporal punishment every time in a manner that is safe, dispassionate and not done in anger, every time, even if they are tired and had a bad day and their kid is being very difficult/rebellious. I think it is better to err on the side of caution based on the incomplete consensus. Plenty of parents were able to raise well rounded, polite respectful children w/o ever needing to do any sort of physical punishment.

To me 10 lashes by a switch always sounds like over kill. I was raised with a: actions (good or bad) have good or bad consequences. My parents never hit me in anyway, they would just have a basic allowance that I could earn doing chores around the house, that was optional. But they also only provided the basics, dinner, a room with a bed etc. If I wanted dessert, I needed to save up money and buy it at the store, if I wanted my own TV to watch instead of watching what ever the parents felt like watching I could save up money and get one.

If I misbehaved, there was a monetary punishment usually, I vandalized an old house near my house once as a kid, my parents had me buy and replace all the damage, and it cost me all my savings plus another few months of allowance income, I never did anything like that again. If I mistreated my siblings, I was sent to my room for an hour or two with nothing to do in there but homework. (I did have a TV in there,) but if my parents caught me using the TV I would lose the TV.

Now as an adult, I have an excellent sense of action and consequences and I also feel like I am quite smart with my finances, learning it all at an early age, and never being subject to physical punishment.

Joy Chakrabarti's picture
It depends on the age to be

It depends on the age to be honest: In my experience, children between the ages of 4 and 10 respond the best with cold, dispassionate corporal punishment. If you have to corporally punish kids beyond that age,something is wrong. Most kids i grew up with (including myself) knew by the age of 7-8 where the red lines were and not to cross them or a spanking awaited us.
Also, 10 lashes with the switch can be brutal or mild- depends on how much of a windup the parent uses. Obviously if you wind up like an Olympic javelin hurler, even 2 lashes is 2 too many. The point of administering corporal punishment isn't to cause damage, its to inflict physical pain - which IMO, is not that bad as emotional pain in my eyes.
From examples of 'corporal punishment done right', i've learnt that you can't start corporal punishment late. It has to be presented by the age of 4-5 for it to work for any period of time. Otherwise, it can send a very wrong message. One can't just wake up one day and beat their 12 year old for the first time and not expect a blowback. Thats also what happens in many cases of corporal punishment/'my dad beat me' stories in the west. That, plus the initial hormonal onset is probably the two greatest 'WTF' moment of a kid's life up to that point.

I had an abusive aunt living close to us for a part of my childhood and i felt sorry for my cousins. She was one of the rare Indian people who never used corporal punishment, but the crap that would come out of her mouth- i'd wish for a spanking instead. IMO, its far more damaging to the kid when their parent says 'you are gonna be a failure if you keep doing this/what did i do to deserve a crappy kid like you?' than a 'you did what ? Fetch the switch please and pick whether you want it on the right or the left palm', followed by 'whack whack whack *10'.

Financial penalties work better with teenage children,as they are more likely to go out and spend money independent of their parents. I've seen financial penalties not working for younger kids- they are content with 'i will nag the hell out of them when we are out together for the candy. who cares about buying candy with my money' attitude. And then it becomes useless/difficult to involve financial penalties.

One of the most common mistakes i've seen parents commit is to 'punish' their kids by increasing their chores. Thats a bad idea and thats how you bring up a slob. If you start associating negative, unwanted consequences with chores, kids grow up to hate chores. But too often i've seen 'Mark, you are late again. Tomorrow you do the dishes AND take out the garbage'.

Ultimately, there is no right or wrong answer, as parenting, like most things, is a skill and an art- some are better at it than others.

Lemna Minor's picture
But children are different,

But children are different, and what didn't harm you, can be felt as emotional cruelty by another boy - maybe your brother/ sister sees the whol affair in a differnt light. I know families, where on child emerges perfectly convinced, the had a great childhood, while two others shun their parents to this day, and claim their lives have been crippled, by the upbringing.
It is also hard, to get parents to be the exact type of "cold, dispassionate" parent, you experienced in a positive way.. Not saying, your experience isn't perfectly true, just many OTHER parents and children are NOT exactly like you. also - not every one over fifty was spanked, I believe - plus - a great many people, brought up in this way, actually ARE/WERE warped..

Pitar's picture
Child abuse, and abuse of the

Child abuse, and abuse of the female gender is as old as the world is human.

Child abuse, or so it is now considered, was a way of taking the child out of the child and into the world of human servitude. The delights of zero responsibility we tend to feel important to the child's development these days was a detriment to the capacity of families and communities of old with regard to the strength and advantage in the hands of children at labor. Modern child labor laws are the work of an evolving society where children are no longer needed to contribute to the household income. Had that not been the case, those laws would not have found a place in society. And, so it goes in the so-called western cultures. They are forward looking and do not tend to preserve traditions and conventions of their cultures that do not carry a former worth.

Yours, however, finds solace and strength in preserving the past and that's why it cannot survive peacefully within nor outside itself. Within itself, a modern world is clearly visible to its cultural practitioners that is quite healthy in the moral and physical sense. This creates the internal conflict you and many other people must endure. Because you have a frame of reference to other cultures that do not behave as yours does, your logic is your own worst enemy when openly discussed. From the outside looking in, the world outside yours shares in your suffering. If nothing more than with an empathy that makes it the enemy of your culture, the world from without cannot understand conduct in a modern age that does not ask for such suffering to continue.

Why do certain cultures hold onto the past? Because they are basically primitive people whereby the majority of the male population is still prodigiously ignorant. Institutionalizing education is not a mark of their cultures and, as such, the knowledge that higher standards of living are marked by is not at work. Ignorance, manual labor, and religion mark the cultures. This, by necessity, translates to a dominated household whereby the wife and children are more conscripts than they are family. Te religion is the law beneath that conscription and to oppose it is to oppose law. That is a tragedy in itself.

I wish you well. But, if it means anything to you, you are not alone. I'm 62 and the insides of both of my cheeks are still scarred with cut and hanging flesh from brutal facial punches delivered by an Alpha-Male parent. The worst event occurred when I was 6 years old. There's nothing a child that young can do to deserve such a beating but it was not uncommon in my own culture to see it. I attended elementary school with kids my age sporting facial injuries from black eyes, to open hand slap imprints on the sides of their faces to contusions and swelling. Some were absent from school only to return when they could walk again after brutal beatings. No one said anything. No parents were charged with abuse. No kid dared speak of it aloud. My own pop stopped beating me after the police found me 12 miles away at 8 years old running hard and fast away from him in the company of another kid. We fought the cops and almost got away in a wooded area but the other kid was crying so loud they found us. My pop and I never spoke after that and he was a religiously pious man. Imagine that? Nine years later I left home. My mother, for her part, kept quiet for fear of his wrath so I dismissed her as a mother. She attempted to speak with me after the cops brought me back but I gave her the same response I gave him.

Good luck and keep safe.

algebe's picture
I think it's important to

I think it's important to remember that patriarchal societies also have a matriarchal dimension. Mothers raise shit-heads who think they're lords of creation, and then as mothers-in-law they torment the arranged brides who are never good enough for their baby boys. It's a vicious circle that needs to be broken. It's no good talking to the men. There's a need for education targeting mothers and older women. But I'm not sure which Islamic country could start the ball rolling.

Sky Pilot's picture
Algebe,

Algebe,

If women didn't like it they would simply kill the men who beat them.

There are some cultures, especially in Africa, where the women insist that the men beat them as a sign of how much they love them. And remember, the Bible says that God beats the crap out of those that he loves.

CyberLN's picture
You said, "If women didn't

You said, "If women didn't like it they would simply kill the men who beat them."

Are you serious?

Sky Pilot's picture
CyberLN,

CyberLN,

Would you let a man beat you whenever he felt like it if you didn't want to get beaten? How long would you tolerate it, 40 years?

CyberLN's picture
I would not. I am not

I would not. I am not brainwashed to do so. People who endure abuse like that are.

Sky Pilot's picture
CyberLN,

CyberLN,

So you admit that even you, at some point, would resort to violence against the person who beats you.

CyberLN's picture
Do you understand how people

Do you understand how people become brainwashed into submission to abuse?

Sky Pilot's picture
Sure, even Christianity

Sure, even Christianity teaches that men should abuse women. In fact, the doctrine demands it but modern men don't do it too much or else they would get busted for domestic violence or aggravated assault. Plus, no one really follows the Christian doctrine, which is a good thing.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/epistles/on_women/01_1c11_04.html = 13 pictures

LogicFTW's picture
The person getting beaten can

The person getting beaten can leave, or seek help, instead of resorting to violence. Violence should always be last resort.

algebe's picture
@Diotrephes: "If women didn't

@Diotrephes: "If women didn't like it they would simply kill the men who beat them."

Spousal abuse is a two-way street, of course. And there have been cases of women striking back against abusers. Remember the burning bed case? But I think the pattern of a woman trapped in marriage with an abusive male is by far the most common, especially in the Middle East and some parts of Asia.

My comment was actually based on stories I've heard from Japanese women. Arranged marriages are still quite common there, although forced marriage isn't. Because an arranged marriage is a contract between two families rather than two people, there's tremendous pressure against divorce. The bride of the eldest son will typically go and live with his family. If she's abused, she just has to put up with it. In addition to abuse from her husband, she's also likely to be bullied by her mother-in-law. When her son gets married, she'll probably treat her daughter-in-law the same way.

That's why I think I think change has to start with mothers.

Of course, it would help if fathers were at home a bit more to help raise the kids. Japanese men are legendary for working long hours, but many told me they stay in the office because they like being served tea by pretty young women rather than going home to screaming kids and an exhausted angry wife.

Sky Pilot's picture
Algebe,

Algebe,

As I pointed out, some women like, and even insist, on getting beaten. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4494904/The-women-whipped-LOVE.html

However, in cultures where women don't like getting beaten it's their own fault if they get beaten on a routine basis.

CyberLN's picture
Great example of victim

Great example of victim blaming! Thx, Diotrephes.

algebe's picture
@Diotrephes: "it's their own

@Diotrephes: "it's their own fault if they get beaten on a routine basis"

What?!

Even in the most humane, progressive societies, women (and sometimes men) can still get trapped in abusive marriages. Maybe they have to stay for the sake of their children. Maybe they have nowhere else to go. Often they're afraid that their spouses will kill them if they try to escape. Religion can also form bars on the cage because of prejudice against divorce. Spousal abuse is rife in Australia and New Zealand, which are both fairly decent societies by and large. I see government TV ads against domestic violence every night on TV.

Relationships are funny things, though. My father once saw a man beating his wife in the street in Yorkshire, England, so he intervened to stop the man. Then both the wife and the husband turned on him and started hitting him.

LogicFTW's picture
There also plenty of women

There also plenty of women that seek out spankings, whippings, cuttings etc as a fetish, usually at least somewhat sexual in nature. But this is different, then a woman getting horribly beaten in her own home against her own wishes over and over again for decades.

charvakheresy's picture
mia - you are absolutely

mia - you are absolutely right. You are deemed the property of man by religion. to be subservient and to spend the rest of your days slaving under their tyranny all the while praising the asshole God that bound you to these fucks who treat you like possessions.

We are so much better off without religion

Endri Guri's picture
Ho, that's one of the reasons

Ho, that's one of the reasons I want this religion gone faster than the others. I'm sorry you had to go through such a painful past.

P.s 1 thing in the Bucket that Islam needs to reform, for you Charvak.

Al-Fatihah's picture
@Algabe

@Algabe

Why would I or anyone think a tap that leaves no pain or scars is barbaric?

The very fact that it does not makes it not barbaric. Therefore, your only logical objection is "it's wrong because I don't like it". Yet such logic only proves Islam is just towards women because it's a punishment. So it's not supposed to be liked.

algebe's picture
@Al-Fatihah (Did I spell your

@Al-Fatihah (Did I spell your name correctly?) "Why would I or anyone think a tap that leaves no pain or scars is barbaric?"

Like the "rule of thumb" in England, your "tap that leaves no pain or scars" is a license to commit violence against women. Who judges whether a man has tapped too hard? Who listens to the complaints of the women? Or does complaining result in more "taps"?

There is no excuse for violence in a marriage. Ever. Any system that institutionalizes and justifies such violence is barbaric, doubly so when the violence is a one-way street from male to female.

Al-Fatihah's picture
@Algabe

@Algabe

That once again does not answer what makes it barbaric because you still have not shown any extreme harm in tapping someone. So it's not violent or barbaric. Thus the only objection left is that you don't like it, thus supporting the fact that it is just because a punishment is not supposed to be liked.

algebe's picture
@Al-Fatiham: "you still have

@Al-Fatiham: "you still have not shown any extreme harm in tapping someone"

I said it was a license to hurt women. That's what's barbaric. Is that not clear enough for you?

It's a license to hurt because there's no standard for judging how hard a "tap" can be, and because there's no safe way for women to complain when they are injured by excessive "taps".

It's not a matter of whether or not I like it. It's a moral question. Should violence be part of human relationships? My answer is no. What's yours?

Al-Fatihah's picture
@Algabe

@Algabe

A tap that does not hurt or leaves scars is not a license to hurt people because as clearly stated, there is no pain or scars. Therefore, it is not barbaric, thus making my point as usual.

As for violence in a human relationship, if the violence is just, such as a tap that is neither hurtful or scaring, then it is perfectly okay in any relationship since as demonstrated, the only logical objection you are left with is "I don't like it", which only proves it is okay because a punishment is not supposed to be liked.

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