Honour Violence Part I: Its ancient origins and current practice.

I have been involved in several discussions over the last 5 years regarding honour crimes. These are acts of violence normally committed against women by a family member, but there are also many cases against men. It is not a western phenomenon but exists within many cultures across Africa and the Middle East.

Honour codes can be breached when a woman commits adultery, drifts from the traditional family culture (particularly becoming westernised), leaves her (often abusive) husband, or is involved in a same sex relationship etc. Such codes have been in existence for many thousands of years and anthropologists tell us that they are about protecting the wealth of the tribe and the reproductive monogamy of women. Whilst the violence tends to be carried out by male family members, women are regularly complicit including mothers who have been convicted of direct involvement in the murder of their daughters.

At a recent event I attended some mothers found this very confusing. How is the protective maternal instinct so easily switched off? Don't these women love their daughters as much as Western women? The answer partly is that whilst a form of love definitely exists, there is a clear social logic behind these crimes that acts as a strong pressure on a mothers emotional perceptions. Whilst it is partly due to women having a lesser status and being considered the property of men, it is also about the need to preserve the honour of other female family members. The problem is that all female family members will be ostracized by their communities for the sins of their sisters and daughters. Families believing in the need to secure their heritage through arranged marriages for their children are continually mindful of the need to preserve the family’s sexual integrity because any breach will make their children unmarriable. Dowries will also become obsolete. So there is the ancient horrific tribal logic; by punishing shamed females, families are purifying themselves and guaranteeing their continued reproductive and financial longevity. This makes grizzly sense to some ancient tribes. That these cultures have been imported into Europe through immigration should not surprise us.

Europe, with its growing immigrant populations has taken its time to understand this phenomenon. Police services have only begun to respond in the last couple of years due to recent high profile cases such as that of Banaz Mahmod (pictured above) whose father and uncle (pictured below) arranged to have her murdered for leaving her abusive husband and having a relationship with a man her family did not approve of. She was found by police buried in a suitcase a few months later - she had been subjected to over 2 hours of rape and torture before strangulation.

Communities that live according to strict honour codes can be almost impossible to penetrate by outsiders and police services. They deliberately isolate themselves from Western society to avoid their own culture being diluted with Western values. Most honour based criminal acts therefore go unreported as whole communities remain silent, often in agreement with what has taken place. There are also many cases where women have been lured abroad where these crimes can be conducted under less scrutiny.

We must of course remember that hundreds of thousands of European men and women are subject to domestic violence and murder by family members every year. It can be found across the social classes. Of course this is not about ancient codes of honour, more often it is about power, or alcohol addiction. So whilst many will argue that honour crime is another example of backward immigrant communities who are a threat European society, the reality is that domestic violence is prevalent across all European cultures, it is just the antecedents that are different.  

Next Post: Honour Violence Part II: Is religion to blame?