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Re: Women's rights : Sati, Dowry
In article <rsiDDGy88.Fy@netcom.com>, Rajappa Iyer <rsi@netcom.com> wrote:
>srik@lig.di.epfl.ch (Srikanth Bandi) writes:
>
>>Equating Sati with murder is missing a fundamental ideological
>>difference IMO.
>
>>Now please argue that there is no "ideological coercion" in Sati.
>>If there is none I will be happy to hear about it. If there is,
>>tell why ideological coercion should be any less abhorrent than
>>individual coercion.
>
>A short and brutal answer would be---if you wish to live in a free
>society, you have the right *and* responsibility to think for
>yourself. However, that will probably bring forth a volley of
>accusations and railings about my insensitivity, so let me repackage
>my answer a little. :-)
>
> <--------- Lengthy Sati description deleted to save bandwidth ----------->
>Let us consider another example of ideological `coercion.' In Indian
>society, divorce is taboo with the dice yet again heavily loaded
>against women. This leads to situations where the woman has to
>tolerate all sort of abuse (physical and verbal) in a marriage even if
>she is economically independent. Now if ideological coercion is
>adequate grounds to enact corrective legislation, then the government
>(if it were sufficiently imaginative :) should probably pass a law
>which makes it mandatory for a divorcee to be remarried within a
>certain period of time, failing which the government will find a
>suitable husband. Would you be comfortable (ideologically or
>otherwise) with such a law? Would you be comfortable with any law
>which attempts to perform social engineering to make divorce more
>socially acceptable? It can be argued that as in Sati, the woman is
>being held hostage to a social expectation of the permanent nature of
>marriage. Why is divorce then a personal issue while Sati is not?
>
>None of this to imply any lack of sympathy with the victims of social
>circumstances. However, I am extremely chary of social engineering by
>law simply because it sets up a dangerous precedent for allowing state
>control over personal lifestyle decisions. Legislation is not the
>solution for social evils; education is.
>--
><rsi@netcom.com> a.k.a. Rajappa Iyer. New York, New York.
Well, while it may be true that social engineering by imposition of
law may not be ideal as compared to social engineering by education
sometimes it becomes necessary to impose a law, since the pace of a
social engineering experiment may not be fast enough.
Let me give a couple of examples. In India, there was a time when a
lot of dowry deaths (or murders) used to take place, and in some of
the families they still do. However, an awareness being created of
the evils of this practice, through education both audio and visual
and through the media has been rather slow in changing hardened and
set attitudes. Hence the GOI was forced to come out with a strict &
severe law, and backing it up with some strong enforcement was in a
way able to alleviate the problem to some extent. Sometimes a fear
of the Law helps in more ways than we could think to enable change.
Another example is of the Supreme Court judgement, in the Shah Bano
Case, where alimony was ruled to be given to a divorced Muslim lady
and where the law was used to implement a change. Much as people're
opposed to any tinkering of their Personal Law this was a necessary
step. Same is the case with the Anti-Dowry Act for Hindus. A reform
of the Hindu Personal Law could also be envisaged if Hindus are not
keen to have their Personal Law tinkered with.
That said, it is imperative that the education of the people with a
stress on reform in all walks of life be vigorously pursued, since
education goes a long way in inculcating a sense of values in minds
of people to endorse and propel change.
Regards,
Vivek.
--
vivek@hairball.ecst.csuchico.edu (Vivek R. Prabhu),
Research Assistant, Systems Engineering Laboratory,
Dept. Of Computer Science, School Of Engg, Computer Science & Technology,
California State University, Chico, California. http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~vivek
