Finally: if your wife spends too much, slap her
 

Wives beware:

Saudi judge: It's OK to slap spendthrift wives - CNN.com


Seriously though, try to think about this from a point of view besides your own. If your culture has told you for your entilre life that something is a certain way, and you believe it, does that make you wrong? Are the lines between right and wrong absolute or culture dependent? Is America supposed to jump in here and teach them what's right?

The social contract changes depending on the existing general rules of a society. In Wester society, slapping your wife for spending too much would result in filing assault charges. Spousal abuse isn't acceptable. In Saudi Arabia, religious laws are integrated into society, and included in those religious laws are what we would consider rampant sexism and hatred.

Still, there's only so much relativism that one should be willing to accept. Believe what you want, but the moment you harm yourself or others, you no longer get a pass on being whatever it is you are. If a Saudi man slapped his wife in front of me, I'd stop him. It's not culture, it's abuse.

"Who are we to judge?"

Dunno, but it turns out human suffering is pretty universal across the ages / cultures. You're either suffering or you're not. Perhaps we could measure right and wrong with that instead of some arbitrary unit like we've-always-done-it-this-way custom, magical desert superhero religions, or who has a penis.

Who cares that, based on that short article, the Saudis are all wealthy overbearing child-molesting misogynistic wife-beaters? Hah, not me.

America's job? Not at all. It is not the job of the United States to play moral police (or any type of police) to the rest of the world regardless of how backward we see it in comparison to our own selfish, violent and gluttonous behaviors. I vote we stop pretending we're magical moral superheroes.

Cue that catchy theme music!

It wasn't long ago that Christians followed the law of the bible (many of which would be considered abhorrent in today's society). An oversimplification of the matter is that nations/cultures following Islamic law to the letter are several hundred years behind societies that have parsed their religious texts for the better of the society

why do the nutjobs get all the attention?

theyve quoted of all people a sheikg that follows the wahabi tradition ( yes the strain that mr bin ladin himself follows), and even amongst those hardliners there are many that dont agree with this guy.

seriously dudes. since when is CNN going to quote a sheikh or scholar thats NOT going to sell newspapers or airtime.

Anti-Muslim propaganda is still rampant these days. You're right that there are a million and one fantastic stories of human triumph that involve Muslims, but they tend to be ignored.

Still, this is a bad thing and it's happening right now.

That would be fine here in the States, but over there you would be in the wrong.
Not only would you be in legal trouble but the populace would not be happy with you either as an arrogant, preachy American.

Human'd! ...and his most lovable traits.

I'd not be wrong, but I'd be breaking the law. Those two things aren't always synonymous.

Yeah, instead of veil-wearing household appliances... we treat women like upgradable sex objects.

Oh, look at us. We're so civilized.

So your morals, sense of propriety or whatever you wish to call it is the only correct one and should automatically be accepted by other countries/cultures?

You're assuming morality is 100% relative, Fotzlid. It's not. There's a very, very good reason that humans developing in completely different parts of the world with no interaction whatsoever came up with very, very similar laws: the social contract is based on innate human needs and social understandings. I may be born in the US and a Saudi in Saudi Arabia, but encoded through millions of yeas of evolution are the same social understandings that were required for the continuation of our species. You can only go against those so much before offending a human dignity or understanding that predates whatever stupid cultural crap you're trying to follow. Take premeditated murder as an extreme example to demonstrate the point. Premeditated murder, that is an unjustifiable killing of another human being that was planned and executed by one of sound mind, is universally immoral. Sure, there have been pockets of societies that have rebelled against this, but overall this is a basic human morality that supersedes culture. Why would it supersede culture? Premeditated murder is dangerous to our species. If, when humans were developing, murder was allowed, our important population numbers and our pack-unity would have both been threatened, which would have put the survival of our species at risk.

Slapping women is not necessarily a danger to our species (and actually mass murder isn't anymore, either), but once, the rapport between men and women was necessary for mating, and as such, it's a part of innate human behavior for men to not beat a woman (any woman, as they might have a shot at mating with in the future).

Anyway, aside from all that evolutionary sociology, any ideology or cultural belief that causes harm to someone doesn't have a moral leg to stand on, as no ideology or cultural belief isn't as important as the golden rule. The golden rule is the center of all human interaction and is the foundation for all human law. This shit about being allowed to hit your wife is simply institutionalized sexism and demonstrates a fundamental weakness in certain Saudi men that are incapable of communicating with women in a healthy way because the society they grew up in didn't teach them correctly. I wish it were as simple as blaming religion, but I know plenty of Muslim men that are able to have a healthy and loving relationship with a woman without resorting to physical violence. The blame lies with sexists that use religion as a shield (much like homophobes here in the US that use religion as a shield, a flimsy excuse for their childish bigotry).

Lets not forget its not just the men here. Women are brought up to believe that their man can and will use physical force on them if they deem it necessary. Its their culture and upbringing. By stating they are offending a human dignity and men don't know how to talk to women, you are imposing your particular upbringing and morality on an entirely different culture.
As Crompsin noted, is our culture's objectifying of women really any better? Are we so much more civilized because we don't hit our women, but will gladly trade them in for a younger model at a certain point?

Oh, and murder is allowed in practically every society. Just depends on who's doing it to whom.

You mean homicide.

I stand corrected.

You're either not reading or not comprehending my posts. I'm using a historical sociological standard which has been established over tens of thousands of years. It has nothing to do with my culture and everything to do with cultural norms over the existence of human existence.

The cultural norms for Arab/Muslims are different from the norms of Western/Judeo-Christian or even the Asian cultural norms. All your previous posts seem to lean on the Western model of cultural norms.

By saying you would intervene in an incident that occurred in Saudi Arabia and claiming you wouldn't be wrong, you are imposing your beliefs/upbringing on another culture.
If you intervene here in the States, you would be completely correct.

You're still not actually reading what I've written. Go back, I'll wait.

I'm just going to point out that all of you who are saying something to the point of, "It's their culture, they accept it, we should back off," may want to look at the other side of it-- there are women who are of that culture who are just as pissed about it people who aren't living in that society. They find it just as abusive, just as unfair, just as degrading. Culture is not a free pass.

...and who's job is it to change world culture?

White America?

Not at all, and not at all what I said. It's simply that saying "well, so-and-so's culture says slapping women is okay, hurhurhur, oh well" is a handy way of overlooking that the women being slapped aren't accepting it. I'm glad they're starting to stand up for themselves.

Just checking. Those self-righteous crusty old white people are always up to something.

maybe its accepted in saudi culture, but this shit would never go down in most arab countries.

those men that justify their actions with verses from the quran or bible (yes arabs can be muslim and christians) have some sort of ego to feed and use twisted interpretations of quranic verses to their advantage. the wahabis are known for their interpretation methods of holy texts.

as an arab, if i was walking down the street and i saw a man hitting his wife, id probably say something just like Will. however, there is an idea within many circles of arab culture that you dont interfere with the affairs between a couple, even if it was aired within the public sphere

you do know there are still laws on south carolina books about being able to beat your wife on the capital steps at noon in columbia on sunday...only on sunday, but you can use a stick

Damnit, I missed my chance. I was a married SC resident for a short while. I totally could have used that in 2005 before I went to Afghanistan. Coulda taught the little lady not to mess around with weird religions and sleep around on me! Heh, maybe I'd still be married. Abuse... it saves marriages.

hah!

come to think of it, all those poor women who are afraid to walk away because they have so much to lose...you're probably right cromp

I agree there is a lot of negative spin on Islam in the West

This weekend I saw, on a supposedly intelligent debate forum, a woman make the statement "The Muslim authorities decided to declare a fatwah against Salmun Rushdie" - she was allowed to say this and it was not challenged.

The fact being that one Islamic country declared a fatwah against him, and every other Islamic country in the world disagreed with it or condemned it.

But unfortunately these nutso things (Iranian women being hanged for being rape victims in rural Iran, schoolgirls being refused to flee a burning building in The Kingdom because they were dressed "indecently") keep happening in certain countries - and the Working Class movements in these places dont seem to be able to grab the agenda from the zealots and the fruits.

There are people in America just as crazy as this lunatic judge in The Kingdom. The difference is that in America any judge making such a statement would be sacked.

Willravel, you appear to be claiming sort of innate universal morality that transcends cultural bias and more specifically, one that includes not slapping your mate around. Is that right?

What is this - can you really believe that everything is permitted and the only moral rules are the subjective ones of a given society?

There are basic human rights and goods which all humanity has a right to enforce and expect.

I don't think morality is the right word for it. There are innate behavioral tendencies and there's the social contract. The innate behavioral tendencies wouldn't necessarily transcend culture, but culture often clashes with these tendencies. The slapping of one's wife is clearly a part of the regional social contract, but it would likely be against a human's innate behavioral tendencies. Since the social contract works best when founded on the innate behavioral tendencies, this seems to be a situation where one can judge the legal decision as ultimately poor. The same can be said of pious laws that forbid normal human sexual tendencies, for example.

If they mean "don't slap your wife, UNLESS she's been spending too much money".. then I'm actually okay with that. Not entirely, as I'm not too fond of abuse within any type of relationship.. but they come from a different world where most women don't work out of the home and the husband is the only person bringing home the bacon. If his wife is out spending so much money that she's about to make it difficult to pay for bills or save for emergencies, then punish her somehow. Here in the US we'd talk with our wives about it.. but over there, they may be in a situation where simply talking with their wives may not work as well since it would take away some authority the husband has over the family and the husband needs this authority for the security of his household. (Since his wife does not work and has very little power outside of the home.)

If this were happening in the US, I'd be quick to disagree with it, but this is happening in a world I'm very unfamiliar with and they have problems that may be similar to our own but not entirely the same. If this is their way of dealing with things, so be it. I do feel sorry for the women, though. But, I don't know the full extent of the problem, so I can't just go ahead and judge them.

How do you judge which version of the social contract works better when individuals or groups have a range of innate tendencies, rather than a single behavior, that they fall into?

A range of innate tendencies? Certainly not everyone is born exactly the same, but that range isn't really all that big. The innate behavioral tendencies present at my birth are likely the same as the tendencies in a Saudi infant, in other words. He's not born wanting to disrespect women and me to respect women. That's cultural (environmental).

The relative size of the range isn't really that important, more important is that the range is present. So long as it exists, there is a decision to be made and I'm curious what criteria you use to evaluate your options.

It is when we're talking real world application. Because we're talking about a real observable behavior and belief system, the "relative size of the range" is extremely important. If, as I'm indicating, no such innate behavioral range exists to explain hitting a woman for something like spending too much money and not hitting a woman, the point stands. I'm saying that it's entirely cultural. I'm saying no such range exists in innate tendencies to explain why I would not hit a woman for spending too much money and some asshat in Saudi Arabia would.

It's 100% cultural and I'm 100% certain. If you're uncertain, find a Saudi that's been westernized and see if he has an innate urge to beat his wife but only refrains from doing so because of the law.

So, it's not possible for a man to, innately, find it acceptable to slap his wife. Furthermore, if such a man exists as would find it acceptable to slap his wife it's because his culture taught him to go against his own nature. Is that right?

//edit: 'mate' is probably more appropriate than 'wife'.

It's not that simple. It's possible that certain innate behaviors such as aggressiveness or a lesser ability to sympathize/empathize might, via culture, be directed to spousal abuse, but because of the interference by culture it's not simply innate. Purely innate behaviors cannot be characterized by "does not respect women" or "finds it acceptable to hit someone for not being fiscally responsible". Are you following? While I'd be more than willing to admit that the judge in this case may have a different innate disposition, perhaps he reacts differently when he's afraid than I do (he seeks to attack what he doesn't understand, whereas I seek to understand it), I'd not be willing to admit he was born hating women.

Great, now willravel is going to go beat up a bunch of South Carolinians and then tell us about it.

I could stop off in Chicago on the way and we could pick up Cromp and make a weekend of it.

Myrtle beach should just be warming up.