Ah, yes, I knew someone would bring the idea that Muslim women are men's property. Detractors of other religions and cultures are so predictable. This is a common charge leveled disdainfully at past cultures as well -- as some sort of proof that women must have been oppressed in those days.
The truth is that yes, indeed, under the strictest letter of the law, women are men's property in many cultures and were so also in the past. But is that really such an alien concept in our culture? Even here in the United States, under the law, children are very literally their parents' property. As a parent, I can do essentially anything I want (within reason) to my children. As long as I do not cause them any physical or emotional harm, I can be as arbitrary or unreasonable as I like . . . and so can all of you. Does that mean all -- or even most -- American children are oppressed? Of course not; the idea is laughable.
One can never get a good idea of how a culture operates by looking at its laws alone. One must always take the human element, which by and large is fairly universal, into consideration. There are thousands of laws in the United States that impose penalties -- many rather draconian in nature -- for various offenses. How often are these laws enforced to the strictest letter of the law? Rarely. Our judicial system takes into consideration mitigating factors. So it is around the world. Yes, our media seizes on the worst and most spectacular cases, because that is what gets ratings. They do the same thing here: they only report on the very worst of cases.
The Bible teaches that the man is the head of the household. Does this mean that the man rules the home? No, it means that no matter what happens in that household, good or bad, the man bears ultimate responsibility. So it is in cultures in which women are technically men's property. That doesn't mean men can do as they please with women; it means men bear ultimate responsibility for the health, welfare, safety, and behavior of their women.
Do some men abuse this authority? Of course. When I was in Germany, I saw a Turkish man slap his woman in the face on the street in full view of everyone. Though I was furious with him, did I draw the conclusion that all Turks abuse women? No, I simply realized that some Turkish men are assholes toward women. My father is supposedly a devout Christian and an upstanding citizen, but he's beaten my mother on many an occasion. Does that mean that Christianity condones the abuse of women or that most Christian men abuse women? No, it means that there are assholes like my father who fail to live up to the standards of their religion.
Let me remind you that the United States has some of the highest rape, sexual assault, murder-of-women rates in the world. Before we go trying to pluck the specks from other cultures' eyes, maybe we should plug the logs out of our own eyes.
Cheesey, have you ever been outside the United States? Have you seen the world? Have you seen how people in other countries -- not just displaced minorities in bad socioeconomic conditions -- live on a day-to-day basis?
I have. I've watched married couples interact in places like Iraq and Qatar. I've seen the adoration shining in husbands' and wives' eyes as they walk down the streets hand in hand. I've seen the tender way they care for their children. I've seen men collapse in solitary confinement, begging to be able just to hold the pictures of their wives and children. I've watched the panic in parents' eyes when their children experienced injuries we might consider laughably minor in this country. I've also seen victims -- women, children, and men alike -- of abuse so vile I wanted to kill the perpetrators.
But I've seen that in my own country too.
I would say that the average married couple I saw in the Middle East was far deeper in love and showed far more respect for each other than the average couple I see on a daily basis in the United States or saw in Germany. Of course there were exceptions; there are everywhere. But women there seemed to genuinely adore their men.
I must say that it's more than a little misogynistic of you to simply dismiss out of hand the reports of Middle Eastern women themselves, simply because you happen to think they don't know what they're talking about. Who are you to tell them what is and is not oppression? You should read the book
Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil by Jean Sasson, which relates the first-person account of a real Saudi princess. Yes, the story isn't all pretty, but neither is it as gritty as you seem to think.
A woman once told me that "patriarchy was invented by women to get men out of the house." From what I've seen of patriarchal cultures, I think she's right. No matter what our feminist-driven media may tell you (and yes, most conservative women are bitter feminists who are deeply resentful of men),
women run patriarchal cultures.