Honor as property.

AuthorBond, Johanna
PositionIntroduction through I. Honor Defined D. The Economy of Honor 1. Honor as Currency, p. 202-229

Abstract

This Article is the first to use a property lens to explore the social construction of honor within legal systems around the world. The Article makes the claim that the law in many countries has implicitly treated honor as a form of property and has made legal and social allowances for men who seek to reclaim honor property through violence. The Article expands the boundaries of the existing scholarship concerning honor-related violence by exploring the intersections between social constructions of honor and social constructions of property. Using a property lens to analyze the relationship between honor, patriarchal control, and law provides a deeper understanding of the motivations for this form of gender-based violence. The Article also assesses the implications of this new theoretical model and concludes that honor must be refrained to position women as potential holders of honor property and to disassociate honor from the social regulation of women's sexuality.

INTRODUCTION

Throughout the world, honor operates as a form of social currency. (1) It is a highly valued and zealously protected asset. (2) Although not alienable, honor functions informally as a form of property. (3) Honor exists in some form within most communities and often operates to constrain women's behavior. (4) Although a common misperception links honor primarily with cultures in the Middle East, honor functions in similarly gendered ways around the world. (5)

This Article makes the claim that the law in many countries has implicitly treated honor as a form of property and has made legal and social allowances for men who seek to reclaim honor property through violence. Within communities in which honor is highly valued, honor property is held collectively by a family and controlled largely by male members of the family. (6) The value of honor property depends primarily on the degree to which female members of the family conform their behavior, sexual and otherwise, to social expectations. (7) Although women are not typically seen as holders of honor property, women play a significant role in determining its value to the family as a whole. (8) Notably, the claim here is not that women are, themselves, a form of property. Women are agents who make decisions about their own sexuality, and those decisions either inflate, preserve, or decrease the value of familial honor property.

Because the value of honor property fluctuates based on women's behavior, other family members, often males, seek to aggressively monitor and control the behavior of the women in the family. (9) In its most extreme form, control over women's behavior manifests in honor-related violence, including murder. (10) In some countries, the law perpetuates this implicit understanding of honor as property by reducing penalties for those who commit crimes in an effort to reclaim honor. (11)

I realize that it is problematic to discuss "the law" or "legal systems" without exploring the myriad differences between legal systems and the differences in resources and power within and among countries. The purpose of this Article, however, is not to explore deeply the legal system of any particular country. Rather, the Article establishes a general architecture that reflects the ways in which honor operates as a gendered source of property in many different countries and in many different legal systems.

Drawing on the rich scholarship that has illuminated examples of honor-based violence, primarily in the Middle East, I provide here a new, property-based lens through which to explore honor as a common social regulatory device, one that operates not only in the "East" but around the world. The Article also draws on examples from the United States and other countries in the global North. These northern examples of honor as a regulator of women's sexuality help to establish the global architecture of honor. The examples counter the Orientalist tendency to recognize honor as a constraint on women only in the global South. (12) I hope that this Article will provide a new, property-based theoretical lens with which to explore the notion of honor in a number of different regions and socio-legal systems.

Notions of honor serve as barometers of familial worth. (13) Honor is frequently gendered. Communities value women, at least in part, for the honor they bring to their families and punish women for the shame that they bring to their families for alleged transgressions of social and sexual norms. (14) Although expectations for women's behavior vary somewhat from country to country, honor is a common theme, requiring women to adhere strictly to social norms. (15) The social pressure to conform to norms of chastity and virginity is strong, and many families police the behavior of unmarried daughters and sisters to ensure compliance with these social dictates. (16) Failure to conform to social expectations, or the perception that a woman has failed to conform, may result in coercion or violence perpetrated by the woman's natal family, ranging from bullying to murder. (17) Penal codes in a number of countries tolerate or justify these acts of violence as a reflection of a deeply entrenched commitment to honor. (18)

In Jordan, for example, one family spent six years looking for their daughter, Basma, who had run away with another man and had been divorced by her husband. (19) Within the Jordanian town of Rusayfeh, community members who felt that the family needed to cleanse its honor openly castigated her family. (20) The family's eight other daughters were considered unmarriageable. (21) Basma's sixteen-year-old brother, who was only ten years old when she left, murdered his sister after boys in the community insulted him, questioning his masculinity. (22) After the murder, one of Basma's sisters remarked, "Now we can walk with our heads held high." (23)

In the United States, since 1993, over 2.5 million adolescents have taken a "virginity pledge" in response to a social movement sponsored by the Southern Baptist Church. (24) Through the pledge, American adolescents promise to remain virgins until they marry. Researchers have found that the pledge is most effective when it is an important marker of identity. (25) In other words, when teens are able to define themselves against a perceived immoral or dishonorable other, pledges can be effective. (26) Pledges sometimes function as regulatory devices in much the same way that coercive messages of honor function to constrain women's sexuality.

Violent efforts to enforce virginity or honor (27) are a form of gender-based violence designed to regulate women's sexual behavior and enforce rigid social codes. (28) The degree to which the community perceives individual women as chaste and virtuous often has a very real economic impact on their families. The families of women who have been accused of dishonorable conduct may be ostracized, economically penalized in the market, or unable to arrange for marriages of other daughters and sisters--all of which has an economic cost to families. (29)

This Article posits that honor itself is a type of property. (30) Honor is a form of property which, although generated and lost largely through women's behavior, is held collectively by the family and controlled largely by male members of the family. (31) When men lose honor property through the actions of women in their families, I argue that legal systems make allowances for familial efforts to reclaim honor property through acts of violence perpetrated against the offending female family member. (32) The law facilitates this understanding of honor as property and maintains incentives for families to reclaim honor property through violence directed at female family members. (33)

Part I of this Article explores the meaning of honor, drawing on similarities across legal systems. Although the specifics of honor-related violence vary to some extent by country, this section seeks to identify some commonalities and provide a general picture of the manifestation of honor-related violence within a handful of countries. The Article identifies a pattern in the ways that honor operates as a form of property. As such, the Article seeks to avoid "Orientalism's binary juxtaposition of a 'traditional' East with a 'modern' West--the theoretical engine of colonialism--[which] was premised in part on perceptions of non-Western women as oppressed subjects." (34) Without a deep exploration of honor in any particular country, the Article identifies common pathways through which honor, variable in form and potency, operates as a form of property. Part I also explores the relationship between honor and economics, including an exploration of financial incentives for a family to attempt to reclaim lost honor property at the expense of female family members.

Part II expands the boundaries of the existing scholarship concerning honor-related violence by exploring the intersections between social constructions of honor and social constructions of property. In this Article...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT