Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site oliveb.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!oliveb!toml From: toml@oliveb.UUCP (Dave Long) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: That boring matter of controlled women Message-ID: <259@oliveb.UUCP> Date: Fri, 3-Feb-84 16:39:11 EST Article-I.D.: oliveb.259 Posted: Fri Feb 3 16:39:11 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 8-Feb-84 09:26:13 EST References: <517@orca.UUCP> Organization: Farther Tumbolia Lines: 29 [] I support Sophie's assertion that most societies have strict customs, or even laws, to ensure that women copulate only with their husbands. Jeff does not believe this is true, and challenges us to cite chapter and verse. Jeff's challenge is really unfair because laws and customs appear, on the face of them, to be fair to everyone. As an example, the Jim Crow laws in the American South did not appear to discriminate against blacks. It was just as serious an offense for a white to drink out of a black fountain as it was for a black to drink out of a white fountain. To see the truth of Sophie's assertion, you have to look at the intent of the law. The intent of segregation in the South was to keep blacks in their place, and you'd have to be pretty dumb (sorry, Jeff) to be unaware of this. The custom over most of the world is for a wife to live in the husband's village, frequently in his parents' house or next door. The intent of this custom is that the husband's female relatives can monitor his wife's sexual activities. If women work outside the home, they work in exclusively female groups. They never hang around the plaza watching the men go by. Laws only exist to get us to do something we would prefer not to (or to forbid things we want to do) when custom is not strong enough to enforce correct behvior. Few men want to get married, for instance, but custom bullies most of them into "doing the right thing". Even custom won't keep men from transferring their affections to other women, however, and we need laws to regulate divorce. In general there haven't had to be laws controlling the movement of wives because custom (and the vast army of women who keep track of the behavior of other women in support of custom) is sufficient. I understand that women are not allowed to drive cars in Saudi Arabia, but that is a society in a state of rapid change. Tom Long