India and large part of third world regions are often subject to severe sexual suppression, which is often social or familial in nature, though rarely religious. So how does a tribe like this come to be? Where do its founders come from and how are the so radically different that the norm? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muria_people Most of the west was pretty stiff about premarital sex before 1940s too. What was this based on?
When sexual oppression has economic benefit to the oppressor, it happens. Control of the sex lives of young women, in particular, is a quick step to power and wealth. So patriarchal hierarchies tend more to rest on sexual oppression, and matriarchal communalities tend less to - there's no money in it.
Um, how? I thought control over grain/argicultural surpluses gave control over labour and therefore paved the way to power. Where and how does this come in?
You are right about the way it was before the 1940s. Monogamy was considered the right man-woman relationship. Let's follow just the course of mainstream civilization. If you have studied their history, you know they go back to about 5,000 years ago and there is strong evidence that the religions/cultures of both Egypt and Mesopotamia were based on monogamy. So were all subsequent civilizations. Based on social evolution, it is easy to see how we evolved monogamy in order to be able to unite ourselves into large societies and be able to develop technological progress. But when you look back in history, you find that every time the society drifted away from monogamy back towards our more primate poliginous nature, social problems developed and the civilization fell into decline. I have more on this subject here with my profile.
Give one person control over the surplus food - they say what happens to it, who gets it and how much - and another control over the sexual availability of young women - they say who gets laid by whom and when and where. Which do you think will be running things in twenty years? Or as Aristotle Onassis put it: "Without women all the money in the world would be a mistake". Or maybe Edward Abbey put it best: "There can be no free men without free women".
Women's rights have been vastly more beneficial economically than 'sexual oppression'. I guess a certain amount of cognitive dissonance is inevitable when liberal myths turn out to be only another method of exploitation.
To some people, in some societies, at some times, sure. To most societies overall, if they could just manage to establish them, most places, sure. So?
So how do you know that liberal society is not exploiting women more efficiently than a 'patriarchal hierarchy'?
Men lie to women and liberal men are no exception. Women lie with physical illusions while men lie with words and feelings. The most base desire of men involves sexuality. In terms of using lying as a means to an end, if you can convince women to be loose and easy, men get more. On the other hand, if men convince women to hold out to married and remain monogamous, women have more control and men get less. Liberal men have made it easier for all men to get themilk without having to buy the cow. The old school man had to buy the cow before sampling the milk. You tell women loose and easy is good for them and they eat it right up. Liberal men know how to use emotional appeal to manipulate women, so men can exploit. I remember back when women were less loose and easy. You had to wait for marriage to have sec. Much more was required of the males at all phases of the relationship. Men in the 1960's, came up with the perfect con, which made the goal easier for every male; free love (free for men). It only works in the females think they are benefitting by this. Prostitutes have always been easy women of allure, especially for the younger males. It is not coincidence that the liberal media sells the cultural image that females need to look like prostitutes. It is still patriarchal, but exploitive for young male fantasy. Many women who fall for the con, find themselves with children living in poverty, without the male who promised them a future. Men do not marry prostitutes since who knows where she has been. Instead, these women become dependent on big government, which is also a liberal con. As long as we can convince women this is all for their benefits and that old school is evil, men can laugh at how easy it is. Old school was more work and put the women higher in the totem pole. That has to be conned as evil.
Follow the money. Time and motion, property and resources, do the books. Where are you finding this "liberal society" that is not a "patriarchal hierarchy", btw? Most of the markedly less patriarchal societies - such as the OP example - are pretty conservative. No you don't. You remember you childhood ignorance and inexperience; a time when one job held by one ordinary teenage man (white, decent high school, two parents and two inlaw parents) could support a wife and a couple of kids; a time when prostitution and fornication and adultery, while very common, were hidden from you. You do not remember a time when human nature was radically different from what it is now.
No books to do. Your argument is nonsensical. Clearly you don't understand your own logic. According to your reasoning parts of the world that oppress women should be the wealthiest. In regards to the West, then, perhaps this is true.
It is quite possible to do an accounting of the flows of wealth and a physical description of the concentrations of power in a given society. Such an accounting would be one way you could find out - and then know - whether a given "liberal society" was or was not more exploitative of its women than a given patriarchal hierarchy. No. I said nothing about "parts of the world", or the wealth of any society as a whole, except to agree with you that most societies would be more wealthy overall if they could establish greater rights for women. The increase in relative wealth and power of the people establishing the oppression, was the factor proposed, the benefit received by the (usually) patriarchs. That this is usually at the expense of the society as a whole - everybody is worse off,. so that some can be relatively better off than others - is no rare or unusual pattern.
My point was whether 'rights for women' are exploitative, given the amount of wealth they generate. Wealth flows upward, and if it can be shown that those at the top are male, then your orignal point is vindicated within the context of a so-called enlightened, Western, secular democracy.
In some societies wealth flows downward, floats around in circles, is entombed or otherwise destroyed at regular intervals, etc. I intended my observation to hold for all societies, and to help explain the varying degrees of sexual oppression among them. Some societies repress sexuality - especially female sexuality - more than others. That was the OP topic, yes?
More or less, yes. The topic was how did a tribe come to be so radically different that the usual norm of the region.
Yet you said earlier follow the money. Now you seem to be saying such a task would be nigh on impossible. Your observation does not hold water, as it is clearly obvious that in societies where women are not, according to your description, 'oppressed', that they generate more wealth. Which leaves the door open to my original point, that you cannot be sure that in the West women are not oppressed, ie, exploited, and your views towards India are only an example of Western racism.
No, I don't. I say it is quite possible, and enlightening of the OP. Please quote the passage in which I describe the women of whatever societies you are talking about as not oppressed. Which point is perfectly aligned with my observations and arguments here. You seem to think you are arguing against some point I am making - I don't see any conflict.
It's clear that the OP's beliefs regarding Indian society are a result of Western conditioning, not the result of an objective inquiry, and you have simply followed suit. Otherwise, why not show a Mormon community in the U.S. and explain the existence of it by contrasting the chastity of its women with the exploitation of women outside of it?
