Girls have been buried alive because of the fear that they...

Girls have been buried alive because of the fear that they may bring dishonor in the future by marrying an unsuitable husband or they fear falling into the hands of an enemy during a war and then becoming slaves in a strange land. All of these are secon­dary phenomena or, as they say, they are the apparent facts which result from transformed realities which have taken on a new form. But the basic reason is an economic one.

As we previously indicated, in the tribal system, peo­ple are faced with the hardships of life and production (particularly in the deserts of Arabia) and the constant difficult relationships among the tribes. Such a life requires a strong and powerful support. Automatically, a son be­comes an important factor in the economic and social situation as well as in the defense of his family or tribe. He is a necessary social element of a family or tribe. A son brings bread but a daughter eats it.

It is natural that the sexual differences cause class differences. Men fall into the class of ruling and owning and women fall into that of the ruled and the owned. The relationship between a man and a woman is like that between a landowner and a peasant. A man and a wo­man, as economic entities, have a different human and spiritual value placed upon them.

As an economic landlord brings about a blood‑line, an inherited nobility for his fa­mily, as well as ethical and essential values, virtues and great generosity; the opposite is true of a peasant or a woman. Poverty sends all the male gains or can gain to the four winds. This is why she could become the cause of the family losing self respect. The possibility always exists that she will disgrace the family by marrying someone who is not at the same level as this family.

In my opinion, this fear, which is an ethical phenomenon, is related to a clear economic factor, that is, to preserve the ownership of land and to assure the continuation of centralized wealth for ‑the next generation of the family. In patriarchal societies, when the father dies, the oldest son inherits everything, not only the land, but also the wives of his father, including his own mother!

It was for this very reason that the daughters did not inherit so that the wealth of the father would not be divided up and be distributed to other families through the daughters. This is the reason why in our old wealthy families there is still a very strong emphasis placed upon the daughter marrying within the family.