Also, Stuart Williams, the wildlife expert guy, used a propredicate do:
quote:"A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they (the lions) didn't eat her," Williams said. "Otherwise they probably would have done." [Emphasis added]
That probably means nothing to anyone else, but I thought it was cool. Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Marriage by capture is a pretty common tradition worldwide actually, and is still practiced in a lot of places. There's loads of anthropological studies that have been done on it everywhere and theories of its origins being based on maintaining certain kinship systems and soforth. It's not always so brutal or violent, of course, and in some places everyone but the girl knows what's happening and it's almost treated as a joke, as traumatic as it might be for the girl. It's certainly not bound to Africa or Europe though. Even 50 years ago it was still happening in North America, for instance, in some Inuit societies.
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A propredicate is like a pronoun—it's a word that stands in for another word, but it stands in for a predicate instead of a noun.
The propredicate do is a grammatical feature of some British dialects and occasionally Utah English. It's where someone uses a form of do to stand in for a verb phrase. In that sentence I quoted, it was standing in for the phrase eaten her.
Most English speakers would either use the predicate itself or omit it entirely, as in "Otherwise they probably would have." The "done" there sounds very odd to many people's ears. I find myself asking, "Would have done what?"
If you do a Google search for "propredicate do," you'll find an article written by one of my old professors. It mostly discusses sound changes in Utah English, but it also mentions the propredicate do. You'll need access to Project MUSE to access the article, though.
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Oh I read that in British and Australian books all the time.
edit: The propredicate thing, I mean, not lions freeing kidnapped girls.
I didn't know marriage by force was so common as all that. It's disheartening to think of women and girls even today being treated as slaves, like that. Why isn't there a worldwide overwhelmingly enormous outcry against such a thing? Is there anyone who doesn't think it's horribly wrong? Why isn't there tremendous international pressure to crack down on such practices?
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quote:The propredicate do is a grammatical feature of some British dialects and occasionally Utah English. It's where someone uses a form of do to stand in for a verb phrase. In that sentence I quoted, it was standing in for the phrase eaten her.
I think I do this all the time, because I didn't see it as particularly unusual. I guess that's my "dialect" then. Thanks for explaining it! Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Isn't this the direct responsibility of the Relief Society to take care of women and children worldwide? RS should fix these things. It's our job.
quote: Sisters, do you see any children around your neighborhood poorly clad and without shoes? If you do, I say to you Female Relief Societies pick up these children and relieve their necessities, and send them to school. And if you see any young, middle-aged or old ladies in need find them something to do that will enable them to sustain themselves; but don't relieve the idle, for relieving those who are able but unwilling to work is ruinous to any community. (DBY, 217)
Relieve the wants of every individual in need in your neighborhoods. This is in the capacity and in the power of the Female Relief Societies when it is not in the power of the Bishops. (DBY, 218)
Look to yourselves in your capacity as Relief Societies in this city and throughout the mountains. Look at your condition! Consider it for yourselves, and decide whether you will go to and learn the influence which you possess, and then wield that influence for doing good and to relieve the poor among the people. (DNW, 14 Aug, 1869, 2)
These quotes are all taken from the Teachings of Presidents of the Church, Brigham Young. Does anyone feel that our neighborhoods today don't encompass the planet?
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Sisters, why don't we begin this work? What shall we do first? How shall we order ourselves so that this important responsibility which has been laid upon us is carried out with all due dispatch? I am but an ignorant convert. Someone please tell me what I should do.
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Go to Human Rights Watch and read about the plight of women and children close to home. Then decide what they need, and how you can provide it.
Our RS has an ongoing partnership with a local battered women's and children's shelter. A ward I was previously in participated in the local "Alliance for the Care of Abused Children", providing things for birthday parties, Christmas gifts, and other things these children had never had.
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Tatiana, we are in wards and stakes and so forth in order for our efforts to be effectively spent with those we in theory best understand. Of course, any church responsibilities we have don't alleviate the responsibility we have to help others in our communities, which can conceivably include the world.
But if a woman wants to have children (which is often assumed to be a biological drive- YMMV) and the only way to do it in her community is to be kidnapped, persuading her that she should resist kidnapping with deadly force may not be easy. Obviously the tradition becomes awful in some places, this being one. But in the spectrum of marriage traditions not motivated by romantic love, there are several I would not have been averse to as a single.
There is plenty of room to argue that romantic marriage is a form of abuse, as you see a mother of ten left for a younger woman a few days from her 30th wedding anniversary. Or the woman who given her freedom marries 7 different men over the course of 20 years. Can we really say our way is so superior that we can go out across the world and enforce cultural changes on others? And it's not as though physical abuse is absent from our own system.
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quote:I didn't know marriage by force was so common as all that. It's disheartening to think of women and girls even today being treated as slaves, like that. Why isn't there a worldwide overwhelmingly enormous outcry against such a thing? Is there anyone who doesn't think it's horribly wrong? Why isn't there tremendous international pressure to crack down on such practices?
There's actually a lot of debating on this and similar topics out there. Female circumcision is probably the forerunner of the controversial women's rights issues. Firstly, however, as mothertree said, ethnocentrism is a major issue with lobbying for change. Yes, in some cultures, women can be seen as oppressed, but there are many, many aspects to these cultures which simply *cannot* be understood or even seen by outsiders. As I see it, no one can look at one aspect of a culture and judge it as wrong without knowing the circumstances and cultural history and background and traditions and religion of any society and really understanding why the tradition exists. A really good book to read about this is Lila Abu-Lughod's Veiled Sentiments. I'm not through it yet, but it offers an interesting look at Bedouin society, commonly thought of as oppressive to women. Admittedly, I'm probably more relativistic than most, being an anthropologist and all, but I do think everyone should be aware of their own ethnocentrism and think on it before making judgments.
Another issue with change is that rapid, sudden cultural change -- especially forced change -- almost never ends well. Often trying to force a change on people has the opposite effect. In many areas in Africa where Western activists lobbied for an end to female circumcision, it became more popular (even among women who had the choice) as a result. Marriage by capture has been around for a long time and is entrenched in the cultural fabric of some societies. It can be an integral part of intertribal warfare systems, honour systems, religion, complex kinship systems, and a number of other parts of the societal infrastructure of a culture. Many indigenous cultures already are fighting for survival and/or feel threatened by the ever-expanding modern Western commercial culture that's taking over the world. Gathering a storm of Western feminists and marching to end their traditions, good or bad, will not help.
This all said, please don't think I'm some sort of anti-feminist women-deserve-to-be-beaten crazy girl. I abhor violence in any form. I simply want to point out that we need to: a) acknowledge and work on improving the status of the oppressed in our own society, b) work to understand the reasons and culture behind traditions and the views of "oppressed" women in other cultures, and c) learn to work with, not against, other traditional worldviews that oppose our own before we can do anything really productive inter-culturally to help anyone.
Edit to add: At the risk of opening another can of worms, some societies that practice marriage by capture use intertribal warfare as the means of kidnapping. It is generally expected that men engage in this warfare or lose all honour. It's thus not only the women that are exposed to violence and risk through the custom, although it takes a different form. Of course, other societies allow marriage by individual capture with few to no similar risks/harm for the men. I'm just pointing out it's not always one-sided as far as societal customs that can harm a gender go.
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Nah. Asta's an anthropology major who simply happens to have just finished a course in current cultural debates, is what Asta is. Posts: 624 | Registered: Mar 2005
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One thing our country is finally doing (at least in theory) is allowing women's rights issues, such as FGM and forced marriage, to be used as grounds for asylum. If women wish to escape, and are able to make it here or to another country that allows such asylum, they can escape these things (at least in theory, as I said) if they are able to get affadavits from relatives, etc. that this is going on. Unfortunately, it's not always as hunky-dory as it sounds in theory, and there is that proof thing. It's rough, but I think it's at least a step in the right direction.
Read Do They Hear You When You Cry?, by Fauziya Kassindja. It's the story of a woman who sought asylum from a forced marriage and FGM.
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Not to mention that in many a person's view, the women of the Relief Society (Mormon women) need some liberating themselves. I don't agree, but have never been able to explain my reasons to anyone else's satisfaction.
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Obviously doing anything by force is a bad idea. I agree that we don't need to force our views on other people. However, presumably the women themselves, many of them, would be in favor of protection from being kidnapped, raped, beaten, etc. Why should we not go and offer them shelter, sustenance, and as President Young suggested, a way to earn a living? Perhaps we could establish entrepreneurial training and small business loans, or something of the sort, as well as offering self defense training, and providing a safe decent alternative place to live? These are just a few ideas I can think of off the top of my head. Surely the sisters in the areas affected, who come from those cultures, will have much better insight into the situations as they exist, and the best way to go about helping.
I never heard that it was a help to force something on anyone unwillingly. Of course I think we should offer gifts of resources, time, talent, training, whatever is needed, but never try to force any women to accept them. Because we know that women are people, daughters of God, however, and we know that they were given free agency, we should have no problem with allowing women to choose to take refuge in our midst, even if all their families and "owner" husbands (under the laws of the countries in which they abide) unite in demanding them back. Should we?
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As for us needing liberating ourselves, I have no quarrel with anyone who wants to come and offer me a better life than I can find within my church community. Such offerers may be surprised at how few takers they get, but I'm sure we would all bless and thank them for their concern.
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This is one reason that Lions have it all over Kiwanis, Elks and Rotarians. You never hear about any of THEM rescuing damsels in distress.
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All I know is that the Rotarians in our town throw an annual "street frolic" where there's bingo and other gambling games and slushies and they block off Main Street for the evening. Yes, it's a small town. Maybe it's a gambling club?
quote:As for us needing liberating ourselves, I have no quarrel with anyone who wants to come and offer me a better life than I can find within my church community. Such offerers may be surprised at how few takers they get, but I'm sure we would all bless and thank them for their concern.
And that's exactly the reaction you might get from a lot of women *you* think need liberating, Tatiana...
There actually *are* plenty of women who don't want to be 'saved'. You have to remember that for many, walking out on these traditions or marriages mean walking out on their family. Family is a very strong tie, and in no situation is it easy to leave one behind for good, let alone in one of many cultures where family is considered far more important -- the most important thing in the world for some -- than in most of modern Western society. If anyone wants to leave and escape violence or forced roles then by *all* means, allow them and help them to do so. I'm just trying to point out to you that it is far more complicated than simply walking away from a life we consider substandard. I think in a way, you might be considering cultures where the Western influence is already there and things like small business loans could work, and I've got mostly the very different, more "traditional" (for lack of a better word) cultures in my mind when thinking of this problem. Self-defense classes wouldn't help in some situations either. In some societies, if a women strikes back, she may be subject to a trial or death. Or, it may be a badge of honour for her to silently withstand violence. If she loses her honour thus but still has nowhere else to go, she's far worse off than she was before. (Again, however, please don't think I think this type of violence is right or good.) There are a lot of interwoven cultural systems that relate back to marriage and it isn't an easy matter of picking up abused women, transporting them to a new community, giving them a factory job, and voila!, they're ecstatic with their new happy life. For many, it's a choice between having family and suffering from marriage, or having peace and suffering without family and a world they know or understand. It's a tough choice.
But, yes, please help anyone you can who wants help or wants out of an unhappy situation. Just realize how difficult it might be.
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Another thought... bride-theft might be a species strategy for maintaining genetic diversity. I had this thought yesterday but not a compelling example. What if the epidemic of autism, ADD, OCD, and other mental illnesses we are seeing in our society have their root in romantically motivated pairings? That when we allow likes to attract, we get a higher rate of vulnerable children? And that doesn't even include the strictly psychological disasters like codependent/alcoholic pairings.
Genetic diversity is also important in resisting disease. I seem to remember that Tatiana was quite worked up about the bird flu. Sure a matchmaker system would be preferable to the kidnapping/raping system. But I really don't think choosing our own mates is the best method.
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Astaril, indeed many will not wish to be rescued, it is meet that they should have that choice.
mothertree, I tell people about bird flu in the same spirit, of offering a gift of my knowledge to all, in order that they might benefit if they so choose. I didn't realize that I had impressed anyone as being "worked up", but certainly I am concerned, as is everyone knowledgable on the subject, about the very real and immediate danger.
I'm sorry if species strategies don't seem to hold much weight to me compared with the exercise of free agency, which I consider a first principle of civilized life. If anyone has stewardship over the decision to choose a husband, surely it is the woman herself? How can an equal partnership be forged upon any other principle than mutual consent?
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But back to the story about the lions, wouldn't it be awesome if humans were shamed into more moral behavior by the examples set by other species?
Surely there must be some awe that attends such an event. I feel proud of the lions, and somewhat ashamed to be human when I hear this story.
Not that cats in general are all that moral, really, overall. Or not the ones I'm close to.
Still.... it gives me chill bumps to think about it.
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Marriage is an interesting use of free agency, if it is truly a commitment to honor and obey the other party.
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quote: Hunters also kill the animals for their skins, which can fetch $1,000, despite a recent crackdown against illegal animal trading across the country. Williams said that at most only 1,000 Ethiopian lions remain in the wild.
I think this story is the first time that I'd actually already read the article that someone here linked to. Usually I get all my news here first, but one of my friends just told me about this a few minutes ago!
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It's disheartening to think of women and girls even today being treated as slaves, like that. Why isn't there a worldwide overwhelmingly enormous outcry against such a thing? Is there anyone who doesn't think it's horribly wrong? Why isn't there tremendous international pressure to crack down on such practices?
