Sharaf (Honour) - that's pride messing with your head

Lulua used to be a vet. One evening, on her way to work, she was kidnapped, taken to the mountains and tortured for several days.
When she eventually returned home she found herself excluded from her family and a husband who could not accept that she had not been raped.
"A few blocks away, I saw my husband. He didn't hug me and the look on his face terrified me. When I got home, my mother collapsed. 'Did they rape you?' everyone asked; everyone but my husband. 'No.' All that mattered was that the family's honour had been preserved," writes Lulua.

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Stories like this affect me, deeply. A few posts back another similar story I had read made me feel particularly sad though I have no way of knowing if it is true. Were they not happy Lulua had returned home unharmed or was it her fault she was kidnapped? I try to imagine what was going through his head and I can understand it's not easy. Pride is not one of the deadly sins for naught, his wife, the woman he shares intimate, private moments and his confidante, mother of his children may or may not have been violated by another man....or men....how do you know she's telling the truth. Did she resist hard enough? Questions like this can make a man go insane, it drives them down a path of pettiness, hatred and doubt. There is no exit from this unless they learn to let go and to focus on what's important. That's something only he can do/discover. I can resent the society that produced him, I can feel disgusted in the way he behaves but I choose not to because I know that the whole situation is tragic, that they are human. I've been in a similar mental prison myself though thankfully not in such a serious condition, it was difficult but not impossible to escape such a mentality. To focus on what is important and build happiness from then onwards, I found I never regretted those decisions but at the time, things weren't as clear and could have gone either way. I have many friends of mine who are insistent that they wish to marry a virgin. The majority of them aren't, something which I point out amusingly. Marriage has it's origins in religion and customs, it is a way of two people formalising their relationship in front of society or god. The mentality of most men in our countries shows the dismal state we are in. A marriage of both old and new ideas - that of shallow consumerism with mindless tradition. The woman ceases to become a human being and is simply something to be selected for how well she fits criteria but heaven forbid those criteria apply to themselves.

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One person I respect highly though I haven't even met him in ages is my cousin. A deeply religious person I was very suspicious of at one time, I was told how on the eve of his sisters wedding, he asked his aunt to talk to his mother about something he felt she might be upset about. He wanted to marry too but didn't want a big wedding or fuss. "No problem she said, who is she?" she asked. "She's lovely but....she's been married before". His mother, my aunt, shrugged it off," and what's wrong with that?", "Well....she has a daughter too"...."So what?" my aunt asked incredulously, "lak why are you skulking like you are asking for something shameful or wrong? Bring her to me so I can see her".

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She kissed her and gave them her blessings. They were married then and there and he now also has a son, both happily married. I respect him for being a man about who he loved and not caring about society. A society which not only doesn't provide mercy to a woman if she is raped or decides to have a relationship before marriage, but also should she be widowed or divorced. Even more so, I respect my aunt for not making life difficult for him when he made that decision. We need more people like them in our societies...

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