England's misogyny
If you're interested in learning more about the madness that's gripped Britain, including how crap like this came to be, here's a non-fiction review in the UK Times of "The English Marriage: Tales of Love, Money and Adultery" that tells some history of how male-dominated Britain viewed women (Hat tip: My Right Word):
Witchcraft was illegal in Britain in those past centuries too, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if many women, far more than men, were victims of the witch-smear tactics than men were of warlock-smears.
The level of cruelty towards women in traditional British society beggars belief. Legally, a married woman had no personal identity and her husband could do what he liked with her body, her freedom, her money or her children. As late as 1782 a man still had the legal right to beat his wife as long as the stick was no thicker than his thumb — hence, the “rule of thumb”. Murdering a wife was merely a felony, while female infidelity merited a death sentence since it could affect a child’s legitimacy. A woman who killed her husband was guilty of high treason, a crime routinely punished with “death by burning” until 1790.Sound familiar? Eerily enough, it sounds vaguely similar to Saudi Arabia's views on women. In sharp contrast, some communities in rural France over the centuries, for example, condemned wife-beaters and raised a ruckus about it, as I once read about in The Illustrated Library of the World & its Peoples, from the mid-60s.
Witchcraft was illegal in Britain in those past centuries too, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if many women, far more than men, were victims of the witch-smear tactics than men were of warlock-smears.
Labels: londonistan, misogyny
