1. SOCIO-LEGAL DIMENSIONS OF
GENDER
UNIT 2
POWER AND SUBORDINATION
Topic: 2.6
Socio-Legal Dimensions of Honour Killing
(Part 1)
Ms. Anjali Panwar
Assistant Professor
DME Law School
2. SUGGESTED READINGS
TEXTUAL READINGS
• Rana Husseini, Murder in the Name Of Honour
(Oneworld Publications, U.K, 2009).
• Anand Kirti, Prateek Kumar, et.al, “ The Face of
Honour Based Crimes : Global Concerns and
Solutions”, 6 IJCJS 343-357 at 344 (2011).
3. REFERENCES
• Chowdhry, Prem (2007). Contentious Marriages,
Eloping Couples. Gender, Caste, and Patriarchy
in Northern India. New Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
• Yalman, Nur (1962). ‘On the Purity of Women in
the Castes of Ceylon and Malabar’. Journal of
the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great
Britain and Ireland, 93.
4. Objectives of
this Topic
• Explaining the relationship
between caste, patriarchy and
gender so as to know how it is
helpful in tracing the concept
of honour killings;
• Introducing the concept of
honour and the gendered
notions related to its
interpretations
• Link the recent incidents of
‘honour killings’ to caste and
the marriage system.
5.
6. Concept of Honour
• Honour is not only the estimation of a person’s own worth but
also an acknowledgement by his community of his right to
respect. The concept of honour is related to a number of
overlapping meanings of pride, esteem, dignity, reputation and
virtue. Honour also enjoys the meaning of a tangible symbol that
signifies approval or distinction that is associated with the
attributes of a man and sets the noble standards of personal
conduct.
• Men feel honour or shame by comparing their standing, reputation
and status against the reputation of the people living close to
them. In defining the term honour various theorists stress upon
the power of the equivalent concept of shame. In the society, the
achievement or preservation of honour is required and it is
protected against shame.
7. • The ideology of honour (or izzat) is a gendered notion that
resonates with caste inequality and hierarchy.
• Both men and women embody honour- but in different ways.
The woman is the repository of honour and men are
responsible for ensuring that women do not, deliberately or
even inadvertently, pose any threat to honour.
• The woman’s honour is equated with the family’s, caste’s and
community’s honour.
• Any action by a woman that violates traditional norms
governing their behaviour can be interpreted as a breach of
honour, invoking extreme sanctions, including death.
• Needlessly to say, most of the encoded norms relate to
sexuality- honour is located in the woman’s body.
8. • In India’s caste system, the most powerful idiom of power is the
control of women’s sexuality.
• Not only are women familial property- their productive and
reproductive capacities belonging to the family- they are the
vehicles through which descent groups are constituted.
• Those committed to upholding existing systems of social
hierarchy invest hugely in women’s sexual purity, since they
thereby protect and maintain the boundedness and
distinctiveness of their group identity.
• Thus ‘honour’- pertaining to descent groups such as family,
clan or caste; need to kill women who defy their male kin/caste-
men by stepping across the boundaries drawn for them, or defy
male command over their persons.
• Hence male kinfolk’s rights over their female has a clear and
obvious corollary- that such rights override the rights of
women over their own persons.
9. GENDERED NOTION OF HONOUR
• The gendered notion of honour draws on a widely endorsed
interpretation of the procreation process. The male and female
roles in procreation are metaphorically described as seed and
earth.
• The men provide the semen, the seed, the creative core, while
women are perceived as passive recipients. The semen, the life
essence, the blood, is received from the father- thereby justifying
patriliny.
• The woman, the earth, is the vessel and as such its purity must be
maintained in order to ensure the purity of the bloodline.
• This seed and earth metaphor goes back to ancient literary texts
and is a part of customary law and popular consciousness.
• It provides the foundation for the notion of women as vehicles of
honour and men as guardians of women.
10. • Prem Chowdhry has shown that the idea of women as the
repository of honour leads on the one hand to their exaltation and,
on the other, to coercive control over the everyday activity.
• Thus, family honour impels men to both protection and violence
in relation to women. By extension, the perpetration of violence
on women kinsfolk is associated with masculinity, justifying male
violence within the family as natural and commonplace.
• However, this is not entirely private in societies where family
honour is structured into social hierarchies such as caste.
• There is a link between the familial logic of honour and the
expectations from the wider community. Thus, a family cannot,
even if it wishes, allow transgressions to go unpunished.
• Social pressures from the kin/caste or village community may
force the family to act or allow the wider group to act on its
behalf.
11. • Females are forced to observe every step of their life from the
point of view of male ‘honour’. Male reputation has grown
from female ‘honour’.
• Female ‘honour’ is considered to be passive in nature and is
proposed through the qualities such as modesty, subordination
and patience.
• Male ‘honour’, on the other hand, is active and vibrant.
Male honour is constructed from the implementation of
dominance, self-assertion and social status.
• Female honour once ‘lost’ through any ‘dishonouring’ act, can
never be recovered. The patriarchal notions of ownerships and
control of women bodies are the main reasons
• The purity of love of a woman towards a man is verified on
the criterion through the virginity and chastity of a woman
which has become a perpetual and perilous vicious cycle.
12. HONOUR KILLINGS: CASTE, GENDER
AND LOVE
• The killing of young couples, especially the woman, for
breach of established marriage norms is “Honour Killings”.
The large number of such cases in some of the states of
northern India in recent years, especially Delhi, Haryana,
Bihar and Uttar Pradesh refer to these.
• The more common offences are: refusing an arranged
marriage, eloping with a man of choice (the more heinous
if the man belongs to the same gotra or to a different
caste), adultery, being the victim of a sexual assault, or
asking for a divorce.
• The standard definition of “honour killing” is murder of
women by family members generally male, who are
compelled to remove any threat to their family’s honour.
13. • Traditionally, honour killings have been rationalized and
justified- even glorified as an act of high moral courage. The
difficulty for the state in dealing with such crimes is that the
community does not perceive it as a crime but as a legitimate
and even desirable application of appropriate sanctions against
socially condemned behaviour.
• Even as some activists are demanding tougher laws against such
murders, sections of the elite, the administration and the
political classes, who subscribe to this ideology, seek to justify
individual and familial autonomy in punishing (even with death)
recalcitrant young couples.
• Even as education, urbanization and migration are opening new
opportunities, there is a deepening and widening of sanctions
against transgression of collective norms of sexual and marital
behaviour.
14. • Moreover, the perpetrators are not always the
family’s male elders, though they inspire and support,
but young men. Many sociologists have argued that
in Haryana, where such incidents are most common,
the steep decline in the proportion of women in the
population explains the aggression of young men
unable to find brides within sanctioned marriage
circles.
• The body of women become a common territory that
has to be secured and if defiled, then murdered.
Honour killing may be defined as extra - legal
punishment in a narrower sense of the word and this
punishment is meted out to the females by the male
members of the family in the name of family honour.
15. (The Law Commission of India, 242nd Report on
Prevention of Interference with the Freedom of
Matrimonial Alliances (In the Name of Honour and
Tradition): A Suggested Legal Framework.
(August2012)
Some of the important findings of this report were:
1. the incidents of honour killings have been
frequently reported in the States of Haryana, Punjab,
Rajasthan and U.P. Bhagalpur in Bihar ,Delhi and
Tamil Nadu.
16. 2. Crimes of Passion and Honour Killing are
different
The crimes of passion refer to the crimes that are
committed by one partner on the other as an impulsive
reply (emotional or passionate) in the resistance against
sexual provocation while the crimes of honour involve
the abuse or a murder of a family member, often a
woman, by family members in the name of shielding the
honour of an individual, family or society.
3. Perpetrators and Victims
The peculiar thing related with the honour killings is
that they are usually committed in cold blood by the
very individuals who should have protected and
nurtured the victims i.e. fathers, brothers, cousins,
husbands, even the mothers in this regard.
17. REASONS FOR HONOUR KILLING
• Of women because of infidelity, extra marital affairs,
fornication, premarital affairs and in some cases rape,
revolt or declaration by female in the family to marry
against the will of family or society or involving in
homosexual relationship etc.
• Homosexuality and other gendered identities
• men also become the victims of honour killings at the
hands of the relatives of the female with whom they
may have illegitimate unacceptable relationship
• Changing cultural and economic status of women
making men feel insecure
• the victims of rape also face severe violence
including honour killings from relatives
18. Patriarchy: A Root Cause Behind Gender
Based Violence
Feminists target patriarchy as the greatest enemy of
women. It infuses a false consciousness imparting
inferiority. It can be compared to a virus system that
gradually controls or dominates the victim. This
control generates an endless circle of exploitation on
the part of the women. The general dictate followed
in a society is that women are infidel by nature. If
freed they may indulge in any ill moral actions,
bringing down the honour of her family.
19. • Much of patriarchy also has its roots in religion. In
Manusmriti for example, it is said that every women
should consider her husband as her god and her
virginity or chastity is identified from the fact that
how much truthful is she towards her husband.
• In another example, family traditions like women not
taking the name of their husband, and children
always carrying the father’s name also reveal the
deep rooted prevalence of patriarchy in the society.
• Religion forms a greater aspect of one’s culture and
carries even its gender related bias in its texts.
Examples can be seen when one talks about the
Hindu mythology which focuses on the sacrificing
nature of women but at times become an
embodiment of patriarchal dominance.
20. • The concept of virginity has been upheld in
patriarchal system. In order to continue a pure
bloodline, the virginity is supposed to be intact. The
children of lineage would then be given a
respectable position in the society.
• The mechanism of women’s sexuality thus monitors
the ideas of male property rights over women and
children, across different cultures and times and so
the women’s reproduction is checked by the male
domination. Women and their offspring undergo
dehumanised behaviour in patriarchal construct and
this violent behaviour and brutality is even justified
by male representatives of the social institutions. As
a result there is a viewing of women as chattels
through which male property is to be delivered.
21. Honour and Body of Female
• The possession, control and ownership of the most coveted
commodities especially “zar zameen zoru jor ki nahi toh kisi
or ki” i.e. women, gold and land are closely linked to the
perception of man’s honour if not held with rigour he might loose
them.
• Because of their inherent value, (ghairat honour is closely linked
with the Izzat) Izzat becomes equivalent to possession, wealth
and property.
• Man’s property is not only the sum total of his material wealth,
especially in economic terms, but it is linked with his honour as
well.
• The concepts of ghairat and izzat have originated in relation to
the woman’s body.
• Her body becomes the repository of honour. Commodification
and conceptions of honour become a norm when woman’s body
22. • A new dimension can be thus seen when honour is perceived to
be a form of intangible property. Honour becomes something
carried through female bodies and to be preserved by the
men of the family.
• The female’s appropriate behaviour increases the honour and
any act of misconduct reduces this intangible property.
• In the framework of honour as a property, the formerly unowned
undiscovered terrain is virginal female body.
• The worth of the honour property is correlated notion of the
undiscovered female body. If this body is pre-maturely
discovered through rape or pre-marital sex then violence
becomes the only way to reclaim the honour.
• The dogmas of foremost possession and discovery within
property theory have particular character or significance in the
context of honour property. So a parallel can thus be seen in
honour preservation & other assets protection.
23. • Right to exclude is an innate segment of the right to
property and when one compares it to the honour theory,
the exclusion can be defined as the exclusion of others
from gaining sexual access and therefore through this
exclusion, the property holder both creates the value of
honour property and asserts a possessory claim to it.
• Thus honour inspires violence as it is not solely based on
a men’s conduct but also on the acceptable behaviour of
women. Honour subscribes different roles to a man and a
woman. For a man it means to impart protection to
the sexuality of women. For a woman it means the
preservation of the virginity and chastity so that the
family gains social acceptance. Such a conduct charts
out the feminine and masculine qualities that become the
defining features of a community.
